What Aristotle Knew About Commitment to Excellence

Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, once wrote: “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

This definition of excellence applies in any field but most especially to the field of customer service.  In the mortgage loan servicing industry, when every servicing professional has access to the same products and rates, the only thing that differentiates one company from the next—or one industry professional from the next—is the level of customer service he or she provides.  Yet, this is the one factor that is so often overlooked in the mad rush to make more money instead of making more customers completely satisfied.

Accepting this standard and definition of excellence means opening up our minds to the ways in which we deliver customer service to our clients and internalizing the fact that every aspect of what we do impacts the final result of customer satisfaction.  Improving customer service means more than improving our face-to-face interactions with clients; it means implementing more customer-friendly processes and ensuring that the experience of working with us—from start to finish—is a great one.

The best way to insure this is to be proactive and intuit potential problems before they happen.  This takes a special skill-set and training that goes well beyond simple professional development.  It takes a willingness to be available always; an in-depth knowledge of the industry, including its potential pitfalls and obstacles; and an understanding of the value of time and full disclosure in securing the best product at the best price—something that can only be developed through years of experience and habit in making customers happy.