Customer Satisfaction at Dick Smith Foods in Australia - Case Study Example

FINAL RESEARCH PAPER FOR MGT203: A survey on Customer Satisfaction at Dick Smith Foods in Australia Name: Course: Institution: Instructor: Date: Executive summary Australian Food Industry is rated among the most competitive ventures in Australia. The ability of any entrepreneur to penetrate existing market and sustain market competition largely depends on the alignment of the organization structure towards provision of high quality products and services. Customer service has in many occasions been the determining edge and survival factor for many investors in the food industry. Dick Smith Foods Company is one of the reputable players in the Australian food market. The tremendous success of the Dick Smith Foods company can largely be attributed to the high quality customer services it accord to both its external and internal customers. The company has factored customer service as a prudent constituent of its organizational structure and has designed the managerial team to foresee and monitor exhaustive implementation of the firm’s customer service policies. As a result, Dick Smith Foods has continuously expanded its customer population since its establishment hence the numerous constituent and affiliate businesses all over Australia. Contents Introduction 4 Results 5 Several inferences can be made from the results depicting the level of customer satisfaction as at Dick Smith Foods. Dick Smith Foods has a well-organized and flexible customer service department intentionally created to attend to customer complains opinions, views and all other issues that pertain to high quality service delivery. The department has a representative in virtually all other departments of the organization to monitor, observe and advise and make recommendations on adjustments to suit customer comfort and satisfaction. 5 Dick Smith Foods also enjoys a large customer base within Australia. For instance, the firm owns more than 37% of the total food market share in Australia. This directly implies that most people prefer doing their shopping for food at Dick Smith Foods and affiliate premises. The market share of the Australian food market is as shown in the pie chart below. 5 A number of customers interviewed also show significant satisfaction with a number of customer service aspects at Dick Smith Foods. On average, the score for every customer service aspect as at Dick Smith Foods is at levels we can term as generally satisfying to the customers. For instance, the bar chart below shows the graphical representation of customer responses on customer care staff responsiveness, professionalism and understanding of customer needs 6 7 Analysis of results 7 i.Customers 7 Dick Smith Foods has two broad categories of customers; internal and external customers 7 ii.Customer information collection 9 iii.Customer service plan 10 iv.Services standards 11 v.Quality monitoring strategies 13 Conclusion 14 Recommendations 15 Dick Smith Foods Company has done virtually all that pertains to offer of high quality service management. Both the management as well as the subordinate staff have sufficient grasp of what high quality customer service entails and the proceeds that come along with such services. However, it would be recommended hereby that Dick Smith Foods considers designing and implementing a customer loyalty and award scheme in its structure. This would involve running continuous promotions and customer award schemes to encourage bulk purchasing as well as further increase the customer population. Promotions and awards in particular might serve to draw customers from other competitor companies to Dick Smith Foods. 15 Introduction Dick Smith Foods is one of the leading food brands in Australia. The company was established in 1999 by an Australian Entrepreneur Dick Smith with an intention of providing an Australian owned and produced alternatives brands to products from foreign-owned food companies which had dominated t6he Australian food market by that time. The formation of the company was also necessitated as an entrepreneurial response to the high market share of food companies, as well as the frequent take-over of previously Australian-owned companies such as Armott’s and Paul’s. The company currently commands a large customer base within Australia with affiliate and constituent businesses almost set up in each town despite the existence of other numerous enterprises dealing in similar business. The company therefore strives to offer the best customer service to guarantee satisfaction to its clients so as to withstand the stiff competition within the industry. This has been factored within the organizational structure of the Dick Smith Foods so as to enhance efficient attention to all aspects of customer satisfaction. This report therefore presents the results and subsequent analysis of the same findings that were established after a research case study conducted at the firm’s premises with the aim of establishing the level of customer satisfaction regarding both the products and services offered at Dick Smith Foods. Results Several inferences can be made from the results depicting the level of customer satisfaction as at Dick Smith Foods. Dick Smith Foods has a well-organized and flexible customer service department intentionally created to attend to customer complains opinions, views and all other issues that pertain to high quality service delivery. The department has a representative in virtually all other departments of the organization to monitor, observe and advise and make recommendations on adjustments to suit customer comfort and satisfaction. Dick Smith Foods also enjoys a large customer base within Australia. For instance, the firm owns more than 37% of the total food market share in Australia. This directly implies that most people prefer doing their shopping for food at Dick Smith Foods and affiliate premises. The market share of the Australian food market is as shown in the pie chart below. A number of customers interviewed also show significant satisfaction with a number of customer service aspects at Dick Smith Foods. On average, the score for every customer service aspect as at Dick Smith Foods is at levels we can term as generally satisfying to the customers. For instance, the bar chart below shows the graphical representation of customer responses on customer care staff responsiveness, professionalism and understanding of customer needs Analysis of results i. Customers Dick Smith Foods has two broad categories of customers; internal and external customers Internal customers Internal customers often refer to all those people that work within any given organization at different levels of interaction within the organization. Internal customers may also refer to people working within other organizations but who engage with a given company