Customer Relationship Management Skills - Assignment Example

Customer Relationship Management Name Institution Date Table of Contents Running Head: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT 1 Customer Relationship Management 1 Table of Contents 1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT 13 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Customer relationship management skills 4 Customer complaint resolution skills 9 Conclusion 11 Recommendations 11 References 13 Executive Summary Good customer service is about understanding the needs of clients and responding to them effectively. Customer relationship management helps an organization to understand, anticipate and react to the needs of the customers in a consistent manner. A company that has effective CRM is more successful in attracting and maintaining more customers and closing deals quickly, through more efficient and quicker responses to customer information and customer needs. In addition, improved understanding and responsiveness to customer needs builds customer satisfaction and loyalty and minimizes customer churn. Introduction Quality customer service acts as the key to success for every business. Offering and sustaining good customer service is the key to having broad client database that is fundamental for the longevity of the business. Through practicing superior quality consumer service via appropriate customer relationship management along with active listening, appropriate negotiations and dealing with customer complaints, the organization attains loyal and repeat clients who are likely to buy and utilize more products and service and refer other clients to the organization. This report looks at skills associated with customer relationship management and gives recommendations on how Sydney Hobart Perth and Partners (SHP&P) can improve its CRM. Customer relationship management skills Active listening Listening is a key element in offering superior customer service and this is a reality for each business entity. Active listening surpasses hearing what other people have to say and listening is a skill that requires to be developed so as to understand appropriately what other people talk about. Having excellent listening skills makes an employee to be highly productive and allows her or him to properly execute her or his duties. Via active listening, the customer service representative is capable to properly identify customers’ needs. Exact determination of the needs of the customers is crucial in offering instant remedies for customers. Listening helps an employee to create a strategic perspective that facilitates the process of decision making in the course of offering answers to the questions asked by the customer. Through actively listening to customers and giving them a chance to ask questions, a company is able to build good relationships with its customers and promote customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is highly vital for SHP&P since happy and satisfied customers have a great will of continuing doing business with an organization, thus ensuring consistent patronage on services and products (Brink & Berndt, 2009). According to Schneider (2002), customer service entails much more than merely functioning as the interface with the client. If handled appropriately by skilled and experienced staff it may be a key to customer relationship management as well as retention. One of the major fields of customer relationship management is active listening which entails behavior that displays that the organization is on a similar page as its clients. Active listening skills are important as they promote effective communication between the company and its customers. A good customer service representative gives customers a chance to express their opinions other than dominating the whole conversation. Every person needs to be listened to, but an excellent customer service representative is capable of suppressing this urge. Other than taking time to formulate their thoughts and looking for ways of how to present their thoughts in the most effective way, they execute this with their inner monologues. This implies that they listen freely and attentively while making suitable popping words and noises into the dialogue to display that they are actively following the train of thought of their customer. Active listeners usually repeat main messages received from the client to ensure that the fundamental points have been clearly understood (Schneider, 2002). According to Brink and Berndt (2009), building relationships with clients becomes simpler through carefully listening to them. Customers are usually grateful for the respect that is illustrated to them through listening and this is an excellent of establishing excellent customer relationship that will make customers to be loyal to the company and thus prevent them form moving to other organizations. In addition, listening is a useful tool in calming angry customers as angry clients can be extremely difficult to deal with. They can be very demand and rude during particular circumstances, and through listening to them actively, they feel that they aren’t being ignored and that they are valued by the business. Listening has a direct impact on raising bottom line profitability for the company. Sales pitching are highly effective via the assistance of active listening because it paves way towards a cheerful dialogue. This in turn opens up opportunities for the busieness to further market goods and services and thus generates increased sales and revenue for the company (Brink & Berndt, 2009) Active listening is the hinge on which quality customer service relations hang. Listening to the customers thoroughly and permitting them to speak out their complaint, concern or opinion without interrupting them is a portion of active listening. Gibson (2011) notes that through allowing customers to voice their opinions, they feel that their thoughts are valued and their worth in the organization. The other constituent of active listening is inquiring clarifying queries form the clients and making reiterations or comments that demonstrate the client that the service provider have a good understanding of what the clients are attempting to communicate. Effective and active listening needs both a keen mind and deliberate efforts. Active listeners appreciate the flow of novel information and ideas. Companies that follow the rules of effective and active listening are usually informed timely and updated with changes in customer needs and demands. Active listening promotes good relationship with customers, encourages innovation and product delivery and assists companies to deal with diversity in their employees and the customers they serve (Gibson, P., (2011). Negotiation skills Negotiation is the assessment of the probable remedies to a challenge and selection of a remedy that is equally beneficial. Negotiation skills and techniques are very important in building superior long term relationships between an organization and its customers. Having excellent negotiation skills may be the difference between the failure and success of a company in the business world. Appropriate negotiations with clients can lead to increased customer loyalty and satisfaction. According to Cohen, (2005), majority of customers might fit quite well in your business structure, permitting an organization to offer the best services without negotiating. Nevertheless, other clients might want a company to make concessions in its product, policy, or price in order to win and keep its business. Through effective negotiations with customers, an organization is able to meet the needs and demands of customers, which in turn promotes good customer relationship management. There are numerous ways in which a customer service representative can use his or her negotiation skills to negotiate with clients without sacrificing the service or bargaining away company’s profits in the negotiation process. Cohen (2005) argues that prior to the commencement of the negotiation process, its vital to establish how far one is willing to take. An employee with good negotiation skills is aware of particular factors in a circumstance that are negotiable and ones that cannot be negotiated. Through knowing which factor a staff is capable to work it, it becomes possible for him to guide the client to particular points. Majority of negotiable