Delivering Customer Service

1. Delivering Customer Service Dr. Jean-Marie Jean-Pierre Sherita Mance Brian Villalva

2. Agenda • What is Customer Service? • Why Focus on Customer Service? • Service Quality • Give ‘em the Pickle Video! • Four Things Customers Want • Meet the Customers • Key Points to Remember

3. Objectives • To reflect on your customer service skills • To challenge you to enhance your customer service skills • To stress the effects of service quality on satisfaction and loyalty to customers • To make customer service excellence a way of life in our organization

4. What is Customer Service? • Customer service is an attitude on the part of every employee that the customer is important. • Bill Peters, Vice President at Outrigger Enterprises, argues that a high quality customer service experience and live interaction between customers and agents are essential ingredients to a successful business. (Communication News, March 2006, 43, 3.)

5. Customer Service Encompasses: • Attitude • Knowledge • Care • Helpfulness • Reliability • Enthusiasm • Responsiveness • Concern • Courtesy • Expertise

6. Why Focus on Customer Service? • Dissatisfied customers will tell 10 others while satisfied customers tell only 5 • It takes 20 positive customer interactions to compensate for one negative one • 96% of unhappy customers will not complain • 68% of unhappy customers become dissatisfied because of poor service • It is five times more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing ones

7. Service Quality Delivery • No agreed definition on service quality among scholars. • Consensus: Service Quality is dependent on consumers’ needs and expectations, and whether the level of service meets these needs and expectations.

8. Service Quality and Employees • Commitment to service quality is dependent on the staff members who provide a high proportion of the products/services as well as loyalty. • Loyalty depends on the development of interpersonal relationships, and the person-to-person interactions between customers and staff members are essential in building loyalty (Czepiel and Gilmore, 1987). • There is a strong link between customer satisfaction and loyalty.

9. Service Quality and Trust • Trust is a vital component of efforts to increase the visibility of a product/service. • Trust is a belief that people should treat others the way they want to be treated. • Trust is intangible and requires a social bond: One person relying on another, Connection to one another and to a community. • It is earned through positive experience. • A belief that an honest and open environment can bring out the best in people. • Our service delivery must be sustained by trust if we have to enhance our image and improve our perception. • Trust starts by putting the customer first.

10. Give ‘em the Pickle Video! • Service – Make serving others your number one priority. • Attitude – How you think about the customer is how you will treat them. • Consistency – Set high service standards and live them every day. • Teamwork – Look for ways to make each other look good.

11. Four Things Customers Want • Friendly Care Service • Thank You • Flexibility • Go the extra mile to meet my needs • Problem Solving • Stay with me until we get it resolved

12. Four Things (cont’d) • Recovery • Customers have no tolerance for mistakes occurring over and over again • I am sorry for the inconvenience, apologize • Fix it • Do something extra • Follow up (Is everything OK)

13. Key Points to Remember • Everyone should be interested in how well you are meeting external customer needs. • If a customer requirement changes, be prepared to change your process or system too. • Customers buy your products/services because of the benefits they offer them. • Today’s customers expect first-class service. If they sense that you are not putting them first, they will feel disappointed.

14. Key Points (cont’d) • Customers will judge you against what you promised to deliver and what they believe to be acceptable standards. • Help your customers succeed and you will succeed too. • Make a list of your top 10 customers and talk to them frequently. • Keep in regular contact with your customers. • Remember that the end customer is the lifeblood of your organization

15. Meet the Users • Open Dialogue with Users

16. References • Presbury, Rayka et al (2005). Impediments to improvements in service quality in luxury hotels. School of Management, University of Western Sidney, Australia. • Asher, M (1996), Managing Quality in the Service Sector, Kogan Page London. • Crompton, J.L.and Mackay, K.J (1989). “Users’ perception of relative importance of service quality dimensions in selected public recreations program,” Leisure Sciences, Vol 11, pp.367-75. • Cziepel, J.A. and Gilmore, R.(1987). “Exploring the Concept of loyalty in services,” in Czepiel, J.A., Congram, C.A. and Shanahan, J. (EDS), The Services Marketing Challenge: Integrating for Competitive Advantage, AMA,Chicago,IL, pp. 91-4. • Crosby, L.A, Evans, K. and Cowles, D. (1990). “Relationship quality in service selling: an interpersonal influence perspective,” Journal of Marketing, Vol 54 No 3, pp. 68-81. • CRM News Update #20 (October 2005). eBay: Managing Trust with 100 million customers. • Groonroos, C. (2000). Service management and marketing: A customer relationship management approach, John Wiley, Chichester.