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WHY ENTER?
We all have different ideas about customer service but what is clear is that the expectations of our customers are increasing. The BCSC ACE Awards aim to:
- promote best practice across the industry
- reward the highest standards and innovations in customer service.
Customer experience is made up of three key elements:
- Product or service
- Process (how easy are you to do business with?)
- Engagement (how did it feel?)
The ACE Awards focus on all three, but are heavily weighted towards the engagement element which is principally delivered through shopping centre staff. It is also the element that can be most easily developed with little or no cost. A good place to start might be to consider your response to the following quotation:
Success means never letting the competition define you. Instead you have to define yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about.
So what do you want your customers to be saying about you? What experience or personality are you trying to deliver for your customers and tenants and is it compelling and engaging enough for customers to become loyal to your centre and not shop in competing centres or on the internet.
The aim of the ACE Awards is to support and recognise centres that can truly demonstrate they aspire to achieve the following aim:
- The experience delivered by all of the staff is so consistently good that the staff become the organisation or brand in the eyes of its customers.
In 2005, BCSC launched A Guide to Customer Care Best Practice: Creating an Outstanding Guest Experience - a vital guide focusing on advising managed shopping environments on best practice. It was intended to help owners, centre management teams and asset managers of retail destinations to develop better customer service. It was the first step in a process to encourage cooperation with retailers and other service providers aiming to deliver higher levels of customer service across the entire industry. This publication was a key driving force in establishing the ACE Awards as a voice to formally recognise those implementing the suggested practices and procedures outlined in the report.
Shopping Centre Management customer care issues therefore require an ongoing focus and the BCSC Best Practice Guide is still as vital today as ever - the document is packed with practical advice, suggestions, case studies and checklists for action covering culture, people and management, consumers (and their experience both in terms of shopping and relaxing within the centre), retailers and other stakeholders.
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