ABSTRACT
The key to providing a ‘satisfactory service’ lies in satisfaction as much as it does in service. It is no good providing a good support service if your clients do not appreciate the service as being ‘good’. They will measure the service, either against benchmarks or against their instincts (the latter is far more common) and draw conclusions based on that measurement. The fact that they use their instincts as a measure introduces all kinds of emotional and experiential variables that, on the face of it, you can do little or nothing about. Logically, if you want them to measure your service accurately and favourably, you must manage not just the service but the clients’ expectations of the service. It is for the support provider to give the client the benchmarks by which the service is to be measured. By formalizing the measurement in this way, there is less room, less credibility and less acceptability for the more instinctive and emotional ways of measuring and appreciating the service.