or firm to provide the later with goods and or services. This category of customers often majorly includes organization employees together with suppliers and contactors. Dick Smith Foods has got two categories of internal customers. The first batch includes all people contracted to render their services to the company hence employees. The management of the company strives to provide the best working environment at Dick Smith Foods Company. Such efforts include provision of significantly improved remunerations and salaries, employee appraisal programs, perks and gifts as well as team building events and rewarding exemplary performance. This greatly boosts employee confidence and morale which later culminates into increased output from the same employees. The second batch of internal customers includes service and product providers of the company. These are individuals and companies who are contracted by Dick Smith Foods Company to provide either product such as the foodstuffs that constitute the company stock or services such as cleaning, external auditing, electrification services and transportation. Most of them work on contacts awarded at the start of each financial year. This type of internal customers change from time to time since subsequent supply tenders awarded or renewed basing on prior performance by the same customers. Those who provide substandard goods or services are definitely replaced in the next awarding session. External customers External customers often refer to individuals that bring in revenue that help sustain and keep the company in operation. They constitute the market share of the company. External customers to Dick Smith Foods will thus collectively refer to all those individuals that purchase the foodstuffs and related products of the company. The main external customers of the Dick Smith Foods include residents of major towns in Australia who constitute retail customers as well as major distributors within Australia who directly pick their merchandise from the central stores. Distributors buy the foodstuffs in bulk from the company stores and warehouses to later sell them on retail while the individual retail customers purchase single fabrics from the company distributors. Besides major towns, Dick Smith Foods has customers across the entire Australia. ii. Customer information collection Dick Smith Foods Company greatly strives to offer the best services to both its internal as well as external customers, hence customer satisfaction. The company has a social site platform which allows for free an unrestricted sharing and idea exchange between the employees and the management team. On this platform, employees as well as the management are free to float their views, opinions, recommendations, dissatisfactions and appraisals without fear of victimization. In this case, both the employee and the management keep updated on various issues within the organization. Any upcoming discomforts amongst the employees fraternity is thus easily picked up and attended to by the management. Some issues that could be hard to explain in a face to face scenario for fear of contradiction or victimization are best posted on this platform. This site basically serves as an online suggestions box for the company. There are suggestions boxes at various points within the organization which are also used to collect internal customer views and complaints. On the other side, the firm has embraced information technology to collect information from external customers. On the company’s website, there is a portal on which the external customers can send in their opinions. To enhance customer confidentiality, they can opt to either give or omit their names provided they leave behind a reply mail. Along the same line, as a measure to curb abuse of the same platform the customer is required to record the product code whenever launching a complaint. The company has an all-day operational toll- free telephone extension through which external customers call to give their varied views and opinions on various aspects of the organization iii. Customer service plan Customers are regarded as the most important stake holders of Dick Smith Foods Company. In this connection, the company has a viable customer service plan that guides the customer service delivery of the company. The customer complains, requisitions and suggestions are always taken into consideration with keen interests in ascertaining the effects of such opinions and views on the general organizational structure of the firm. The company has a well-structured approach jointly headed by the operations manager and the customer service manager to ensure effective attention to such issues as pointed out by customers. A copy of each of the customer grievances, complaints, opinions, recommendations or any other view attended to by the customer care and service team is send to the departmental head of the affected department as well as both the managing director and the chief executive officer. This is an organizational culture embraced by both the management as well as the employees. Dick Smith Foods Company practices great care and concern due to the nature of the stiff competition within the industry. Customers are likely to move to a different designer once they are not satisfied by the quality of service offered hence the great consideration and cordial treatment. The involvement of the higher level managers is basically for follow up purposes often intended to ensure customers are attended to in the relevant manner in line with the company’s mission, vision and culture. The managers make random follow ups on customer in order to establish and ascertain the kind of treatment accorded to them. The follow up activities are never meant to victimize any customer service staff member but rather to ascertain and insist on customer treatment in line with the company’s culture and practice. Customer service attendants will thus strive to give the best attendance to customers. Internal customers are also not taken for granted. There is more emphasis on cordial atmosphere and free interaction between the managerial staff and their subordinates. This is majorly done to establish a cohesive working team characterized by strong interpersonal relations and team activities. The chief executive officer for instance works within all the eight departments within a year. He spends a month working in each of the organization’s departments besides his stipulated managerial tasks. Such simplicity is meant to strengthen employee relations and strengthen team work for the benefit of the organization as a unit. Building on this simplicity as depicted by the top most manager, the company has managed to successfully implement job rotation since employees have are willing to take up duties and responsibilities on behalf of other who may be incapacitated in one way or another iv. Services