Extraordinary acts that go above and beyond the call of duty should be just that – extraordinary: If they happen every day to every customer, you become bankrupt, as your ‘cost to serve’ thresholds would be constantly breached.

This does not mean, however, that you should not encourage extraordinary acts that go above the cost to serve for an individual customer…Just that you should ration them sensibly.

Here's my tip for breaking the paradox:

i) In a call center/centre environment, have a rota system for ‘extraordinariness’. One person can spend half an hour a day in ‘extraordinary’ mode, proactively offering imaginative service to clients with the specific aim of generating word-of-mouth stories. Or, maybe nominate one person as ‘hero for the day’, whose job is to jump in, emergency service-style, when there is a service failure, and achieve an extraordinary recovery.

ii) In a non-call center/centre environment, perhaps encourage your people to aim for and report back one heroic encounter with a customer per day, week or month (whichever is appropriate: be flexible – this is guidance on the principle, not the detail). That’s enough to generate the legends without breaking the bank.

This tip is from the March edition of my series One A Day For Customers, which will be on www.lulu.com in, er, March.

Labels: legendary service