HUMAN DIVERSITY

Diversity

The condition of having or being composed of different people, especially the inclusion
of different types of people (from different races or cultures) in a group or organization

How does knowing about diversity benefit our organizations? Diversity allows:

1. Full utilization of the organization’s human resources.

2. Reduced interpersonal conflict among employees of all backgrounds as cultural competence

increases.

3. Enhanced work relationships based on mutual respect and along with increased knowledge of
multicultural issue.
4. Shared organizational vision and increased commitment.
5. Greater innovation and flexibility as more employees participate in decision-making and
problem-solving teams.
6. Better and more creative problem-solving.
7. Improved productivity as less energy is spent managing interpersonal conflict/cultural clashes.

COMPONENTS OF CULTURE

The five components of culture include symbols, language, values, beliefs and norms.

Symbols may be either physical or non-physical. A flag is an example of a physical symbol, and
bows and curtsies are examples of non-physical symbols.

Language is used for communication. It can be written or spoken. Even when a culture uses the
same basic language as another culture, differences in terminology and inflection create new
meanings.

Values help define acceptable behavior within the society. Values can be different for each
group to which a person belongs. For example, it may be acceptable in the family group to eat
certain foods that are not accepted within the religious group a person chooses.
Beliefs fulfill the spiritual needs of a culture. A whole culture can be based on one set of beliefs,
yet a larger cultural group may have many different sets of beliefs.

Norms are the rules, mores and traditions within a culture. As a group develops laws and
regulations, norms change. A law that was necessary 100 years ago may not be needed in
modern times.

Technological advances also change the way cultures behave. Traditions are norms that a
culture holds onto once the norms are no longer common. Wearing certain clothing for a
holiday is an example of a norm that has become a tradition.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT- is the combination of practices, strategies and

technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout
the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving customer service relationships and assisting
in customer retention and driving sales growth.

- is a technology for managing all your

company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is
simple: Improve business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected
to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

A good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can be a worthwhile investment for
businesses of all types and sizes. These systems offer many benefits, including:

1. Centralization and Sharing of Data: With Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems,
data is stored in one centralized location, making it readily accessible to all members of an
business or organization. This enables the company's staff to more easily communicate with and
market to their customers. If one sales person is on vacation, for instance, the information
about his customers is available to the entire sales team, and they are able to pick up where he
left off without jeopardizing a customer relationship.

2. Better Customer Service: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are capable of
storing detailed information about each customer, such as their history of orders,
correspondence, survey responses, and marketing emails. Having such information easily
accessible can significantly improve the speed and quality of customer service. This in turn gives
employees more time to focus on sales, marketing, and other priorities.

3. Higher Customer Satisfaction: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems make

customers feel more like they are part of a team than merely a sales statistic. This sense of
partnership often makes for a happier customer who is more likely to do repeat business and
refer a potential new customer.
 4. Improved Marketing Efforts: Records contained within a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) system may be analyzed in order to more effectively market to each individual in a
company's database. Customer demographics, order histories, and survey results may be
studied in order to determine which group(s) are best to target in each specific marketing
campaign. Also, details about a customer's previous orders can be used to predict when he is
likely to place his next order, and what type of products he is interested in ordering. Cross-
selling and up-selling can also be more effective when companies are equipped with this
information.

5. More Profit: The combination of more efficient customer service, more effective
marketing, happier customers, and more sales translates to a more profitable business.

CREATING A CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY

Effective managers help employees understand the importance of the customer experience.
And, a customer service strategy can help create a service culture.

Organizations should incorporate customer service into their business goals. As well,
those strategies should be incorporated into employee goals to ensure the organization reaches
their customer service objectives.

Employees only perform at the level they are managed and it takes great leadership to
help employees understand the importance of the customer experience. This is why it is
important to have a strategy to help create and reinforce a service culture.

7 Steps to Developing a Customer Service Strategy

1. Create a Customer Service Vision

The first step in creating a customer service strategy is communicating the customer
service vision to employees.

Employees need to understand what the vision and organizational goals are for customer
service and understand their responsibility to help achieve that vision.

An organization that shares a customer service vision, and teaches customer service skills, will
provide a better customer service experience than an organization that leaves the front-line
employees untrained and unprepared for dealing with customer issues.
2. Assess Customer Needs

Organizations often fail, and waste valuable resources, creating products and services that
they thought the customer wanted, only to find out it was not what the customer wanted at all.

The trick is to find out what it is the customer wants and put together plans to meet those
needs.

