Customer Service Strategies

1. Customer Service Strategies

2. Objectives Managing the customer service function • Describe the changing nature of the customer service function. • Demonstrate an understanding of the trade-off between achieving high levels of customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. • Distinguish between hard and soft customer service standards. • Explain how to translate customer expectations into firm behaviours and actions. • Explain how technology is leveraging customer service. • List the key factors to be considered when designing an effective customer service organisation.

3. Defining customer service Customer service involves task-oriented activities that involve interactions with customers in person or by technology for the purposes of service ‘manufacture’, ‘delivery’ and service support.

4. Creating the petals of the Flower of Service Figure 9.1 Examples of jobs providing specific supplementary services

5. Improving customer service in response to competitive pressures • Service standards (key performance indicators—KPIs) • Customer-defined service standards

6. Service standards (key performance indicators KPIs) • Standardisation of service behaviours and actions • Service targets and goals

7. Figure 9.2 A telecommunications company example

8. Customer-defined service standards • Converting customer expectations into specific behaviours and actions • Setting customer-defined standards • Customer service attributes for a web-based financial service

9. Figure 9.3 Converting customer expectations into organisational action and behaviours

10. Service culture Service culture is “the pattern of shared values and beliefs that give the members of an organisation meaning, and provide them with the rules for behaviour in the organisation”. • A service culture exists if there is an ‘appreciation for good service’. • Good service is given to internal as well as external customers.

11. Employees and customer service • Delivering the core service as promised—reliability—is often totally within the control of frontline employees • Employees are critical to service recovery efforts

12. Outsourcing customer service • A growing trend for frontstage staff to be supplied on a contract basis by specialist human resource companies • One of the future challenges in managing the customer service function will be to manage this network of customer service function suppliers

13. How technology is leveraging customer service • Customer service is becoming increasingly technology based. • Technology can improve operational efficiency. • Technology is creating opportunities for real-time feedback from the marketplace.

14. Factors shaping the customer service function • Presence or absence of intermediaries • High contact versus low contact • Duration of service delivery process • Capacity-constrained services • Frequency of use and repurchase • Level of complexity

15. Guidelines for effective program implementation • Recruit the right employees • Train and educate employees • Educate customers • Take care of employees • Be efficient first, nice second • Standardise response systems • Develop a pricing policy • Consider using subcontractors • Be proactive • Evaluate performance regularly • Acknowledge and affirm good work • Take corrective actions on defective work

16. Objectives Crafting the service environment • Demonstrate an understanding of the key ambient conditions and their effects on customers. • Describe the roles of spatial layout and functionality. • Describe the roles of signs, symbols and artefacts. • Explain why designing an effective servicescape has to be done holistically and from the customer’s perspective.

17. What is the purpose of service environments? • Engineer the customers’ experience and shape their behaviours • Convey the planned image of the firm and support its positioning and differentiation strategy • Act as part of the value proposition • Facilitate the service encounter and enhance both service quality and productivity

18. Shape customers’ experiences and behaviour • As a message-creating medium • As an attention-creating medium • As an effect-creating medium

19. The theory behind consumer responses to service environments • Feelings are a key driver of customer responses to service environments • The servicescapes model—an integrative framework

20. Feelings a key driver of customer responses to service environments • The Mehrabian–Russell Stimulus-Response Model • Russell’s Model of Affect • Affective and cognitive processes • Behavioural consequences of affect

21. The Mehrabian–Russell Stimulus-Response Model Figure 10.1 Model of environmental responses

22. Figure 10.2 The Russell Model of Affect

23. Affective and cognitive processes • Affect can be caused by perceptions and cognitive processes of any degree of complexity • The more complex a cognitive process becomes, the more powerful is its potential impact on affect

24. Behavioural consequences of affect • Arousal acts as an amplifier of the basic effect of pleasure on behaviour. • When customers have strong affective expectations, it is important that the environment is designed to match those expectations.

25. Figure 10.3 The servicescape model

26. Dimensions of the service environment • Ambient conditions • Spatial layout and functionality • Signs, symbols and artefacts • People are part of the service environment too

27. The effect of ambient conditions • Music • Scent • Colour

28. Spatial layout and functionality • Spatial layout refers to the floor plan, size and shape of furnishings, counters and potential machinery and equipment, and the ways in which they are arranged. • Functionality refers to the ability of those items to facilitate the performance of service transactions.

29. Signs, symbols and artefacts Figure 10.4 Signs are frequently used to teach and reinforce behavioural rules in service settings.

30. People are part of the service environment too Figure 10.5 Distinctive servicescapes—from table settings to furniture and room design—create different customer expectations of these two restaurants

31. Putting it all together • Design with the holistic view • Design from a customer’s perspective

32. Tools to guide servicescape design • Keen observation • Feedback and ideas from frontline staff and customers • Photo audit • Field experiments • Blueprinting or flowcharting