STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF CUSTOMER
SERVICE
Siti
Nor Jannah Bt Abu Hassan
Faculty
of Information Management
Universiti
Teknologi MARA, Puncak Perdana Campus
Abstract
The
purpose of this article is to explain about the strategies that can be used to
improving quality of customer service in business organization. This article
gathers the strategies which can help organization to improve their business. The
research methodologies that have been use in this article is using conceptual
paper from literature review. To have a good customer services all department
must come together to harshness collective knowledge, creativity and initiative
to provide outstanding service. This is because many organizations faced with
significant challenges in the area of customer service. It is hope that this
article could give some contribution to organization to enhance the customer
services for current level of service and also in the future.
Keyword:
Customer Service, Strategies, Improving, Effectiveness.
Introduction
Customer Service and Quality of
Customer Service
Customer service is about creating a
relationship of trust and loyalty beyond the immediate interaction. It is what a company
does to meet and exceed customer expectations. Customer service is a company-wide philosophy about understanding the
customer and what they want and need. Customer service is the process of helping people find what they want
during the entire transaction cycle. Customer service is the degree, to which a product fails to meet, meets
or exceeds customer's expectations. It defines the customer's perception of the
interaction with the company (Penny, J. 2017).
Quality
has been defined as fitness for use, or the extent to which a product
successfully serves the purposes of consumers (Beverly et al., 2002). According
to Newby & McManus (2000) excellent quality of customer services is based
upon not just the knowledge and skills of the individual but also upon the way
that the organization as a whole, from top management downwards, pulls in the
same direction and presents a clear, positive message to customers.
Besides that, a good customer service also involves
giving customers a good first impression of the business, with a friendly
greeting and helpful attitude, as well as a lasting good impression.
Determining the customer's needs and solving problems quickly will lead to
satisfied return customers (Doyle, A. 2017). Although than
that, to be a good customer services also the important things is the employee
must know about the inventory, experience with the product, and being able to
help customer to make the best choice for them. With this knowledge’s employees
being able to make a good recommendation and also being able to convince the
customers to use that product or service (Doyle, A. 2017).
Today, many organizations are faced with significant
challenges in the area of customer service and service delivery, both
internally and externally. The constant change in demographics coupled with
high customer expectations is making organizations rethink its customer service
strategies. Strategies and tactics that worked in the past are less effective
and require more effort to execute. In an era where service has become a
defining factor for customers, organizations of all types struggle to find the
unique balance between delivery of a service, the cost of the delivery and
customer expectations (RBosch Consulting, 2005).
Strategies to Improve Quality of Customer
Service
1.0 Identify Target Customer and Customer
demand
In
organization, to make the good customer services is begin by identifying the
target customers. This process is begin with identify who are they, what do
they need from your agency and at what times or places do they interact with
your agency and what are the "points of service delivery". Identify target customer is enable
organization to access just how much demand is out there for the product or
service, how can organization to modified that product or services to better
meet customer specific need and also to design a marketing campaign that speak
to the right people, using the tone and language most likely to appeal to them.
To identify target customer the organization should conduct a market research
because can learn about your target audience
through primary and secondary market research. Market research can conduct
using a surveys, interview and focus group. From this organization can assemble
an initial customer profile and the customer demographic (Palevoi, L, 2017).
Many businesses say they target "anyone
interested in my services." Some say they target small-business owners,
homeowners, or stay-at-home moms. All of these targets are too general.
Targeting a specific market does not mean that you are excluding people who do
not fit your criteria. Rather, target marketing allows you to focus your
marketing dollars and brand message on a specific market that is more likely to
buy from you than other markets. This is a much more affordable, efficient, and
effective way to reach potential clients and generate business. Defining your
target market is the hard part (Porta, M. 2015). When everyone in your
company can act as support, customers can get their questions answered
promptly. Saving your customers a call to the help desk goes a long way toward
making them happy (Kansky, M. 2017).
2.0 Staffing Levels & Training
The key component in any organization today is people.
Employees usually represent the greatest cost they need to have appropriate
customer service skills and must have the knowledge and expertise to meet the
needs of the citizens. The two gaps that were identified in the organization
were having the appropriate staffing levels to provide an adequate level of
customer service and a lack of customer service training (RBosch Consulting,
2005). Instead, try empowering your employees to
resolve customer service issues on their initiative. If you need to, set some
boundaries within which they can roam, but give them some autonomy within that
range. You may be pleasantly surprised by the result (Davis, P. 2017). 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 (Lotich, P. 2016)
3.0 Open
Up More Channels For Customer Feedback.
Most organizations have an annual survey process where they
capture the overall feedback of the team and how engaged they are and the
businesses ability to deliver an exceptional service. Usually, nothing happens.
And this is where continuous employee feedback can play a role using tools that
allow staff to share ideas on how to improve the customer experience and for
managers to see how staff is feeling towards the business (MacDonald, S. 2017). For example the channel that can be offered by
the organization is by media social, like, Facebook, hotline number, website or
live chat with the staff organization. Customers need many and varied means of
communicating with your business, as survey solution giant SurveyMonkey points
out. Perhaps it is something as obvious as a client satisfaction survey, but it
could also be a “How did we do?’ Card mailed with a physical product, a
feedback box on the counter, a social media competition or an evening focus
group. Whatever you choose, make sure your options for being contacted are many
and varied, and customers will make good use of them (Davis, P. 2017).
