It can be, but not as a claim. Every firm says it has great service, so the words give a buyer nothing to go on. When two companies are equally good at the work, though, the experience of dealing with them is often what decides it. Service sets you apart when customers value it, you deliver it noticeably better than the alternatives, and buyers can see that before they choose you. Being good at service isn’t enough if your competitors are just as good.
Two places that do the same thing well
My wife and I love vegetable juice, and there are two places we go. Both are excellent. If either advertised fresh ingredients and great juice, it wouldn’t mean anything to us, because we expect that from both.
At one, we walked in ten minutes before closing and were told the machines were already shut down and we’d have to come back another day. No apology. At the other, they remember our names, and we feel like they’re glad we came in.
We go to the second one. The juice is great at both; what decides it for us is how we’re treated.
Why the claim does nothing on its own
“Great service” fails as a differentiator for the same reason “high quality” does. Everyone can say it and almost everyone does. A buyer comparing three firms that all promise responsiveness, partnership and attention to detail learns nothing from those words, and falls back on price, gut feel or whoever they met last.
Buyers can find out what your service is like before they hire you. They can call references, read reviews and watch how your sales process treats them. The claim itself just gives them nothing to verify. And people already assume a firm they’re about to pay will treat them well, so telling them you will is a bit like a restaurant advertising that the food is safe to eat.
Good and different are two separate tests
Suppose you reply to every client within four business hours, you publish that promise, and you keep it. That’s a specific commitment, and if you meet it consistently, you have evidence of good service. But if your three closest competitors make the same promise and keep it too, it doesn’t set you apart. It’s what the market expects.
For any part of your service you’d like to lead with, ask whether your customers actually value it, and whether you deliver it better than the firms on their shortlist, not just better than average.
Then ask whether a buyer can see it before they choose you. If the difference only shows up six months into the relationship, it helps you keep clients more than win them, unless existing clients can make it credible to the next buyer, through references and their own words.
Find out what’s actually different
You can’t answer those questions from the inside. It’s easy to be proud of things clients barely notice and miss the thing they value most. Before you build anything around service, ask current clients what working with you is like, why they stay and what they’d miss if they switched, ask a couple of prospects who chose someone else, and read what competitors promise. I’ve written about reading competitors alongside your own wins and losses.
Then look for something your clients value that your competitors don’t consistently deliver. It might be doing more, but often it’s removing friction: fewer handoffs, no chasing for updates, problems raised before the client finds them, mistakes handled so well the client trusts you more afterward. The way a firm recovers from a mistake can set it apart more than the absence of mistakes, though some mistakes are too costly for any recovery to undo.
The question I’d ask: imagine a buyer split a project in half, one half with you and one half with the firm they’re also considering. When it’s over, what would they say was different about working with you? Leave the deliverable out and think about the experience. If the honest answer is “about the same,” service isn’t your differentiator yet, and saying it is won’t make it one.
What it looks like at my agency
At the agency I run, the way I’d describe it is that we bring ideas to the table outside the project we’re working on, and a client is likely to get an email from us about an opportunity we won’t benefit from at all, because we know their business well enough to spot it. Other agencies say they go beyond the brief too, which is exactly the problem this post is about. It only counts if clients would describe it that way without being prompted.
How to show it instead of saying it
Once you know what’s genuinely different and that clients value it, put the evidence where buyers will see it before they decide:
- Clients’ own words about what happened. A review that describes what happened, like a client saying you got back to them within the hour during a crisis, does more than any adjective you write about yourself. That shows your service is good; showing it’s better than the alternatives takes clients comparing you with them.
- Specific commitments, kept reliably. If you answer within a business day, say so, and have a plan for the times you miss it.
- How the work runs. Showing a prospect your process, who they’ll deal with and what they’ll hear from you each month lets them picture the experience before they buy it.
- The sales process itself. It’s the first service a buyer gets from you. If you’re slow to follow up or vague in the proposal, that’s what they’ll expect the work to feel like.
What it costs, and when not to lead with it
Better service usually costs something: more senior people on the account, slack in the schedule so someone can pick up the phone, time spent on things you don’t bill for. Removing handoffs and rework can improve service and cut cost at the same time, but the rest has a price. Before you lead with it, make sure it’s worth enough to the clients you want to justify that cost, whether through fees they’ll pay or clients who stay longer, and that you can make it repeatable rather than dependent on one person.
If your buyers choose mainly on specialization, proven results, price or a particular capability, service supports the decision rather than making it. Lead with what they’re choosing on, and let the experience confirm it. And if the gap between what you say and what clients experience keeps recurring, rather than being an occasional slip you handle well, no amount of positioning will cover it. It shows up as weaker renewals, fewer referrals and clients who stay only because switching is hard.
Finding what genuinely sets a firm apart, and saying it in words buyers believe, is the core of my brand consulting. Work With Me is the place to start.
