Customer Service: An Essential Component of Marketing

1. Customer Service: An Essential Component of Marketing Lesson 5

2. Objectives • Explain the essentials of customer service; • Identify other integral factors of the value-added business that contribute to customer service; • Describe procedures for handling customer complaints; • List and provide examples of the four-step customer service process.

3. Making every purchase experience positive? • Have you ever had a bad experience in purchasing a product or service? • How did that make you feel? • What did you do about it? • If you registered a complaint, how was your complaint handled? • Would you make a purchase at that business again? • Would you recommend the business to friends?

4. Customer Service • Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it. - PETER DRUCKER • Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends. - WALT DISNEY • The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. - SAM WALTON

5. Defining Customer Service • A process for providing competitive advantage and adding benefits to the supply chain in order to maximize the total value to the ultimate customer. • Order processing, billing and invoicing, product returns, and claims handling are all typical examples of customer service. Customer service departments, which basically handle customer problems and complaints, also represent this level of customer service.

6. Measuring Customer Service • Specific performance measures: • percentage of orders delivered on time and complete; • number of orders processed within acceptable time limits.

7. Tenets of Customer Service • Transaction level activity • Performance measures for customer service • Emphasis on quality and quality management • Leads to a philosophy of Customer Service

8. Effective Customer Service Steps • Know your product: study and learn as much as you can about your products • Reach out: greet each customer who appears to need help, respond politely, enthusiastically, and knowledgeably to questions and needs. Complete the interaction by inviting the customer to return and let you know how s/he liked the product. • Be alert: Learn to read facial expressions and body language in order to sense when the customer needs help. • Get help fast: if you don't have an answer- know how to quickly get help from the experienced people in your market who do have the knowledge.

9. Handling Customer Complaints • Handling complaints well requires application of the basic techniques of good customer service. • In most cases, the anger or frustration of a dissatisfied customer will be diffused by being treated in a way that shows you care about the customer and their problem. • When a customer approaches you, greet them with a friendly smile. Listen attentively and sympathetically while the customer describes their problem, and don't interrupt until they have let out all frustration.

10. Customer Service Websites • Eight rules for good customer service • How customer service works • Seven steps to remarkable customer service

11. Check for Understanding • Explain the essentials of customer service; • Identify the integral tenets of the value-added business that contribute to customer service; • List and provide examples of the four-step customer service process. • Describe three procedures for handling customer complaints;