For those of you who don't know it,  this is National Customer Service Week in the UK, a once a year celebration of the key role that great customer service plays in the ongoing prosperity of organisations. I applaud the NCSW initiative, and anything that draws wider attention to how  organisations interact with their customers is to be welcomed. But how about the other 51 weeks of the year? One of the dangers of having a single week a year focussing on customer service is that there may not be that same focus the rest of the year - in my view every week should be National Customer Service Week.

In the frankly dire economic climate being faced by consumers today - and where even the mighty Tesco has just seen sales fall for the first time in two decades - it is those organisations who focus continually on their customers and gain the insight they need to give them what they want when they want it  and through the channel that suits them who will survive and indeed thrive. This week board members will sit in on calls to their contact centre, there will be celebrations  of great service in offices and retail outlets and call centres and perhaps even through social and mobile channels, up and down the country, but what about next week?

Because next  week and the week after, and the month after are just as important as this week, infact more so. Nothing wrong with NCSW, nothing wrong at all, but we  must just be sure that it doesn't  turn into an annual box ticking exercise and where lip service is being paid to customer service for the rest of the year. The way to make sure that happens is for organisations to focus on and understand the real competitive and performance advantage that comes from giving great customer service and, dare I say it, effective customer engagement. 

That understanding has to come from the very top, and while  board execs sitting in on contact centre calls once a year can be an eye opener for them and make them feel relieved when they get back to their shiny office, if it is no more than that, and the context and the lessons are not being learned, then it is frankly a once every year waste of bloody time. Customer engagement and measurement strategies must become part of the very fabric of how we do business - the DNA if you like that puts profitable customers at the centre of everything. And of course the best way to work out the current and potential future value of customers is through the understanding and insight that comes from  meaningful engagement through feedback and feeding back on that feedback.

So let's all have a purposeful National Customer Service Week - and then redouble our strategic focus on our customers, both internal and external, next week and beyond. Here at the Customer Engagement Club we believe in practising what we preach - and to this end we will be addressing some of the issues and challenges I have highlighted in this blog  in our upcoming Customer Engagement Club Directors Forums on October 13, November 3 and December 8 - be great to see you there, and for more details and to register simply go to www.customerengagementclub.com  and our home page where you will also find the latest digital issue of Customer Engagement magazine. Enjoy.