I was leaving home one morning last week and I met my neighbour looking troubled. Without a word of good morning he said, “I’ve just had a really shocking experience at X Co.” Before I could make any kind of reply or he continued, “I won’t be going there again and I would suggest others don’t!”

Before we explore this further, we need to understand that the ‘customer experience’ is based upon ‘expectations’ – beliefs of what we think will happen before it does or does not (see Blog post of 2nd May).

‘Expectation Confirmation Theory’ developed in the late 1970s is a cognitive theory that simply explains what many of us intuitively know or have learnt: that we match our expectations against the ‘customer experience’ from which we come out either satisfied or dissatisfied.

If we are satisfied, we return and buy. However, if we are dissatisfied – we have a poor perception of the experience - adopting negative beliefs about the service or product with many of us doing what my friend did: we use the opportunity to ‘bad mouth’ the company to our family, our friends, and our peers. Psychologically it is a human trait of our ‘getting even’.

According to research by one of the industry leaders in ‘journey analytics’ (the customer experience) if we have a poor customer experience:

• 52% of us will ‘spread’ it by mouth not just after the event but also repeatedly again the future when it suits us;

• 60% of us will be highly influenced by what we hear from others; and

• 35% of us will cease to buy or do business with that company based upon the information we have heard.

Other research tells us that companies today are investing more than ever in improving customer service and the customer experience. That is good news but as we continue to both hear about and personally experience poor customer service this begs the question: How long do we have to wait to see the results of this investment?

The answer is quite simple: poor customer service is a direct outcome of poor leadership and we may be waiting awhile.

Customer service starts at the very top of an organisation with the executive leadership that understands and defines very clearly what customer service is and how much it means to the business. It is important to keep things simple, short to avoid misunderstanding as well as keep it memorable for both employees and customers. Here are a couple of thirty-one and twenty-six words respectively that leave little room for ambiguity:

“We have a mission to be the world’s most respected service brand. To do this, we have established a culture that supports our team members, so they can provide exceptional service.”

“The mission of X is dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.”

The key factor behind both of these statements being realised every day starts with the leaders at the very top that live and breathe the words every minute of every day through their attitudes and behaviours, for if they don’t believe in them why should anyone else?

Building a customer service culture begins with recruiting leaders at the top with the right beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours for these leaders out of all the leaders in an organisation have the greatest influence on building a culture where a customer service mindset can live and thrive.

A top team with the right attitude and behaviours can begin to create the right culture for customer service but they need to understand that they will need leadership at every level with the same beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours as them. Leaders are crucially the role models that all the other people in the organisation look towards for how they should behave and what they should do.

Those organisations that successfully deliver great customer service have built cultures where fulfilling the expectations of their internal customers - each other - is as important as external customers. Many people serve both but understanding how their roles can impact customer service can be learnt and evaluated every day, for if a person has a poor attitude (negative beliefs) towards their internal customer will it be different to an external customer?

Leaders through their leadership style have a major impact, both positively and negatively, on the organisation culture. Most people in the organisation take their ‘cultural cues’ from the strong influence of ‘the way things are done around here’.

The significance of leaders with the right attitudes and behaviours to an organisation cannot be understated particularly in delivering great customer service, for no organisation can afford to endanger the ‘top line’ through delivering a poor customer experience – bad news travels fast and it 'gets around'.