Introduction

In today’s business world, enterprises are often experiencing great difficulty in making ends meet. Intense competition in many industries is eroding market share, turnover and profits. In addition, every business is exposed to a variety of risks that originate in an ever-changing environment. Fluctuations in the economy, social change, technological advancements and new legislation, to mention a few, add pressure to the quest to remain profitable or for some, to merely survive. But it is not only external factors that make life difficult – businesses also have to deal with internal turmoil. Low levels of productivity, conflict in the workplace, structural changes, a lack of motivation and inefficiencies are some of the issues that need to be dealt with regularly. All these things result in a pretty grim picture. Fortunately, it does not need to be the case. The question one needs to ask is:

“What can we do to make our business successful?” For many years industry leaders advocated improvements in the quality of service as one of the most important measures to maintain and increase market share.

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra!

In this workshop, we are going to focus on customer service as one way to make a difference, to achieve the difference between just being ordinary and being extraordinary!