Saint Joseph Institute of Technology

Montilla Boulevard, Butuan City

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Master of Management Major in Business Management (MMBM)

NAME: MONATAO D. PAPALADUN

SUBJECT:MM112 – Global Trends in Service Excellence
COURSE: MMPSM-1
PROF. RODELIO B. PASION, PH.D

TOPIC: FACTORS IMPEDING SERVICE EXCELLENCE

Customer service as defined by Customer Service expert Shep Hyken,

“Customer service is the experience we deliver to our customer. It’s the promise we
keep to the customer. It is how we follow through for the customer. It’s how we make
them feel when they do business with us.”
Having understood its importance, to improve customer service is a must and
there are lots of customer trainings tips that can be found.
Based on research, there are eight (8) Top Factors That Negatively Affect the
Quality of Customer Service:
1. Non-Availability of Agents – lack of availability of live support
A customer never likes to wait. When they contact your customer
service department, they want a response instantly. You cannot afford to
provide a bad experience to a customer you have already acquired. Non-
availability of a customer service representative will irritate the customer.
This irritation makes the customer looks for options to shift their business.

2. Lack of Metrics
If you don’t know the correct direction, then you may not reach your
destination. If you’re not tracking the correct metrics, then you won’t be
able to check and keep a tab on the quality of your customer service.
Some of the important metrics which you need to track are Customer
Request Volume, First Response Time and Resolution Rate.
3. Lack of Training
This is one of the major factors affect customer satisfaction
negatively. If your customer service team replies instantly but doesn’t
solve the problem, then it will hamper the customer satisfaction. You need
 to train your customer service agent staff to provide superior customer
experience.

4. Lack of Empathy
When providing customer service, your agents need to treat
customers as real people and understand their issues. What makes us
human is emotion.
Your customers will love if you can speak their language and share
their pain. For this, a chat agent will have to see things from the
customer’s point of view. Why is this important? It makes customers
easier to manage and controls the chat time. Empathy can be shown with
simple and short statements. Empathy can be shown such as:
 Use empathy statements to win customers
 Listen carefully. ...
 Smile. ...
 Make it your problem. ...
 Allow them to 'get it all out' ...
 Be respectful. ...
 See it through their eyes. ...
 Understand their priorities. ...
 Show that you care.

5. Not Taking Social Media as a Customer Service Channel

Social media is an important channel for connecting with your
customers. While most of the brands use social media to promote their
brand, never neglect the use of social media as a customer service
channel.
According to a research, around 67% of customers have already
used the social page of a company of service whereas only 33% have
used it for social marketing. Social Media is a two-way channel where
customer can complain too. There would be some customers who won’t
come out and ask for your help but would express their frustration towards
your company. If not handled properly, it may harm your brand image and
you can lose certain other customers.
If you provide a good service to your customers and they praise, it
will last a positive impression of your brand among other potential
customers.

6. Not using Technology/Tools Properly

When a customer contacts your customer service team regarding
some issue, he expects you to solve it in most efficient manner. They also
expect you to use the latest technology to provide better customer
experience and after sales service.
 If you’re providing customer support using a live chat software and
if you may have to check the customer computer screen while providing
tech support, then your agent must know how to use the screen sharing
feature.
This will help in building customer’s trust in your brand and will
increase their loyalty towards your brand.

7. Lack of Teamwork
It is needless to say that teamwork is important in every department
of every organization. If you don’t work as a team, then achieving any task
becomes difficult. Lack of team work in your customer service team can
be seen from the deteriorating rate of your customer satisfaction levels.
There is nothing worse for a customer to be getting transferred from
one department/ customer service agent to another without any solution.
On the other hand, a  teamwork environment promotes an
atmosphere that fosters friendship and loyalty.

8. Tired Employees
If a customer service agent is handling the same kind of complaints
on daily basis then he will get tired of it and his productivity will start
decreasing slowly. Customer service agents are also human beings, they
listen to customer issues all day long and provide solutions, after this if
they would be asked to extend their working hours then it would be
harmful. You will be able to notice the difference in the quality of
interactions.
To avoid any such situation, try to manage their schedule properly
and motivate them on daily basis. You may also plan some outing with
your employees which will give them positive energy and hence you’ll see
better performance.
Research shows that employee or workforce recognition plays an
important role to motivate and even encourage employees or team to
improve their good work and productivity rises. Planned activities such as
employees’ day, family day and employees’ appreciation day are among
activities that could reward tired or burn-out workforce.
 

But there are some factors which can negatively affect your customer service.
Providing excellent customer service means going the extra mile in making sure
a customer is happy and satisfied with a company's products or services. It also
involves providing service to a customer in a timely, pleasant manner.

Quality process
• A measure of excellence of interrelated work items.
• It is a measurement of characteristics that indicates whether a given process is
carried out with tolerant defects, minimized deficiencies and insignificant variations.
ISO 9000
 defined as a set of international standards on quality management and quality
assurance developed to help companies effectively document the quality system
elements needed to maintain an efficient quality system. They are not specific to any
one industry and can be applied to organizations of any size.
QUALITY PROCEDURES ACCORDING TO THE ISO 9001 STANDARD
 The quality procedures are the heart and soul of your quality management
system
 These quality procedures ensure that you maintain a quality management
system according to the ISO 9001 Standard
 Say what you do, do what you say – One of the most important principles of the
ISO 9001 Standard
 The purpose of a working procedure is to explain what is required to be done in
order to reach a specified result or objective.
 The purpose of quality procedures is to ensure that the organization performs the
minimum requirements of the ISO 9001 Standard.
 Quality procedures include: quality manual, procedure for the control of
documents, procedure for the control of records, procedure for the performance of
internal audits, procedure for the control of nonconformity, and procedure for the for
integrating and controlling corrective action and preventive action.
Procedure must include:
 What is the purpose of the process?
 Who is responsible for maintaining and performing the process?
 What is the method?
 What are the tools one needs to perform the process?
 What are the process outputs?

ISO 9001 – Working Procedures

Quality Manual - A document defining the scope of the quality management system, a
general presentation of the organization activities, its organizational structure, the
context of the organization, the needs and expectations of interested parties, a general
description of the main process, a description of the relation between the working
process and the quality management system.
Control of documents - Specification of the process of controlling documents that are
included under the quality management system.
Internal audits - A procedure specifying how the internal audit should be performed
within the organization.
Control of nonconformity - Procedure specifying how one should handle nonconformity
when he detects it
Corrective action - A procedure specifying how one implements a corrective action.
Read this article to learn about the ISO 9001 Standard requirements for corrective action