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Англиски 1

Тема:

Customer Service

Изработила: Ментор:

Ивана Антевска виш лектор м-р. Анка Веселинова

(Февруари 2017)
 Content:

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..……3

1. The nature of customer service………………………………………………………...…4

2. The link between customer experience and customer service ……………………….…5

3. Customer Service Standards and Accountability……………………………………..…7

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...…..9

Literature……………………………………………………………………………………10

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 Introduction:

Customers are the lifeblood of your business so the happier they are, the better for
you. Customer satisfaction is often linked to customer service, and customer service is a
major factor in customer retention and whether you receive positive or negative word-of-
mouth referrals. Customer retention is important to the bottom line: research shows that it
costs three to five times more to replace than to keep a customer. Customer service is also one
area where you can gain a competitive advantage.

Today’s customer service involves much more than a conversation on the phone. Web,
email, chat, and social media are now very important channels for customers. Still, many
customers prefer to contact companies with a phone call. From a company’s perspective, the
phone is not always the most efficient channel, particularly for larger companies dealing with
high volumes of customer service calls. Soft skills for providing customer support on the
phone, such as empathy, the ability to “read” a customer’s emotional state, social graces,
communication, and friendliness remain important, but additional skills for the newer
channels need to be developed to make these channels equally—or more—viable choices for
customers.

There is no way to become a customer-focused organization without being people-

oriented. There are people throughout your organizations who all need help to get their jobs done
in order to make the final paying customers happy.

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 1. The nature of customer service

Customer service is defined as an organization’s ability to meet the needs and desires
of its customers. Excellent customer service is a vital part of marketing for enterprises. It is
the ability of an organization to consistently exceed the expectations of its customers.
Customer service begins before a customer arrives and ends long after the customer leaves
your enterprise. Customer service can be defined as ‘a series of activities designed to enhance
the level of customer satisfaction – the feeling that a product or service has met customer
expectations.

Figure 1. Introduction of customer service facts1

The gap between customers’ expectations and the service they receive is widening.
Customers are increase singly informed about the products and services that they have
purchased and demand effortless, yet personalized service in real time, using the

1
Carlaw, Peggy and Vasudha Kathleen Deming, (1999) “The Big Book of Customer Service Training Games” ,
The McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, NY,45-47

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communication channel and touch point of their choice. More often than not, they receive
suboptimal customer service. Customers are quick to voice their disappointment, which is
amplified via social media channels and can lead to brand erosion and customer defection.
Companies know that good customer experiences are important: 60% of companies aim to
differentiate the selves based on the experiences that they deliver. Yet many companies today
are battling the ongoing economic pressures of a slow recovery after a prolonged global
recession. Most companies balance the cost of doing business with customer satisfaction.
Companies must be pragmatic about engaging in initiatives that will deliver service in line
with customer expectations at a cost that makes sense to the business. One successful way to
move the needle and deliver an improved customer service experience in a way that is
cognizant of business cost parameters is to focus on the core need s of customers and
customer service agents, who are the frontline providers of customer service, as well as the
technologies that power customer service. Businesses that fail to meet their customers'
expectations and that do not empower their customer service agents to deliver good service
run the risk of being left at a competitive disadvantage. 2

2. The link between customer experience and customer service

Between good customer experiences strategic intentions and actual performance have
quantifiable implications for the top line of organizations hoping to differentiate themselves
in the market. Positive experiences lead to satisfied customers, which correlate to loyal
customers and increased lifetime wallet share for these loyal customers. This return on
investment (ROI) can be calculated by correlating customer loyalty and experience over three
dimensions: increased cross-sells and upsells, reluctance to switch away from the brand, and
recommendations to family and friends.3

On the flip side, poor customer experiences incur costs and brand erosion: 75% of the
time, customers will move to another channel if they are unable to find answers to their
questions via the first channel — and those recon tact rates incur quantifiable costs. Further,
there is an increase in customer defection and brand erosion due to negative social sentiment.

2
Executive Excellence, The Magazine of Leadership Development, Managerial Effectiveness, and
Organizational Productivity, October, 2001,16-18
3
Benjamin Schneider and David E. Bowen (1995) “Winning the Service Game”, Boston: Harvard Business
School Press, 132.

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Companies are increasingly looking at enhancing their customer service experience in order
to stay competitive in an increasingly difficult business climate. This is a shift in focus for
many companies, as customer service organizations have historically been managed as cost
centers, whose strategy was disconnected from other operations.

Figure2. Communication Channel Usage For Customer Service Has Become More
Complex In The Past Three Years 4

Communication channel rates have also rapidly changed over the past three years. For
example, online s elf-service or FAQs has grown in usage from 57% to 67%; chat has grown
in usage from 30% to 43%; and micro blogging has jumped from 11% to 22%. In addition,
there are emerging channels such as virtual agents, click-to-call, and S MS that are used today
but saw hardly any usage three years ago. Few companies are able to support their customers
in a consistent manner across the breadth of these communication channels. Customers also
expect to be able to start a conversation in one communication channel and continue it in
another without having to restart the conversation or repeat any information that has been

4
Global Customer Service Barometer ( February /2017)
http://about.americanexpress.com/news/docs/2016x/axp_2012gcsb_us.pdf)

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previously communicated. Few companies are attempting to integrate their communication
channels to provide this type of seamless experience, and only 35% of organizations have any
plans to address this problem this year. 6 These communication channels — and the agents
supporting them — are soloed from one another. Agents do not have a full view of prior
customer interactions across all supported communication channels, which means that they
are unable to personalize and contextualize an answer to a customer request; as a result, they
miss the mark on high-quality service delivery.