4.0 Reduce Time
Obviously, fast service leads to satisfaction and
slow service to dissatisfaction. However, surprisingly,
the pre-process cycle has the greatest influence on how customers perceive
waiting times and service quality. So a customer who has to wait 10 minutes in
line before ordering will feel more dissatisfied than a customer who waits 10
minutes for their order to be prepared, even if the total service time for both
customers was the same (Beaudoin, C. 2017).
Perceived wait time is reduced when an employee
greets customers directly, learns the purpose of their visit and then directs
them accordingly. These greetings make customers feel as though employees are
immediately noticing their needs and beginning the transaction right away -- as
opposed to customers waiting in line before speaking to an employee (Lamski, J,
2016).
From the other research stated that time spent
waiting is definitely linked to status in our society. A psychologist described
this linkage in a recent Psychology Today article titled "Waiting
is a Power Game": Status dictates who waits. The more important we are,
the greater the demand for our time. And since time is limited, its value
increases with our perceived importance. Like any valuable commodity, the time
of important people must be protected. Organizations must create an environment
that encourages frontline staff to take control of customer interactions in
order to deliver a low-effort customer experience
Summarization of Previous Study
After
do some research and studies about the strategy to improve quality of customer
services, I found that some authors’ views or opinions had similar points of
view.
|
Strategies
|
Author
|
Opinion
|
|
Identify
Target Customer and Customer demand
|
Andronikidis
et al., (2009) that cited in Kristianto, Y.,
Ajmal, M. M., & Sandhu, M. (2012)
|
They
said that, consumers nowadays are more informed, more demanding, and prone to
change brands and companies if their requirements are not met on time and at
a price they are willing to pay.
|
|
Tian, Y., & Yu, L. (2013)
|
They
state that enterprises also need to interact with customers to understand
their demands. This helps enterprises to provide products or services that
customers really needed.
|
|
|
Heskett’s
that cited in Buchichi, A. N. (2013).
|
He
indicates how a service should begin with an understanding of the target
market. This understanding is used to derive a service concept, a strategy
for delivering on the key points of this strategy is developed, and the
strategy ultimately dictates the design of the service delivery system
|
|
|
Staffing
Level & Training
|
Schneider
, Chung & Roth, Jackso that cited in Buchichi, A. N. (2013).
|
He
state that is importance of employee
selection and training. Importance of
investing in people, since even though generic operations capabilities affect
service quality, the employee’s ability to exploit technology and market
insight moderates this effect.
|
|
Open
Up More Channel for Customer Feedback
|
Dawes
and Rowley, Galbreath and Rogers, Rowley, that cited in Spencer‐Matthews, S., &
Lawley, M. (2006).
|
There
has been growth in customer contact services, that is, personal communication
channels such as face-to-face, mail, phone and the web that impact on the way
a customer may interact with a business.
|
|
Reduce
Time
|
Lapa,
J. D. (2013)
|
Customer
wait time is one of the most reliable leading indicators of customer
satisfaction in retail because, well, customers don’t like to wait. And if
they do have to wait, they express the opposite of satisfaction
|
|
Ryan
and Valverde, (2003) that cited in Jones, P.,
& Peppiatt, E. (2005).
|
Time-saving
and convenience are commonly mentioned by consumers as among the most
important motivations for purchasing a service. However, waiting to be served
may neutralize potential benefits and negatively affect attitudes toward the
quality of service (QoS), brand or the product.
|
Important of Good Quality of
Customer Services
Good quality of customer service is important in
organization because can give a positive impact to the organization in persuade
customer to their product or service. Besides that, good customer service also
important because Customers Are Brand Ambassadors. This is because clients talk
about their experiences with companies, both positive and negative. An
organization's attitude of serving customer needs eventually affects the
training of front-line employees and the effort they put forth to keep
customers happy (Leech, P.).
Besides
that there are important to attracting new customer’s costs more than retaining
existing customers a satisfied customer stays with a company longer, spends
more and may deepen the relationship (Swinton, L. 2016). For example a happy
credit card customer may enlist the company’s financial services and later take
travel insurance. This is an easy “sell”, compared with direct marketing
campaigns, television advertisements and other sophisticated and expensive
approaches to attract new customers. Other
benefits of high-quality service include improved customer
satisfaction, stronger customer loyalty, consistency of work-flow practices,
reduced marketing costs, competitive advantage, improved market position and
staff pride and satisfaction
Conclusion
For a conclusion, quality of customer services is very important
for organization in order to success and they have to build up good
relationship with customer to get a feedback for their service from customer.
Customer service is important to an organization because it is often the only
contact a customer has with a company.
When the customer is happy with the service,
they will stick back with the brand and will not go to competitors. They tend
to do so even more when they have been receiving good quality service over a
period time. Besides that, quality of customer service also important because
organization can improve their business and can gain a trust from customer
towards their product or service. Hope
that this article can help the organization get some ideas about how to improve
quality of customer service.
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