Definition: How Do You Define Great Customer Service?

What is the definition of Great Customer Service and how does it compare with Good Customer Service?

This is one of the areas where a dictionary definition does not help you.

Dictionary definition

Wikipedia defines customer service as “the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase”. In my dictionary, ‘Great’ is defined as “a quantity considerably above average”.

A practical definition from the professionals

I was at a conference and I posed a question of the 80 or so customer service professionals in the audience – “How do you define Great Customer Service?”

The examples provided gave a fascinating insight into the difference between Great and Good Customer Service.

The 3 themes that seemed to emerge were:

“Great customer service is all about exceeding customer expectations.”
“It doesn’t matter who you speak to in in organisation you get a consistently good experience or problem resolution.”
“The best service is no service.”

I have coupled this with some insight from a number of previous workshops that I have held and have created this handy table that highlights the differences:

Good Customer Service	Great Customer Service
Meets expectations	Exceeds expectations
Self-service	Proactive differentiation
One size fits all	Personalised service
Easily forgotten	Creates a lasting impression
80% of calls answered in 20 seconds	95% of calls answered in 15 seconds
Efficient	Fast
Customer satisfaction	Customer delight
Communication	Rapport
Low customer effort	Easy to deal with
Customer owns the problem	Employee owns the problem
May require several inbound contacts	First contact resolution
Customer selects communication channel	Able to easily switch between communication channels