factors include terms of payments and potential discounts, insurance and warranties included with product, delivery schedules and options for the purchased product and customization of product to the needs of the customer. Things that cannot be negotiated include factors that would influence the value of product or safety concerns. The customer service representative should therefore to maneuver concessions away from these factors, but should not be scared to hold negotiations when a client decides to push (Cohen, 2005). During the negotiation process it is important to learn the real needs of the customer. A customer might get so engrossed in the process of negotiation and therefore be unable to focus upon her or his bottom line need. In such instance, it is important for the customer service representative to come in and establish the actual need of the customer. Spangle and Isenhart (2003) argue that through listening, a staff is able to pinpoint the real needs of customers and make sure that negotiations sufficiently meet their demands and needs. This results to satisfied and happy clients even if they do not get everything they expected to get at the end of the negotiation process. Negotiation with customers requires an employee to be prepared with a wide range of solutions that will be acceptable by both the company and the customer. When possible, the customer service representative is supposed to offer two or more potential solution to the customers, as this will assist they to feel that they possess some control and choices in the process. It is also important to explain every solution to the customers carefully; entailing the benefits it provides to them and ask the input of customer on the solutions. This will permit them to select a solution that they deem will meet their needs in the best way (McRae, 2004). McRae (2004) argues that whilst negotiations are a key for a successful business, it is crucial for any company to make pleasant and correct agreements with opposite parties it is dealing with. Most efficient negotiations include compromises by both parties. Nevertheless, conceding too quickly or too much will make customers to repeat performances at later dates and thus it is important to make concessions when possible and ensure that they are in line with the anticipations the company want its clients to have for its business. Customer complaint resolution skills Mistakes and misunderstandings occur in every business and how a company deals with customer complaints that happen as a result of these mistakes is very important. According to Cook, (2012), customer complaints, problems or request should be resolved in an effective way. A constructive scheme of problem solving is for the company to ask the client what is likely to resolve the problem. Whilst this place obligation on the clients to share what they see or how they feel as a suitable resolution, it also place a considerable responsibility on the person whose task is to make decisions on what a suitable resolution would be. Williams (2002) notes that each business has to deal with incidents in which things are on the wrong from customer’s viewpoint. However a company reacts if this occurs, the concerned party should not be dismissive of the complaint of the customer even if she or he is convinced that the company isn’t at fault. A client with one or more complaints represents an authentic opportunity for the business because if the company handles the grievance successfully and effectively, the concerned customer has a high likelihood of proving more loyalty to the company. In addition, customers who complain are very few and thus a complaining client might be alerting the company of a crisis experienced by other customers who didn’t complain and silently moved to other businesses. According to Barlow (2009), when a client contacts a company to make a complaint on a service or product purchased, it can be a good thing in disguise because for every customer who complains, they might be several others who don’t bother to make complaints but also convey negative comments on the company. In incidents where client complaints happen, they must be tackled immediately and cause of these complaints rectified. Several companies aren’t concerned with quality of products or services and usually ignore complaints or dishonestly deal with them (Cook, 2012). Dealing with customer complaints effectively and timely leads to customer satisfaction which is beneficial to the business in long run. When a client purchases a service product, it is presumed that this product will function properly and the service delivered is as promised. Idyllically, the client will be contented and there won’t be any complaints. If there is a problem and a client protests about it, the company must swiftly deal with the complaint and resolve the problem of the customer. This is usually executed through organization’s customer service activity but a company is also required to follow up the cause of the problem and improve its business processes so as to resolve the problem (Williams, 2002). Conclusion Active listening, negotiation and complaint resolution skills are vital skills in customer relationship management. Through proper application of these skills, an organization is able to effectively offer quality customer service and maintain a wide customer base which is essential for the long term success of the company. These skills also enable an organization to understand the needs of customers and to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Therefore, it is vital for every organization to make sure that its staff is equipped with the appropriate listening, negotiation and customer complaint resolution skills to enable them to deliver quality customer service. Recommendations In order to improve its CRM, SHP&P should train its employees on customer complaint resolution skills, active listening skills and negotiation skills. Offering training in these key areas will enable employees to deliver quality customer service. Theses skills should also be reinforced using continous coaching and feedback and measurement of current performance levels. The company can also improve customer relationship management through the recovery process which is a significant differentiator in developing customer loyalty. So as to recover efficiently, the company should actively seek customer complaints and feedback and train employees on ways of dealing with consumer complaints effectively through the use of the appropriate mix of apologizing, empathizing and resolution. Complaints must be handled sympathetically, courteously and swiftly. The management should ensure that the company has a well established protocol for dealing with complaints from customers and that it is universally known to every employee. The company should use customer relationship management software to enhance effective communication amongst the staff. Cappel and Huang (2007) note that CRM software will permit information to be simply gathers and accessed via a fully automated scheme. The CRM system will be massage important updates and outcomes to the organization’s client base and will also send frequent reminders of vital developments to every staff through a fully automated interior communication service. References Barlow, J., (2009). A complaint is a gift: recovering customer loyalty when things go. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Brink, A., & Berndt, A., (2009). Relationship marketing and customer relationship management. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Cappel, J., & Huang, Z., (2007). A Usability Analysis of Company Websites." Journal of Computer Information Systems 48, 117-123.s Cohen, S., (2005). Negotiating skills for managers. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Cook, S., (2012). Complaint management excellence: Creating customer loyalty through service recovery. London: Kogan Page. Gibson, P., (2011). The world of customer service. New York: Cengage Learning McRae, B., (2004). Negotiating and influencing skills: the art of creating and claiming value. London: Sage. Schneider, M., (2002). Total customer relationship management. New York: Cengage Learning. Spangle, M., & Isenhart, M., (2003). Negotiation: communication for diverse settings. London: SAGE Williams, T., (2002). Dealing with customer complaints. London: Gower Press. Read More