5 Success Factors for Customer Service Quality

Working with numerous clients, we constantly consider how to effectively build and implement customer service quality systems. Through many hours of conversation, we developed a list of the five most important success factors for a customer service quality system.

1. Designing a quality system based on customer needs, not the needs of the company and employees

The needs, expectations, preferences, and requirements of a company's customers should always be at the heart of quality design and management. Customer orientation, rather than the needs of individual organizational units or employee groups, should be the foundation of building a quality management system.

2. A coherent quality monitoring system

To maintain the implemented quality and its standards at a specific, predetermined level, it is essential to establish a coherent quality control and monitoring system. The existence of a system that reports elements requiring improvement is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of quality standards and for taking any necessary corrective actions.

3. Linking quality to the employee remuneration and motivation system

Implementing quality and its standards requires strong employee engagement. Everyone employed in a company should be aware of their role in ensuring quality and be responsible for meeting standards at an appropriately high level. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to link employee remuneration to the parameters of their work that influence high quality and standards.

4. Updating quality standards

Quality and quality standards should be periodically reviewed – the more frequently the more innovative and volatile the market environment the company operates in. Customer expectations and needs change, and industry standards also change. Therefore, it is essential to review quality standards at least every two years.

5. Training of all groups of employees, not only front-line ones

Implementing a quality system requires extensive training for every employee who may be involved in quality management. Service quality training cannot be limited to employees with direct, first-line customer contact (only in service positions). The training system should cover every position that impacts quality.

Top managers should participate in and even co-lead such training.

It's worth being aware of possible pitfalls and mistakes so you can avoid them effectively. Good luck!