Empowerment in Customer Service Management - Essay Example

? Importance of empowerment in service management Table of Contents Introduction 3 Empowerment 3 Ways of empowerment 3 Successful Service Organizations 5 Conclusion 6 References 7 Introduction The private and public organizations are struggling globally to reach up to the mark to obtain the business benefits in respect of improved customer service. However, they are sometimes punished by the customers and regulators posing risk to the future of their business. The traditional view in the form of simple dichotomy to customer relationship between the need of customer for increased satisfaction and improved service levels and the competing need of business for improved efficiency and productivity is no longer valid. The businesses who are struggling for improving their customer service are unable to consider and recognize the need and role of their own employees. The traditional form of approach to customer service through customer relationship management and automated workflows are not performing well as they are not considering the power their employees. Customer service can be transformed by the customer service organizations by empowering their employees. The employee empowerment can transform customer service providing benefits to business, customer and employee, the three stakeholders in customer relationship. Empowerment Empowerment is the process of granting greater responsibility to everyone who works for an organization. In literal sense, it denotes granting the power of making decisions. It is the process of authorizing or enabling an individual to behave, thinks, control work and take action and make decisions in autonomous ways. Empowering the members of an organization is a tremendous motivational tool as it provides them the feeling that they are contributing to the organization by their own initiative and are improving the performance and achieving better results. The empowerment of employees plays a significant role in achieving superior customer service as they are the best in performing their jobs (Mabey, Skinner and Clark, 1998, pp.42-43). Ways of empowerment The empowerment can be fostered among the employees of an organization in the following manner: Creation of non-threatening environment The empowerment and creativity are defused by the traditional organizations using power and micro management. Creativity and empowerment should flourish in the organization by providing freedom to employees in respect of pursuing their interest and they should be supported and encouraged by the management. Resolving problems by employees The managers should not always provide answers to every problem; rather the employees should be guided to think critically for themselves to resolve the issues. When employees will act on their own, it will result in better solutions because they will be the experts while performing their jobs and the manager might not have all the facts available with him. Allowing for mistakes Individuals and companies can grow and learn by making mistakes. The employees should be supported even after making mistakes. Learning is the most significant part that takes place within an organization. The employees should be encouraged to share information with the team. The individuals are not required to make mistakes to learn rather they can also learn from the mistakes of others. Respecting employee ideas or suggestions The ideas or suggestions of employees should never be ignored as one of these ideas may turn the company into a business of multi-million dollar. If an idea does not seem appropriate, the rationale should be discussed with the employee. This will not make the employee to feel ignored by the management. Developing each employee through projects Each employee should be made the team leader on a certain project which will provide them the confidence to grow and to be an excellent contributor within the company. Creating opportunities for advancement and development The excellent contributors are required to be felt valued. The additional work is required by them for opportunities for quick advancement and stimulation. Otherwise, they may leave the company (Silva, 2005, p.262). Employee recognition The employees should be recognized who have empowered themselves for providing world class customer service both at the individual level and in front of their peers and company. Creating a competitive team environment A company can become more competitive if new ideas will flourish in the business environment. The best in employees is brought out by competition. The employee should have goals like the wish to be the employee of month or year. Decentralized decision making The decision making should be left to managers and employees who are closest to customer experience. It should not be left to senior management staff and CEO. The executives should rely on the reporting of its management staff and should do the right thing for customers and employees. Successful Customer Service Organizations The shorter product development cycles and globalization are making it difficult for organizations to differentiate themselves on price and product. As a consequence, customer service is seen by many organizations as a core component of marketing mix and key area of differentiation to attract new customers and to retain existing ones. Certain key practices are required to be employed by the organizations to provide better customer service. These include communicating proactively and effectively with customers, understanding and measuring customer expectations, empowering the employee to solve problems, providing the products and services with convenience and speed. At the touch points of customer, employees should be assigned the responsibility to make use of their judgement and the authority of making decisions on behalf of customer and organization. This can provide enhanced and better customer service. Conclusion Large private and public sector organizations are suffering penalties due to the processes of poor customer service. It is now realized by many organizations that transformative customer service can be delivered by empowering the employees and following the process of decision making in a controlled fashion from within the organization to the team facing the customer. By meeting the needs of business, customer and employee simultaneously which are the three stakeholders, the weaknesses of business applications like customer relationship management can be addressed in delivering customer support (Saxena, 2009, p.632). Providing support for decision making, the organization can improve the efficiency and quality of unpredictable engagements of customers. Empowered employees have higher levels of motivation and they enjoy their work and loyalty. Highly motivated employees can help the organization, in turn, to achieve its goal of putting the customer in first. References Mabey, C., Skinner, D. and Clark, T., 1998. Experiencing Human Resource Management. California: SAGE. Silva, A., 2005. The Ten Commandments of Quality Management: Best Practices to Develop New Leaders And Create a Quality Environment. United states: iUniverse. Saxena, 2009. Marketing Management 4E. 4th edition. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Read More