Enhanced Customer Service: Techniques And Best Practices Essay.

Customer Needs and Wants

1. What could be considered aspects of a quality service experience? Please list at least 10. 

2. What affects the levels of customer needs?

3. When you are providing information on products and services to a customer, what might you need to advise them of? 

4. What is the difference between a needs and a want in terms of customers? 

5. Why are quality control procedures necessary?

6. What are the four main steps when dealing with a customer’s complaint?

7. When we talk about people having a bad attitude what might we consider that fits in to that description?

8. What are the four types of communication techniques you could use with customers? 

9. How do you develop customer relationships? 

For this assessment you will need to perform the following tasks. These tasks will need to be completed and submitted in a professional, word processed, format.

Your task is to research the following information and write a report outlining your findings. Use the following questions as a guide to your research:

1. Outline the principles and benefits of enhanced customer service experiences and positive communication.

2. What are the techniques used to anticipate customer preferences, needs and expectations? 

3. Discuss one conflict resolution technique.

4. What methods can be used to enhance service delivery in response to staff and customer feedback.

5. List at least 7 extras and add-ons you might offer a customer. 

6. Choose the industry or sector that you are or would like to work in and discuss the following:

a. Professional service standards and protocols for service industry personnel

b. Attitudes and attributes expected by the service industries to work with customers

c. Different customer service needs and expectations

d. Types of customer loyalty programs

e. Essential features and use of the customer databases 

7. Choose an organisation you would like to or are working in and discuss the following: 

a. Designated response times for providing service and resolving complaints

b. Customer service policies and procedures

c. Complaint handling policies and procedures

d. Promotional services offered

8. Briefly outline the steps involved in solving each of the following problems:

a. Incorrect pricing or quotes

b. Delays or errors in providing products or services

c. Misunderstanding of customer requests

d. Escalated complaints or disputes

e. Other team members or suppliers not providing special requests

f. Misunderstandings or communication barriers

g. Unmet expectations of, or problems or faults with, a service or product

9. Briefly discuss the methods of compensating dissatisfied customers. 

10. What factors do you need to consider when determining compensation of dissatisfied customers? 

11. What do you need to consider when approaching each person? 

12. What methods of collecting feedback could you use?

13. What are the essential features, conventions and usage of different types of communication techniques and equipment?

14. Briefly outline how you could address the special needs, customs and practices of various social and cultural groups of customers in regards to:

o   modes of greeting, farewelling and conversation

o   body language and body gestures

o   formality of language

o   clothing 

2. Then you are to locate a customer service policy and outline the steps involved in providing your customer’s with a quality service.

After you have completed this activity you will have to hand it in. 

1. When would you check actioning of special requests?

2. Who would you liaise with to ensure efficient service delivery?  

3. Who would you share customer information with to ensure quality service delivery?

4. Why should you maintain profile on customers? 

1.

1. Tangible evidence: Staff clothing, attractiveness of environment, modern technology, clarity of written material
2. Reliability: customer wishes and regulatory of information
3. Responsibility: personal willingness to answer questions of the customer
4. Competence: provid correct and precise information, polite communication
5. Confidence: provide correct hotel image, where hotel provides appropriate and qualitative services
6. Safety: Safety regarding hotel building and information about hotel customers
7. Accessibility: Contact necessary hotel employee for any problem through telephone or email.
8. Communication: Personnel understanding about customer’s problem, proper explanation, showing concern.
9. Understanding: Service price corresponding to service quality and request customers to consider this
10. The best resource: Service experience can increase further if the organization can provide best resources to their customers.

2. Several factors can affect customer needs significantly. Those factors are described below:

1. Functionality: Functionality of good or service can influence customer needs as those products can solve desire or problems of customers.
2. Convenience: Products are required to be convenient to solve desires of customers.
3. Price: Price is other important factor that can influence needs of customers. Customers have unique budgets for purchasing any product or service.
4. Experience: Experience related to product or service s required to be easy or clear. Otherwise, this can create more trouble for customers.
5. Design: Product or service requires to be relatively easy and perceptive to use.
6. Reliability: The product or service needs to be reliable, as customers want this every time after advertisement.
7. Compatibility: The good or service requires to be compatible with other products, which customers are using.

3. At the time of providing information regarding any product or service, customers want to know about its usage along with limitations and benefits. Moreover, a comparison based on price, product quality and feedback from other products or customers can be beneficial. A proper demonstration of the product and warranty, proper customer service can be beneficial as well. Customers need to about importance of this product in their life and other benefits that they can receive after using those products. Information are required to be precise, to the point but described in details with all required messages. For this, small customer guide book can be provided so that they cannot be misled by other companies.

4. Needs and wants of customers have some differences. Understanding this difference can help a business organization to successes its business. From economic point of view, a need means something that can help a person to survive.  Hence, a need can overcome basic requirement of a consumer. Without need, customers cannot consumer this product or service. On the contrary, want is something that a person desires at present or in future. Thus, needs for a product can be same for all customers while desire can be varied. Customers with their limited budget want to buy those products mainly that can fulfill their needs rather than desire. Desire from a product cannot help the person to sustain like needs. Hence, wants are referred as desires, which are optional and expect this, a customer can survive.

