CUSTOMER SERVICE AND

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
IN RETAIL
Presented by :-
Vanshika Mahajan
Sourav Saini
Hashneet Gulati
 Customer service

■ According to Levy & Weitz, “ Customer service has been defined as all activities performed
by retailers and there personnel to attract, retain and enhance a customers shopping
experience.
■ Customer service focus on how well a company meets the established performance standards
that are important to meeting customer needs.
Customer service can be used as a framework to look at all
aspects of your business:

Image and presentation

Promotion of services

Contact and communication with customers

Service delivery

Monitoring and improving services

Resolving customer problems

 Service triangle:

The service triangle outlines all the relationships that exist between the company, the
employees and the customers.
 Service gaps:

■ A service gap is the difference between what the customers expect and what
they perceived was delivered. This is based on a Gap Model.
■ Gaps in customer services:
➢ The listening gap
➢ The service design and standards gap
➢ The performance gap
➢ The communication gap
 GAP 1 - Listening gap:
The listening gap, is the difference between customer expectations of service
and company understanding of those expectations. A primary cause in many
firms for not meeting customers' expectations.
 GAP 2 - The Design and Standards Gap:
This gap is concerned with translating customer expectations into actual service
designs and developing standards to measure service operations against
customer expectations.
 GAP 3 - The Performance Gap:
The service performance gap, must also be closed to make sure there is no discrepancy
between customer-driven service design and standards and actual service delivery. Even
when guidelines exist for performing service well and treating customers correctly, high-
quality service performance is not a certainty. Standards must be backed by appropriate
resources (people, systems, and technology) and also must be enforced to be effective –
that is, employees must be measured and compensated on the basis of performance
along those standards.
 GAP 4 - The Communication Gap:
This gap focuses on the difference between service delivery and what is communicated
externally to customers through advertising, pricing, and other forms of
communications.
 CUSTOMER LOYALITY
■ Customer loyalty is positively related to customer satisfaction as happy customers
consistently favor the brands that meet their needs. Loyal customers are purchasing
a firm’s products or services exclusively, and they are not willing to switch their
preferences over a competitive firm.

HOW TO BUILD LOYAL CUSTOMERS?

▪ Improve your customer experience
▪ Determine the best communication channels
▪ Develop a reward program
▪ Seek out customer feedback
▪ Maintain voice, tone, and language at every touchpoint
 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

■ CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT is business philosophy and set of

strategies, programs and system that focuses on identifying and building loyalty with
a retailer’s profitable customers. It is based on business philosophy that all
customer are not profitable in the same way and retailers can increase their
profitability by building relationships with their better customers. The goal is to
develop a base of loyal customers who patronise the retailer frequently.

■ CRM deals with many interactions a retailor will have with the customers. The
central goal is to improve the relationship that a company has with its customers,
with the aim of enhancing profits and becoming more competitive.

■ CRM retailor can create products and service to suit the needs of the customer.
 Customer segmentation in CRM:

Lower value customer

Growable value customer

Most valuable customer

 customer-centric

■ Customer-centric marketing is an approach to marketing that prioritizes customers’

needs and interests in all decisions related to advertising, selling, and promoting
products and services.
■ Successful customer-centric marketing requires a deep understanding of why your
customers need what your company provides. The goal isn’t business growth alone; it’s
growth driven by showing customers how your product/service will improve some
aspect of their work or life.
The 3 main priorities of the customer-centric marketer
■ Customer success
Customer-centric marketing is all about putting the power into your customers’ hands and
helping them to become their best selves — even if they don’t end up using your product.
A company that does this exceptionally well is Gainsight. They’ve created a community for
customer success professionals to grow their skills and knowledge through Gainsight
University and their Pulse conferences.

■ Customer advocacy
Customer-centric marketing organizations thrive on advocacy. They work hard to uncover
what their customers really want from their relationship, and they go to bat for them
internally and externally.
This might mean creating more helpful resources to help them get better at their jobs, or it
might look like sharing a customer’s success on social media to help spread their news.
■ Long-term strategy
Many marketing organizations are measured exclusively on the number of qualified leads
they bring into the sales funnel.
This can lead to some quick-fix solutions designed to get customers in the door, but these
tactics are often short-sighted. While they might connect your sales team with a customer,
they don’t build a long-term relationship.
Customer-centric marketers avoid these short-term wins in favor of creating long-term
value.
 Service Blueprinting
■ A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service
components — people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes — that are
directly tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey.
■ Service blueprints give an organization a comprehensive understanding of its service and
the underlying resources and processes — seen and unseen to the user — that make it
possible. Focusing on this larger understanding (alongside more typical usability aspects
and individual touchpoint design) provides strategic benefits for the business.
■ Blueprints are treasure maps that help businesses discover weaknesses. Poor user
experiences are often due to an internal organizational shortcoming — a weak link in the
ecosystem.
■ blueprints help identify opportunities for optimization. The visualization of relationships in
blueprints uncovers potential improvements and ways to eliminate redundancy.
■ Key Elements of a Service Blueprint
• Customer actions
Steps, choices, activities, and interactions that customer performs while interacting with a
service to reach a particular goal. Customer actions are derived from research or a customer-
journey map.
In the our blueprint for an appliance retailer, customer actions include visiting the website,
visiting the store and browsing for appliances, discussing options and features with a sales
assistant, appliance purchase, getting a delivery-date notification, and finally receiving the
appliance.
• Frontstage actions
Actions that occur directly in view of the customer. These actions can be human-to-
human or human-to-computer actions. Human-to-human actions are the steps and
activities that the contact employee (the person who interacts with the customer)
performs. Human-to-computer actions are carried out when the customer interacts
with self-service technology (for example, a mobile app or an ATM).
Backstage actions
Steps and activities that occur behind the scenes to support onstage happenings. These
actions could be performed by a backstage employee (e.g., a cook in the kitchen) or by a
frontstage employee who does something not visible to the customer (e.g., a waiter entering
an order into the kitchen display system).

Support service
The internal line of interaction separates the contact employees from the support process.
These are carried out by individuals and units the company who are not contact employees.

Physical evidence
For each customer action, and every moment of truth, the physical evidence that customer
come in contact with. These are all tangible aspects that customer comes across with that
can influence their quality perception.
 Role of the salesperson in retail servicing

■ As a source of income
■ As a public relations representative
■ As a seller
■ As a mover of stock
 Retail selling process

ACQURING SUGGESTIVE CLOSING THE

KNOWLEDGE SELLING SALE

STUDING THE OVERCOMING

CUSTOMER RESISTANCE

APPROACHING PRESENTING
THE THE
CUSTOMER CUSTOMER