MANAGERS ON MANAGEMENT:PLACING THE customer at the heart of their business is an aim most companies talk about but by no means do well.

Those who overlook customer satisfaction do so at their peril, warns Hayley Quinn, general manager for Britain and Ireland of Austrian luxury goods brand Swarovski, which has experienced a 28 per cent increase in business in Dublin this year.

"In an increasingly competitive market such as we have now, it's retailers who can deliver excellence on a daily basis who will succeed," she says. "That means managers must identify why customers want to shop with them rather than the competition. They must know what makes them unique and then deliver that point of difference on every single occasion."

According to Quinn, the best advertisement for any business is "the service the individual customer receives".

Despite that commitment to delivering the perfect shopping experience, Quinn acknowledges that Swarovski is not beyond reproach. "If you ask me to be honest and tell you whether or not we succeed every time, then the answer is 'of course not'.

"It's easy to say, but it's very, very difficult to do. You have to believe that it's the right way to do business and you have to be passionate about implementing it in all areas."

Quinn says Swarovski uses mystery shoppers who visit every store once a month, providing detailed, quantifiable feedback on all aspects of the experience.

"We set a benchmark at 80 per cent and the positive news is that across the UK and Ireland we improved our performance by 11.5 per cent over the past year. But strictly speaking it's not about benchmarking, it's about our style of management and driving the service to become better."

To achieve this, Swarovski changes its requirements for success each year. "That means consecutive years are not strictly comparable, but we can compare January with December each year. Then we change the criteria again the following January to make it harder," she says.

"Otherwise, once a store reached 80 per cent, they could rest on their laurels."

The average across the stores never reaches 100 per cent, says Quinn, though individual stores do achieve it and are rewarded.

But does changing the criteria annually not risk becoming frustrating for staff?

Quinn's answer is uncompromising: "This is not about meeting targets or achieving rewards, it's about continually driving our service proposition. That's so fundamental to Swarovski's USP [unique selling point] that, while I would accept as a possible criticism the suggestion that staff may feel they can never master the situation, I would simply reply that that's not as important as continually striving for better customer service."

But there may be a difficulty here: while Quinn is convinced that this commitment to quality is reflected in the company's bottom line, she acknowledges that the link is difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate.

"I cannot quantify to what extent sales improvements year-on-year have been driven by improvements in service. What I can say is that, anecdotally, I believe the two sit hand-in-hand.

"We carry out extensive marketing surveys which show, for instance, increased brand strength and brand awareness in the UK and Ireland - and one of the key drivers of brand strength is acknowledged to be customer service."

She adds: "If nothing else, every good retail manager should know that great client service creates brand loyalty."

Next week: Lucy Fallon-Byrne, director of the National Centre for Partnership and Performance.

petercluskey@yahoo.fr

Hayley Quinn

Name: Hayley Quinn

Company: Swarovski www.swarovski.com

Job: general manager - Britain and Ireland

Management advice: Know your unique selling point - and deliver it with consistent excellence