Retaining loyal customers and winning new ones means consistently meeting and often exceeding their expectations. Without service standards, you have no guidelines for determining whether your customers' expectations are being met. Setting Service Standards Based on Customer Expectations Successful entrepreneurs determine the service basics most important to their customers and focus on delivering these fundamentals well. According to Len Berry, a service quality expert, there are five broad service dimensions that customers use to judge service quality. Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
Experience shows that, of all five dimensions, reliability is the core of quality service.
Little else matters to customers when a service is unreliable. When a company makes frequent mistakes in delivery, customers lose confidence in the company. Friendliness or profuse apologies never really compensate for unreliable service. A service guarantee is a clear statement of what your customers can expect from your company in the event of a service failure. Restitution is tied to the service standards you develop.