5. Quality control process helps a business organization to ensure that they maintain or improve product quality through reducing or eliminating product quality. Quality control needs the business to generate an environment, where both management and workers can struggle for perfection. Through creating product quality benchmark and testing products, training personnel can check significant quality variation statistically. The chief feature of quality control is to establish some well-defined controls, which can help to maintain a standard of production and product along with reactions regarding quality issues. Hence, to sustain in market under strong competition, quality control procedures are required, as it can help to customers to achieve their needs.

6. Four steps to deal with a customer’s complaint are described below:

1. Listen to complaint of customer carefully: Customers are concerned about the feature of service for which business organization is required to figure out the problem.
2. Apologize and empathize for the situation: After understanding the issue, business organization needs to focus on problems to confirm their concerns. This generates a bond between customer and business organization after knowing that the organization can do everything with their power to modify the situation.
3. Offering and executing a solution: Organization can offer a solution to the customer after talking with their manager. If the customer does not like the solution, other solution can be offered as well.
4. Follow-up the customer and say thank you for their support:

After following all steps mentioned above, organization needs to follow up their customers to confirm that customers are satisfied with those solution. Moreover, it is important to thank customers for bringing the situation in front of the organization and to provide opportunity for resolving it.  

The Importance of Quality Control Procedures

7. The bad attitude of people indicates that they are not cooperative with business organization. Customers bring their complaints against products or services to the organization but do not give enough time for resolving this matter. Instead of this, those customers show their anger and impatience for which organization cannot get enough opportunity to satisfy customers. Moreover, customers do not even bring the matter in front of the company and consequently this organization does not receive opportunities to know about those matters.  However, those customers spread negative rumor about this product and about company. This further generates negative impacts of this organization.

Negative attitude can be seen among employees as well. They cannot proper service to customers rather they show negative and rude attitudes towards customers. This also affect the organization adversely.

8. The four types of communication techniques that a business organization can apply to communicate with their customers are described follows:

1. Do not interrupt customers, as they can be upset if they cannot explain their problem
2. Listen actively about what customers are saying or trying to say
3. Apply both verbal and not verbal techniques to communicate with customers with the help of email, newsletters and phone
4. Adopt better and standard customer service and policies through which customers can communicate with business person for any doubt or problems regarding product or service.

9. Through applying various processes, a business organization can develop its customer relationships. Those processes can be described as follows:

1. Understanding the value of customers: To know and understand about customers, organization needs to know about their problems or complains and consequently adjust proper approach to fulfill their expectations
2. Genuine care towards customers: People, chiefly customers want to connect beyond the professional level as friend. Showing genuine care can improve a healthy relationship between organization and customers
3. Send monthly newsletter to keep customers up to date. This helps customers to know about new products and other facilities provided by the company
4. Conduct special events, contests and parties for customers by which employers can meet with their customers face-to-face and show appreciation for their supports.
5. Encouraging customers to give feedbacks can also help to maintain a healthy relationship with customers. Customer can realize that they are important for the company and their feedback is also vital for the organization. This further can encourage customers to remain attached with customers.

1. To enhance customer service experience and positive communication, a business organization can apply some principles, based on following points:

1. Speed or responsiveness
2. Accuracy regarding information systems, team work and training
3. Clarity related to communication
4. Transparency
5. Accessibility
6. Empowerment
7. Friendliness and politeness

Thus, principles can be categorized under five main categories:

1. Provide a clear understanding of the needs and wants of customers
2. Proper communication with customers
3. Give importance to customers and their feedbacks
4. Internal customer service culture

Benefits:

Positive communication can help a business organization from various aspects, which are,

1. Increase business reputation
2. Increase sales of products
3. Offset higher prices by providing better customer experience
4. Help to sustain within market with other strong competitors

2. To anticipate customer preferences, expectations and needs, a business organization can anticipate following techniques:

1. Know customers accurately along with their needs preference and expectations about products and services.
2. Identify trends of products and generate a plan to produce them. This is because needs and preferences of consumers change over time.
3. Provide customers self-help resources through which customers can compliant or receive services.
4. Business organization needs to think like a customer to understand their needs and preference at present time.
5. To fulfill those steps, the organization can follow certain steps, which are observation, look for patterns, action and implement this action practically

3.Conflict resolution technique can be of various types, such as withdraw or avoid, smooth or accommodate, compromise or reconcile, force or direct and collaborate or problem solve. This report discusses withdraw more precisely.

Withdraw or avoid:

In this technique of conflict resolution, organization wants to avoid the conflict. Thus, this issue resolves issues itself. This technique can be used in some following cases:

• During low stakes
• stakeholders involve in conflict, which is not important
• The organization does not need to invest its time
• The issue can be disappeared itself after certain time
• Giving cooling time among parties when they are under heated argument
• Limited or no information about conflict 

Advantage:

• This technique saves important time of business and consequently it can invest time in production process.