standards High quality service and customer satisfaction are the major pillars of all operations at Dick Smith Foods. Customer satisfaction through high quality products and services has in fact been largely employed as a competitive marketing edge against other entrepreneurs in the same food industry. While the demand for a certain commodity is often affected by the supply, the quality of the product plays a major role in customer willingness and final decision to purchase a certain product. On the other hand the reception and general treatment accorded to the client on an initial visit will go a long way to determine the chances of return of the same customer or client. Dick Smith Foods Company has an active and interactive website through which customers channel complains and dissatisfaction, enquiries and suggestions. Customers can also share their experiences amongst themselves on this platform. The human resource personnel use this site to establish the public perception and opinion about the company. The site is also used to identify some of the corporate social responsibility behavior activities to be carried out by Dick Smith Foods. As if that is not enough, the company has in place a toll free telephone extension specifically meant to attend to customer queries. There is a distinct department, customer care and service department, intentionally designed to attend to all issues relating to both external and internal customers. The customer care and service department works closely with the human resource personnel in the course of discharge of its mandate and duties. Customers therefore direct their queries, enquiries, complaints and any other information they might need clarification to the customer care and service department. Upon reception, the customer service team forwards the same information to the relevant departments for processing and attention. The customer service team is required to give feedback to the customer within twenty four hours after reception of the information. Such feedbacks are sent through mails and faxes. In certain cases, phone calls are also made to give feedback to the customers. The overall manager of the department then makes random follow ups with the affected department as well as the customer concerned to ensure necessary adjustments are made to suit both sides v. Quality monitoring strategies The ability to obtain and retain a large number of customers for a long time partially depends on the firm’s ability to remain consistent in its product brand. Once a firm is able to sustain continuous production of similar products without compromise in quality, it becomes extremely easier to establish customer loyalty hence further market penetration. The management of Dick Smith Foods has heeded to this marketing secret and extensively exploited it to attract and retain most customers. Although Dick Smith Foods employs the most qualified staff as well as adheres to high quality customer service requirements, several oversight bodies have been set up to oversee on the same aspects of quality customer service as well as sell of high quality products. The company holds annual team building event which involves all the management and the subordinate staff of the company. During this forum, the employees deliberate on a new innovative addition in their final customer service plan which then serves as a target to be achieved in the following year. This therefore enhances annual quality improvement in the quality of overall customer service at the company. To begin with, the company has an internal quality assessment team, headed by the chief executive officer, which is charged to give direction on adjustments in order to sustain quality customer service. The quality assessment team is also mandated to carry out internal audits, corporate social responsibility surveys as well as mandatory annual review of employee appraisal schemes. It also evaluates the overall service delivery in relation with the company’s performance obligations. The internal quality assessment is charged with mandate to see to it that every department within the company adheres to the company’s customer service quality requirements without compromise. The company also periodically engages external quality assurance teams. This may come from both the municipal government as well as the central government. While the internal quality assurance team is concerned with adherence to the company standards and specifications, external quality assessors on the other hand ensure conformity with the national and international standards. The two quality assessment bodies therefore work in collaboration to advise and suggest adjustments so as to ensure that Dick Smith Foods churns out high customer’s service in the food industry. High quality customer service is further emphasized by the management strategy and the organizational structure at the firm which greatly encourage innovation and creativity. High quality customer service and evaluation is a compulsory aspect taught to all managers within Dick Smith Foods on joining the Dick Smith Foods organization. This puts such managers in a prime position not only to identify deviations from the required standards but also to advise and supervise with aim of rectifying the deviation. The management continuously reviews customer feedbacks, complaints as well as suggestions in order to guarantee continuous high quality production. Once the manager is sensitive to aspects of quality customer service, it follows suits that all other subordinate staff working under the manager will adhere to the same aspects. Conclusion In conclusion, Dick Smith Foods Company has had a successful stint in Australian food industry barely due to the nature of the customer services offered at the company. Both the management and the employees’ fraternity have mastered well the essence of external and internal customers in relation to then existence and survival of the company as a social entity. In this regard, the company finds a smooth sail in implementing customer service related policies thus ability to not only attract but also retain a large number of customers. Recommendations Dick Smith Foods Company has done virtually all that pertains to offer of high quality service management. Both the management as well as the subordinate staff have sufficient grasp of what high quality customer service entails and the proceeds that come along with such services. However, it would be recommended hereby that Dick Smith Foods considers designing and implementing a customer loyalty and award scheme in its structure. This would involve running continuous promotions and customer award schemes to encourage bulk purchasing as well as further increase the customer population. Promotions and awards in particular might serve to draw customers from other competitor companies to Dick Smith Foods. Read More