I have been with the Institute of Customer Service for only a few months and my main priority is to ensure we are clearly leading the way by showing our members what excellent customer service is in these challenging times. Given the economic climate, getting organisations to focus on how they differentiate themselves through customer service is critical.

Good customer service is about understanding your customers' needs and meeting them consistently. It is about going the extra mile to understand what the customer wants and empowering your people so they know that they can do that and are not bound by systems and processes that stop them from helping.

Mediocrity in terms of servicing the customer just cannot happen because as consumers we are becoming far choosier. Organisations that put the customer at the heart of the business are the ones that will get themselves out of recession quicker.

Good customer service can make the difference between business success and failure. We know that it is more cost-effective to retain customers than it is to be always hunting for new ones.

There is a financial aspect to this. We know that if you are happy with an organisation, you are twice as likely to stay and you are three times as likely to recommend or refer it to others. Research by Harvard Business Review showed that a five per cent increase in customer loyalty could boost profits by over 25 per cent.

We know that motivated staff are more productive, more engaged and more innovative, which helps them to focus on improving things rather than handling complaints all the time.

The UK is a service country and upping our game is critical. Qualifying people in customer service and getting people to see things from customers' point of view should drive individual, organisational and UK performance.

Culturally, the British have not been good at complaining in the past, but as consumers we are becoming more demanding. A survey carried out by the Institute of Customer Service showed that the amount of people who are prepared to complain had increased from 50 per cent in 2001 to 60 per cent in 2006.

There are plenty of examples of good customer service, but there are also plenty of examples of us getting frustrated and not receiving good customer service. Getting organisations to look holistically at customer services is crucial.

Customer service is important all the time but when you are in a recession it focuses the mind. While we were in more prosperous times organisations didn't have to think about it so much but now customers have less money and will think more about where and how to spend it.

Consumers seem reasonably happy with the service they receive. We know from our UK customer satisfaction index that satisfaction is up; from 66 per cent in 2007 to 70 per cent in January this year, but to have what we call world-class service you need 80 per cent, so the UK has some way to go.

We often talk about how poor customer service is, but do we stop to thank people for good customer service? And when we do complain, we need to do it in a constructive way—if not, organisations don't know how to improve.

It doesn't matter if we have outsourced services or not. What matters is that people are properly trained and qualified to handle the issue of the customer because that is where the focus should be.

Every organisation has to have a set of rules to adhere to; otherwise it is chaos. But you need to empower people so they can make decisions for themselves to help customers.