Making Customer Service Our Culture

In my last posting on this blog, I shared some thoughts on customer service. Advancing this discussion, I would like to discuss what CAMPA can do to begin to make sure customer service is not just lip service but becomes a vital part of our value proposition and a significant differentiator between AccuDiagnostics and the rest of the drug testing industry.

In the future, we do not want to compete exclusively on price. Yes, we will be able to offer competitive prices but we also want to create value added services and a great client experience. In my opinion, these factors are the biggest single differentiators we will have in the future. Also, more dollars will be added to the bottom line than from any other single product, program or advertising/marketing strategy. The Big Question: How do we execute on this vision?
If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. This axiom applies to growing sales, rating employees or improving customer service. If we are going to measure customer service, who are we going to target for gathering measureable data to create metrics that can be reviewed and managed?

Since our client (the person being tested) is not the actual business, court or agency that makes the decision to send their employees, enrollees or participants in for testing, who do we get data from on our customer service? Let’s step back and look at this issue and ask the question, “How do we influence decision makers that will use our services now and in the future?” I want to partially answer this question with an experience that was shared with me when was doing my due diligence of AccuDiagnostics.

One of the franchisees back east shared this experience with me. His local competition had been in business for nearly 10 years without any significant competition. They basically had the market to themselves and acted like any company that did not have to provide anything but a basic level of service - and they didn’t.

When AccuDiagnostics opened up, as you would expect, they bent over backwards to take care of their clients (those receiving testing services). They made sure they and their staff talked to every client and made them feel at home. If they did a collection for a hair test, they did not take the entire sample from one spot on the head but in five or six different locations. Their competition never said “Boo” to their client and took the hair sample from a single spot on the head leaving a bald spot.

It did not take long before some of the agencies and courts who referred their clients for testing to get feedback on why they did not want to go to their competition to get tested and insisted on going to AccuDiagnostics. Why? Because of how they were treated at AccuDiagnostics lab vs. the competition. The clients were influencing the decision makers.

If we are going to differentiate ourselves in the market place, we need to focus on those elements of our value proposition that can be measured.

Our value proposition includes:

1. Unparalleled customer service
2. Treating clients with respect
3. The unqualified experts our field
4. No waiting
5. Convenient hours
6. Convenient locations
7. Faster results
8. On site testing.
9. Policy development
10. Cost savings

The above value propositions that are highlighted in bold and italized are ones that can be realistically measured. So, how do we measure these specific value propositions?

Stay tuned for my next blog posting to answer this question.