3. Customer Service Standards and Accountability

A fourth component of a customer-focused organization is a clear set of customer

service performance standards that is systematically reinforced. Standards of customer
service identify and communicate what constitutes satisfactory performance for all employees
and customers. They provide uniform measures for all staff and promote consistently strong
customer service. According to Mary Malone, a patient satisfaction consultant to the hospital
industry, “Behavioral change requires standards, not suggestions.” Once those are in place, an
organization can develop consistency by “clearly communicating what is expected and, based
upon those expectations, reinforce positive behaviors and hold employees accountable for
sub-standard service delivery.” 5

Customer Satisfaction: Improving Quality and Access to Services and Supports in

Vulnerable Neighborhoods Organizations take different approaches to identifying customer
service standards and they vary in detail. Emanuel Medical Center uses “CARING” as an
acronym for its six customer service standards, which are printed on the back of ID badges,
flashed across computers as screen savers, printed on T-shirts, and posted prominently
throughout the hospital: Customers first Accept responsibility R each out and help Initiate
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contact Nurture others Give attention to detail. The housekeepers subsequently added light
checks as part of their routine. 7 Those behaviors became standards of conduct for staff and
are backed by staff orientation and training, systems of employee recognition and reward, and
customer satisfaction feedback. Results from customer satisfaction surveys are presented at
5
Mary P. Malone, “Service Insight: Connecting the Dots” The Satisfaction Monitor (February/2017),
http://www.pressganey.com/products_services/readings_findings/satmon/article.php?article_id=174.
6
Dick Schaaf, Keeping the Edge (1995) “Giving Customers the Service They Demand”, New York, 96.
7
Mary P. Malone, “Best Practices: The Latest and Greatest in Housekeeping and Maintenance” The
Satisfaction Monitor (July/August 1998),
http://www.pressganey.com/products_services/readings_findings/satmon/article.php?article_id=49

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staff meetings and all employees are involved in identifying solutions for areas needing
improvement. Staff is not only involved in defining behavioral standards, but also in an
accountability loop that uses those standards to measure performance. 38 Customer service
standards provide a framework for performance management and accountability. Saint Luke’s
Hospital uses a performance management system to ensure that every employee has action
plans and goals that are aligned with the hospital’s core values and service standards. The
system is also linked to employee compensation.8

8
National Institute of Science and Technology, 2003 Award Recipient Health Care Category.

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 Conclusion:

With customer service and customer experience beginning to overtake price and
product as brand differentiators, big investments have been made over the past few years
in empowering custom-errs with more ways to engage, provide feedback and share their
experiences. Yet most employees are trying to engage the empowered customer with the
same soloed technologies and stagnant knowledge repositories they’ve used (or not used)
for years. Most of the existing research on customer service and satisfaction comes from
the business sector. Many findings are clearly applicable to public sector service
organizations, and examples of governmental or nonprofit organizations are provided. In
addition, the public sector is under increasing pressure to apply business practices to
improve their performance. As many governments worldwide increasingly contract out
services to private providers, they are working to assure service quality. Elected officials
are eager to respond to constituent demands for more efficient, effective and user-friendly
public services, and government agencies are under increasing pressure to improve their
own public service performance.

Companies that make it easier for them to connect in what they regard as a positive
way tend to make inroads on the competition. The best will adapt their processes, cultures,
and mindsets to manage the entire customer experience skillfully—which benefits not only
consumers but also employees and the bottom line. But other companies, for many reasons,
fail to deliver a compelling customer experience. A lot of man- agers think about it in very
narrow terms, focusing only on individual topics and forgetting about the overall system for
delivering value. Some excel at specific kinds of interactions with customers but ignore the
fuller experience, both before and after the purchase. Others concentrate on fixing their
operations but forget to look at them through the eyes of the customer. And most
organizations still tend to underestimate the importance of the internal cultural changes
needed to achieve and sustain a new approach to the customer services.

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 Literature:

 Carlaw, Peggy and Vasudha Kathleen Deming, (1999) “The Big Book of Customer Service Training
Games” , The McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, NY,
 Executive Excellence, The Magazine of Leadership Development, Managerial Effectiveness, and
Organizational Productivity, October, 2001,
 Benjamin Schneider and David E. Bowen (1995) “Winning the Service Game”, Boston: Harvard
Business School Press,
 Global Customer Service Barometer (February /2017)
http://about.americanexpress.com/news/docs/2016x/axp_2012gcsb_us.pdf)
 Mary P. Malone, “Service Insight: Connecting the Dots” The Satisfaction Monitor (February/2017),
http://www.pressganey.com/products_services/readings_findings/satmon/article.php?article_id=174.
 Dick Schaaf, Keeping the Edge (1995) “Giving Customers the Service They Demand”, New York, 96.
 Mary P. Malone, “Best Practices: The Latest and Greatest in Housekeeping and Maintenance” The
Satisfaction Monitor (July/August 1998),
http://www.pressganey.com/products_services/readings_findings/satmon/article.php?article_id=49
 National Institute of Science and Technology, 2003 Award Recipient Health Care Category.

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