By P.R.S. Obroi

Customer-retention and relationship-marketing go hand in hand. Companies are, increasingly, being challenged to talk in terms of the promised performance of their products and services in a fast-changing and, often, unforgiving marketplace. The rules of this new game are being written by the rapidly-evolving customer, who is influenced by the competitive warfare across industries, where companies continuously try to differentiate themselves from one another to grab a larger share of the market.

At the heart of long-term customer retention and relationship marketing is the service perception of the customer. Service deliverables are spanning the gamut of the customer experience with brands and companies. Consequently, like the other basics of success, service has become the centerpiece of customer satisfaction in the services business. And a well-articulated service strategy has become an integral part of organisational strategy.

The measures of service-delivery range from on-time performance in the case of airlines to response-times for hardware companies to room-service quality for the hotel industry. Why, the measurement of customer satisfaction has itself become a basic requirement for service excellence planning. Words like customer delight and moments of truth are no longer management buzzwords; these are descriptors of real experiences in the hearts and minds of real people. And they are the reason why customers come back.

Our group is built on the fundamental premise that our customers expect the best from us. Our guests are discerning international travellers who choose us instead of our competitors because of the trust and confidence that our people have built with them over the years. It takes time to build a strong reputation as a world-class company (as we believe we have). In our business, service-delivery is the product that we manufacture every day. Our challenge is to sustain and raise the service excellence-levels every single day in all our hotels worldwide.

Some of the things that matter to us-which is reflected in our behaviour as a company-are what we believe ought to be the template for service-based on differentiation and quality growth in this millennium. You could call them the 5 foundations of service strategy. That's the way we see it since they have helped us grow, and are the focus of our daily attention.

SERVICE IS PEOPLE. We are in the people business. Our people manufacture and deliver services to our guests 24 hours a day. We recognise that it is our people who make the difference, and, therefore, do our utmost to live upto their expectations at all times. After all, they are reputed to be the best in the business in India, and increasingly so in our international operations, from Australia to Egypt.

Our hotels are our people just as our reputation is our people. Our guests are people from all over the globe, with different needs. They expect our people to be aware, and to be able to care for them in line with the best hospitality-standards across the world. So, this very human interaction, in the form of millions of transactions every day, is the core of our business. And that includes our people behind the scenes in areas that support guestcare. People will be at the heart of any business in this century.

SERVICE IS SKILL. We invest in the training of our people. The Oberoi Centre of Learning & Development has produced some of the best hoteliers in India for 30 years, and is a globally-reputed institution. We train our people through formal sessions as well as on the job. We are particular about the capability of our people, and are, therefore, particular at the selection stage, when we bring in talented people. In any business, capability builds confidence, which translates into performance. For us, that is what really matters.

SERVICE IS STANDARDS. We measure customer satisfaction every year, but we are working on improving our satisfaction-levels and delighting our guests. The service-standards for all our operations are well-defined, and the expectations of our people well-articulated both in our dharma-or values-as a company as well as in terms of the job-specific deliverables. We benchmark in this area with the top 4 hotel-chains in the world to raise our standards even higher. You cannot plan for second chances; you have to get it right the first time in our business.

SERVICE IS SUSTAINING. Service never sleeps-and not just because we happen to be in a 24-hour business. We believe that the base level-or the minimum-acceptable level of service-excellence-has to be sustained at all points of time. Any dips are reflective of poor performance despite good service-recoveries. The focus has to be on continuously improving performance. Excellent service is not a one-time thing; customers expect it to be sustained and improved over many experiences.

SERVICE IS SMILING. Responsiveness and service-delivery are people behaviours, and, in that sense, opportunities to demonstrate customer care. For a business like ours, the real brand power may well be the attitude of our people. The best systems, procedures, and standards can, at best, deliver to a set of expectations. But a smiling and sincere attitude creates brand equity, and reflects back in positive ways for the company.

Service excellence is really a culture of customer commitment and care. People have to believe in it, and much depends on how much they believe in the company's values and actions towards this end. Service is the foundation of our long-term growth and profits. It is central to our strategic planning and people development. It is, probably, more acutely felt as an indispensable philosophy in the services industry than in some others although it is now widely recognised that service-delivery is equally important in the manufacturing sector too. But we believe that there is a wide range of quality in this area across industries, and even within the so-called services sector.

Listening to the customer, and pro-actively stepping up the service product-line with new products is the real challenge. Innovative companies have no problems in generating innovative service-offerings continually. That helps them stay ahead of the competition by catering to unmet or latent customer requirements. Leadership is decided by the customer and the market. And service perceptions are central to leadership perceptions.

P.R.S. Oberoi is the Chairman of East India Hotels

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