Disadvantages:

• This technique can weaken the position of project manager and can adversely affect his or her relationship with others
• This conflict resolution technique has some disputes as some experts say that this technique has no validity 

4. To enhance service delivery in response to staff and customer feedback, various steps can be followed that are discussed below:

• Crete polls and free surveys through using services, such as, Smart Survey
• Sending mails and messages to staffs and customers and asking them for reviews and testimonials
• Enabling reviews in official website of organization
• gathering feedbacks from social media
• Interact with customers face-to-face

5.

• Generate product or service guide and other content to guide customers properly
• Create a mailing list and send letters or e-mails to customers for informing them about new products
• Wishing them on their special days to make them special
• Build mobile phone app by which customers can purchase their products or services at any time and from anywhere
• Offer best customer service facilities to attract people with some free benefits like free offer or special discount
• Give free tour package to customers for few days to spend their holidays
• Free home delivery and demonstration at customer’s house

6. Hospitality sector is preferred to work.

a. To work in a hospitality sector, an employee needs to maintain some professional service standards along with some protocols:

1. Maintain a standard policy to keep customers happy and satisfied
2. sales services and products with proper guarantees, refunds and warranties
3. Follow a standard marketing and promotional strategy. Proving trainings to staffs and collect performance reviews
4. Consider energy efficiency and environment
5. Follow some corporate social responsibilities

Under protocols , this sector follows:

1. Keeping data of customers as private with proper security
2. Follow some legal restrictions to protect self-interest of both staffs and customers

b. Attitudes and attributes of the service sector industries:

1. Commitment towards customer satisfaction
2. Good communication skills
3. Computer knowledge and other technological knowledge
4. Enthusiasm about jobs that can motivate customers
5. Interpersonal skills to provide best customer service
6. For an efficient leadership employee, strong leadership skill is required
7. Knowledge about safety and hygiene to work in a hotel or restaurants

c. Different types of customer services are required to maintain strong customer base and to provide them proper service. Moreover, needs and wants vary for different customers and for this organization is required to maintain different types of services like lower price facility or free offers and others to satisfy customers.

Dealing with Customer Complaints: Four Steps

d. Customer Loyalty program van be divided under following categories:

1. Points Loyalty program
2. Fee-based Loyalty Program
3. Tiered Loyalty Program
4. Coalition Loyalty Program
5. Cash Back Loyalty Program

e. Essential features to use customer databases:

1. Getting repeat customers
2. Create excellent customer service
3. Adopt proper strategic management
4. Getting new customers by determining want of customers and their marketing strategies 

7. The selected organization is hotel industry:

a.The time between when a organization collects contact or inquiry of customers and when the organization gives response to them, is called response times

b.

• Provide interaction with consumers considerately in a accurate and fair way
• Enquiries of consumers are required to deal in an effective and timely manner
• Customer service staff are required to be trained appropriately to solve common customer problems

c.

• Phone calls should be free to make complaints or to charge at a lower costs when customers use provider’s service
• No charge for making complaints
• Customers are allowed to compliant through using fax, phone or letter and so on
• Complaints are required to be solved in an efficient, objective and fair manner
• Complaints are required to acknowledge immediately
• resolution that is offered to customer, are recorded and applied in an efficient way

d.

• Vast range of promotional areas and spaces
• give incentives to promotional teams
• Branding new products and use other promotional tools
• administrative and permits procedures

8. a. Conduct market analysis to set proper price level for each unit of product or service and give proper quotes that can describe vision of this company shortly

b. Analyze complains of customers regarding this problem and solve them in an appropriate manner by observing and finding the chief reason for this delay

c. Interact with customers face-to-face and regret in from of them for misunderstanding their requests and provide extra service to compensate this

d. gather all escalated complaints and disputes and resolve them with proper strategy

e.Contact with those team members or suppliers and ask about their problems and other assistant that they need

f. Resolve misunderstanding or communication barriers with efficient members and experts and find out actual problem

g. Collect and give importance on customer feedbacks and try to solve those problems with the help of experts and head of business origination and other business advisors

9. Providing them extra facility like reducing their purchasing cost or give some  percentage off on their purchase or payback the total amount according to the level of dissatisfaction.

10. The chief factor to determine customer’s dissatisfaction is rating system by which their level satisfaction can be understood

11. The chief factor to determine customer’s dissatisfaction is rating system by which their level satisfaction can be understood

12. Select feedbacks from loyal and regular customers, who purchase frequently and also some of old customers, who prefer the company more compare to othrs

13. Both verbal and non-verbal communication procedures are required to communicate with customers through phone, email and text messages so that different types of customers can take this facility 

14. Body language and body gestures along with formality of language are more important to address the special needs of customers when they cannot express their requirement properly. Moreover, through conversation they state sometime about their requirement 

2. i) Interact with customers with proper gesture and good attitude   

   ii) Give importance to wants and desires of customers   

   iii) Encourage customers to give their feedbacks

    iv) Maintain standard customer service facility

1.At the end of each business day, actions can be checked for special requests

2. Marketing manager

3. Marketing manager and manger of the company

4. To maintain customer base and to keep contact with them