Customer Service Concepts - Assignment Example

? Service Concepts Service Concepts Benchmarking Benchmarking is one of the several tools of management that can beused for the enhancement of customer services. Benchmarking is regarded as the procedure of learning, imitating and crossing over the practices that are recognized as the best practices throughout the world. Benchmarking procedure is used to make dramatic improvements to the quality of services and products offered by an organization. The procedure of benchmarking can even be used by an organization to differentiate itself from other competing organizations and ensuring that the organization is able to gain a competitive advantage in order to maximize market share of the organization in the industry it is operating. Organizations such as banks are becoming globalized and as this process spreads throughout the world, customers of banks will expect their banks to provide same world class services and products to them (IMF, 2005, p.409). Benchmarking can be applied in various aspects of banking industry. A bank can use benchmark to increase its customer service quality by decreasing the processing time and bring it to the level which is equally accepted throughout the world or ensuring that the processing time is better than the processing time of any other bank. Banks can even use benchmarking to produce competitive products that charge lower amount of interest as compared to other banks. Complaint Management System CMS (Complaint Management System) is a system that comprises of various tools that are integrated together to ensure that complaints of consumers are handled in the most efficient manner. These tools may or may not include: automatic registration of complaints that are new, management of complains that have already occurred, escalating importance towards those complaints that have not yet been solved and are occurring on constant basis, management of the status of the complaints that have been launched, inquiring regarding the progress of the complaint, management of complaints in accordance to the department, monitoring the efficiency and effectiveness of complain management and collecting data to solved and unsolved complaints. A bank needs to ensure that it has an efficient and effective complaint management system in which customer complaints are dealt with least possible delays and the solution is satisfactory for the customer (Junarso, 2006). In order to create an effective and efficient complaint management system, banks should have online complaint registration systems so the customers can instantly launch their complaints. Once the complaint is received, the complaint manager should forward it to the relevant department and the relevant department should correct the issue as soon as complaint is received. The banks need to hold a history of all the complaints and solutions for those complaints so in future if similar complaints arise, they are sorted out immediately. HEAT (Hear, Empathize, Apologize and Take Ownership) Customer satisfaction can be attained if the concept of HEAT is applied by organizations such as banks. Hear them out is the first step in which the employee listens to the issues of the customer and does not retaliate even if the customer looses his/her temper. While receiving complaints, banking staff should ensure that they quietly listen to all the issues experienced by the customer before responding (Zemke, 1999, p.291). Once the employee has clearly heard the issues experienced by the customer, the employee needs to respond to the customer in an empathetic manner and inform them that the problem experienced by the customer is well understood. A banking employee needs to be aware of how a customer feels when he/she experiences an issue. Next the banking customer needs to respond in a very apologetic manner and apologize from the customer for all the issues caused. A simple apology can change the entire attitude of the customer. Once the problem has been well heard by a banking employee, he needs to make the customer comfortable by ensuring him that all the issues experienced by the customer will be handled with care and a solution will be soon provided to the customer. Personal Connection End users of an organization’s goods and services can a great source to motivate the employees of an organization and this is especially taking place in the context of small businesses. When customers and employees come directly into contact with each other and establish a two way personal connection, employees feel motivated to work harder and produce better quality goods and services. When employees are in direct contact with the customers, employees feel that their organization trusts them and are awarding them with a bigger responsibility as customers as the main strength of any organization. For example: in banking sector, tellers of a bank’s branch are allowed to be in direct contact with several customers. Employees who work as tellers end up being up, close and personal to these customers and customers start trusting them more than the managers or the higher level staff of the organization. When a personal contact is created, customers inform the bank tellers about the issues they are facing and the bank tellers tend to inform the top level management about these issues. When these issues are resolved, customer feels satisfied and praises the employee and this leads to motivating the workforce. Customer Centric Customers are the strength of the organization and the blocks that hold an organization together. If a business needs to operate in a successful manner in the long run and if a business needs to continue operating in a competitive manner it needs to ensure that it develops a strong relationship with it existing customer base and increase its current base of customers (Blattberg, 2008, 592). In order to achieve loyal customers, the organization needs to adopt customer centric approach. Organizations that adopt this approach divert all its resources towards its customers. In customer centric approach a bank needs to be emotionally intelligent towards the needs of the customer and needs to ensure that these needs are met in the best possible manner. If an organization fails to meet the needs of the customer, the customer will start looking for other options that can satisfy customer needs in a better manner. Banks can become customer centric by creating products in accordance to the customer needs. For example: currently customers are facing issues in repaying their bank loans due to high rate of interests. If banks start creating products that charge lower rate of interest, they will be able to attract more customers. References Blattberg, R. C., Kim, P., & Neslin, S. A. (2008). Database marketing analyzing and managing customers. New York: Springer. Financial sector assessment: a handbook. (2005). Washington, D.C.: World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Junarso, T. (2006). Comprehensive approach to corporate governance. New York: iUniverse. Zemke, R., & Woods, J. A. (1999). Best practices in customer service. Amherst, Mass.: HRD Press ;. Read More