SatE: CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY (part 4)

Benchmarking

• The company would look at competing businesses using mystery shoppers
• Analyzing the competing business quantitative and qualitative aspects
• Adopting anything that the Bloomsbury finds useful
• Measuring the viability and validity of the benchmark
• Monitoring the established benchmarks

Quantitative and qualitative indicators

Qualitative measures: this refers to the results based on quality or characteristic as opposed to size or quantity.

Qualitative indicators

• Questionnaires: these are designed to find out information and requirement of the market. This is a means of primary research which can be laid out in various formed all designed to acquire the information needed to make the right decisions.
• Suggestion cards complaint centres: when a firm conducts this type of research the firm would be trying to attain information on how the customers feel about the firm, if there are any common requirements that the firm needs as well as information that could help the firm make better decisions.
• Focus groups: theses are usually conducted to find out customer loyalty and more information on repeat customers. There are two major types of focus groups that the firm can use these would be :
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• Internal: internal focus groups would be done within the firm with internal customers in order to discuss and find out how staff are feeling about their jobs and how they would want this to be, this is because management would want to know how the could improve the internal working environment for their staff which would reflect onto the staff. The information that is attained form these focus groups is used to make better decisions that would have derived from the employees interest indication the quality of the firm.
• External: external focus groups would be when the firm gets customers together to discuss how they feel about their experiences with the firm and how they feel about the firm in general the firm would find out information such as customer loyalty and what makes them loyal. These focus groups are generally set up to investigate, and acquire information on how to satisfy their customers best. The most imperative way of gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage would be by satisfying and ultimately wowing the customers

Quantitative indicators

Quantitative measures: these are results that are based on or measured in terms of quantity or numerical value. This can be seen as sales and profit levels, speed of service, customer retention, the number of complaints received about staff, or products or services, the percentage of orders resulting from visits to customers by sales people, and responses to marketing material sent out.

Quantitative indicators would include:

Sales figures: sales figure show the performance of the firm in terms of numbers, this shows general statistics of the firm performance from that the firm would now how well they are doing in comparison to other firms in the same market or to its history.

Staff turnover: this is the rate of staff leaving the firm and being replaced if the staff turnover us high then the firm would know that their motivation in the firm is low and then would have to do something about this.

Guaranteeing 100 percent satisfaction

Entrepreneurs can be best guarantee 100 percent satisfaction to their customers by securing how they feel about their purchase or service. This is key in order to satisfy customer’s needs and fulfil their expectations. Since customer service is the way the company looks after it’s customers by putting them first, it should not just concentrate on the dogmatic elements of the staff to customer relations but staff, to be consider what a customer would expect to be available, such as; the business should make sure the range is of products advertised and marketed, is available to the customers, the company should make sure the product range would be delivered on time if delivery services are offered, the company should be able  provide the relevant information about the product and if not the staff should know where to refer the customer, to acquire the information, the entrepreneur  should be able to give advice on the choices of purchase, the company could offer services that can help support the customers financially such as credit facilities when appropriate specially when purchasing expensive commodities for example allowing the customers to pay over a period of time, the company could offer:

• after sales
• guarantees,
• spare parts,
• helplines
• services and upgrades

This could differentiate the customer service from competitor’s customer service giving the company a competitive advantage and by making sure the company is selling goods of quality and value for money, which is safe and reliable. The best way and most common way to do this would be by offering after sales services, this come in a number of forms:

• Warrantees
• Lifelong guarantees
• Free insurance
• Money back policies

To ensure that the customer is fully satisfied the firm can then ask customer for feedback and attend to the feedback accordingly. Most firms such as Cruicialmemory.com offer seven days to return and they give you your money back promptly, the firm also offers to insure you product for free if you are happy with the product purchased. 

Acting on complains, ideas, suggestions and personal information

Entrepreneurs need to train their staff to help them understand customer’s different situations and be impersonal to any circumstances. Businesses should maintain confidentiality and should be able to practice that procedure within the business. Customers should be able to give personal information and should be secured that the information is safe. Different policies with the business should reinforce the customer’s security. Staff ought to be trained in sufficient ways, to be able to handle customer’s sensitivity and must be smart enough to allow customers to feel confident when confronting the staff. The customer service should be trained to speak to customers on different levels of interests for example a woman entering a game store with a small child would be expected to be looking for a simple child’s game where as if a teenage boy was to enter the same shop the staff would expect him to be looking for an advanced active game. So staff should be able to relate to their customers according to those criteria. For example is a woman is buying ladies sanitary items would not need to be commented on whereas clothing or fashion would. 

Situations where customers have been referred to someone:

When an internal or external customer has been referred to the business by another business the customer or business the firm should be able to attend to the new customers’ needs thoroughly by communicating to them clearly and attentively supporting the customers’ suggestions. The firm should identify the reasons for the customers’ referral and resolve the matter. If the business is referring customers to a business they show state reasons why and how to locate the referred business, give full details on how to contact them as well as advise on alternative solutions. Since there are situations when an organization may not be able to fully help a customer with a specific problem and the firm would need to refer the customer to another personnel or firm that would be able to deal with the issue. The major thing that is involved in this case is the firm capability to identify where they stand. Staff should know how much authority they have to handle different situations. Internal customers must be able to communicate in a way that makes it easier for them to be able to refer external customers. internal staff should be able to identify their lines of work and must be able to identify which superiors they can delegate work to. To do this the internal staff should be able to recognize the limitations of the wok and job requirements. This way it would be clear for staff to be able to recommend customers to either their colleagues, superiors or other businesses.

Reference can occur for example then a customer enters a shop looking for a specific product and finds that it is not there, they may need to be recommended to another firm that has it or another branch. Staff can only do this if they have knowledge of the firm’s product portfolio. Another example would be if a customer where to enter Zara and wanted their money back for a product they purchased a one month before, if the customer where to confront a sales assistant the sales assistant may not be in the position to take the customers claim, but the sales assistant would need to know which authorised personnel to send the customer to as reference. Another example where reference might take place would be; if Curry’s because they sell laptops in the store a customer may automatically assume that the firm sells replacements parts for the lap top, curries dose not sell the replacement parts so they would need to refer the customer to the manufactures or to a firm that does sell the replacement parts.

Legal requirements that must be met concerning information supplied to and records held about customers:

The business would have to comply with the, Data Protection Act 1988.The personal data obtained by the business should be fairly processed. The business should constantly update the information provided by the customer. The business is only required to keep the data for lawful purposes. The business should only collect information that is adequate for its purpose. The business should insure the data from unauthorised access or destruction of the data. A business should consider all these aspects, before providing a service to the public. (Source; www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc .-Data, protection commissioner-Ireland)

Prompting employee ‘buy in’

Entrepreneurs should able to reflect their success onto their employees the same way Bill Gates has. All of his staff are very confident in his work and thus have bought shares I the firm. They have shared the same ideology as himself. The internal customers should have a relationship with the entrepreneur this would then motivate the staff to work more effectively and more vigorously. It is important for the staff member to be motivated in every way.