Organizations can’t meet the needs of their customers without understanding what they want.

The first step in a customer improvement initiative is to talk to the customers to find out their
perception of the services being provided and determining what their needs and expectations
are.

A customer needs assessment is done by soliciting feedback through focus groups, satisfaction
surveys, or customer comment cards, and developing a comprehensive plan to meet and
exceed the customer needs.

Keep in mind that customer needs and expectations are a moving target. What a customer
wants today will be very different from what the customer wants a year or five years down the
road. As things change, expectations and needs change also.

3. Hire the Right Employees

Hiring with the customer in mind is another step in an overall strategy for strong customer
service.

Screen employees to ensure that they possess the disposition and skill set to help support a
strong customer service environment.

Skills can be taught but attitude and personality cannot. It’s a sad fact but not everyone should
interact with customers.

4. Set Goals for Customer Service

Once customer needs and expectations are identified and customer satisfaction is measured, it
is time to create goals for achieving customer satisfaction.

Employees need to understand what the target is so they can help the organization reach their
corporate objectives.
For example, if you operate a customer call center, a goal might be to answer all calls within X
number of minutes and hold employees accountable to that standard.

If the standard can’t be met, figure out why and fix it.

5. Train on Service Skills

If you hire right, your employees will have a natural ability to serve your customers well.

However, everyone can benefit from practical teaching on the organization’s approach to
customer service.

The training should explain how the organization would like the employee to behave in every
situation and should help employees understand how to respond to their
customers. Employees need to know what you want them to do.

For example, teach them how to respond to customer complaints, how to be responsive to
customers, how to meet customer needs, when to perform service recovery, how to answer
the phone and your organizations standards for service.

6. Hold People Accountable

Employees should have a good understanding of how their service to the customer affects the
organization’s overall performance and need to be held accountable for achieving customer
satisfaction goals. This is part of a comprehensive performance management system and
should be part of the cultural norm.

For example, share customer satisfaction data with your employees and confront employees
when they are not demonstrating the desired behaviors.

7. Reward and Recognize Good Service

There should be a well thought out system for acknowledging and rewarding employees for
good customer service. Employees need positive reinforcement and should be rewarded when
they demonstrate the desired behaviors of a strong customer service culture.

Having a strong vision and strategy for customer service is a critical component to the success
of any organization. Organizations need to identify who their customers are, what they want
and develop strategies to achieve those customer requirements. A strong customer service
strategy is what separates the successful organizations from the rest.
WHAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE?

The two types of Customers

 Internal customer – directly connected with the company

 External customer – customers who are outside the organization

Customer Service

A series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction; sometimes used
interchangeably with customer relations or customer care.

Acknowledging customers

is perhaps the most important customer service behavior because it serves as the starting
point for every encounter.

The time that lapses between the customer’s decision to engage and the employee’s
acknowledgement is critical. With each second that passes, the customer loses confidence in
their decision to engage which can take them from insecurity to discomfort to frustration to
anger in a very short period of time. Although an employee may take less than a minute to
acknowledge a customer, those seconds seem like an eternity to the person waiting. Needless
to say, this is no way to start a relationship.

Establishing Rapport

with customers is critical to showing them that you are sincerely interested in a mutually
beneficial relationship, It is also much easier to disarm, persuade and satisfy customers with
whom you have built a positive relationship than with than those with which you have no
rapport., customers vary widely in terms of their values, experiences, personalities and
mannerisms, so rapport will be built in different ways with different people

Active listening

is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding.
Often when people talk to each other, they don’t listen attentively. They are often distracted,
half listening, half thinking about something else. When people are engaged in a conflict, they
are often busy formulating a response to what is being said. They assume that they have heard
what their opponent is saying many times before, so rather than paying attention; they focus
on how they can respond to win the argument.

Exceed expectations

If you exceed a limit or rule, you go beyond it, even though you are not supposed to, Offer
new and existing customers above and beyond what services they are expecting to get from
you. Leave them saying 'wow' and wanting to come back. Simply put Exceed customer
expectation" means to do more than is required of you. Example: lead them to an item instead
of just pointing.

Confirming satisfaction

Before ending the transaction or closing out a work order is incredibly important. Doing so
demonstrates three essential values:

1. The organization is committed to satisfying the customer that you care enough to ask.

2. That it is the CUSTOMER who gets to decide that the issue has been resolved.

3. That you are willing to do what it takes to resolve the situation, to continue the process until
the customer is happy.

https://www.reference.com/world-view/five-components-culture-
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