Developing Customer Service Excellence - Essay Example

? service has always been the prime concern of most marketers but in the wake of economic downfall, this has gained more importance. This isbecause costs have to be contained while service cannot be compromised with. Besides, one satisfied customer translates into more customers. In fact customer service is being looked at as an opportunity to gain competitive advantage. Organizations try to use customer service as their unique selling point. In their effort they try to deliver service beyond the expectations of the customer thereby leading to excellence in customer service. This gradually led to the awareness that employees are the contact point and they need to be fully taken care before expecting them to take care of the customers. This gave rise to the term internal customers (employees) and hence the term internal marketing or IM came into existence. Today organizations use different techniques to keep the internal customers happy as a long-term strategy. Internal marketing, according to Kotler (1991) includes successful hiring, training, motivating and remunerating able employees (cited by Vella, Gountas & Walker, 2009). Thus to achieve the service quality the internal customers should be developed effectively first. It is assumed that effective internal marketing will lead to employee satisfaction which in turn impacts the service quality. If the staff are friendly, helpful and generally agreeable it influences customer views of service quality. Internal marketing (IM) is viewed as the application of all external marketing orientation philosophy to all internal organizational and HRM processes. IM is the activity that connects internal customer or employees with all external service activities. Employees are not merely part-time marketers but they are the first set of customers that need to be satisfied fully. IM was considered as a possible solution to the challenge of delivering consistently high service (Khan & Matlay, 2009). IM is a business philosophy which lays emphasis on developing, encouraging, understanding and valuing the employees. Internal customers’ needs must be first met before a firm can successfully satisfy the external stakeholder needs. The concept and practice of internal marketing is based on the premise that employees as customers would feel committed and motivated, cooperative and enthusiastic (Mudie, 2003). Service quality can be impacted by three service factors – service orientation, service adaptability, and flexibility to manage service demand with frontline staff supply (Vella, Gountas & Walker, 2009). Adaptive and flexible organizations can create better work environments leading to higher job satisfaction and stronger customer relationships. If the employees are not treated well many IM strategies such as service orientation may fail. Since the service brand depends upon employees’ attitudes and behaviours, investment in internal service factors (ISF) should not be compromised as this could negatively impact the achievement of customer service excellence. To keep the internal customers satisfied reward systems, motivational techniques, training and recruitment policies should exist because these enable the external customer oriented marketing to succeed (Vella, Gountas & Walker, 2009). Customer service excellence can be achieved by allowing individuals and teams within organizations to explore and acquire new skills in the areas of customer focus and customer engagement (CSE, n.d.). This suggests that internal customers or employees should be focused upon; their skills need to be enhanced. This is known as internal marketing where the internal customers are first satisfied because it has strongly been advocated that satisfied employees can deliver enhanced service to external customers. To deliver excellent service requires focused and effective organizational and institutional processes. Employee training can lead to prosocial behaviour, which Chebat, Babin and Kollias (2002) consider essential because the front line staff are the first customer contact point in the service industry. The training and development programs have to be aligned to strategies and goals because insufficient and unsuitable organizational processes could make it difficult for the workforce to perform their duties efficiently (Khan & Matlay, 2009). Training as a tool to educate and motivate the internal customers can be effective but two-hour training sessions are not sufficient (Dalton, 2002). It has to be an all-encompassing approach where the definition of service culture would depend upon the image that the organization wants to project. The employees need to be consulted and their perspectives should be taken into account when the training programs are devised. To achieve customer service excellence there has been a gradual shift in internal customer satisfaction. Performance related reward systems remain a barrier to attracting and retaining highly skilled and experience employees (Khan & Matlay, 2009). Employee involvement and engagement can lead to better service quality. A strong organizational culture can enhance work place solidarity. High performance can be achieved through better communication, increased sharing, rewarding and valuing internal customers. This in turn facilitates higher levels of customer service excellence. Employees feel valued when they work as a team and they are also motivated by sharing practices. Employee contribution should be recognized and suitably rewarded. It is not sufficient to hand down some instructions to the officers dealing directly with the customers. Employees must be empowered to fix service failures at the point of occurrence. This is precisely what a hotel did. It empowered the staff but also gave them the authority to fully service the customers. Consequently when a woman at a beach resort lost her finger ring, the Cabana attendant, after searching for it in vain, finally decided to purchase a metal detector which helped him locate the ring (Schulze, 2000). He was empowered to spend if need be, to deliver and fully satisfy the customers. Empowerment thus helped in motivating the staff, leading to enhanced performance and thereby retaining loyal and satisfied customers. Organizations need to focus on the cultural background from which the employees come. Workforce diversity can be found in any sector today and dealing with employees from different culture is a challenge for most organizations. According to Hofstede (1991) the culture in which one is merged since birth has a much stronger impact than the organizational culture (Baum & Nickson, 1998). Thus the managerial practices would have to differ across nations, regions and cultures. The front line staff interacts directly with customers and hence they have to be trained to be culturally adaptable. The national culture loses its significance and it becomes very difficult to offer incentives and motivations to people from diverse cultures to get the best service out of them. Hence to achieve external customer service excellence it is first essential to understand the needs, wants and requirements of the internal customers, namely the employees. Having a customer-focused culture helps an organization to achieve customer service excellence through promotion of its internal marketing practices (Bartley, Gomibuchi, & Mann, 2007). Customers can be both internal and external. In order to achieve customer (external) service excellence organizations have to treat their own employees with the same care and attention. Besides customer focus is not just the area where the external customer is directly in contact; it also pertains to areas or business functions such as the interaction of the front line staff with the customers, with the product/service design and development and also how complaints/problems are handled in the organization. Therefore taking care of customer needs, wants and expectations and the commitment to understand these elements and satisfy them in a proactive manner is what constitutes a customer-focused culture. Such a culture creates the necessary behaviours for the creation of superior value for buyers. It has already been established that there is a strong link between an organization’s culture and its performance. The criteria for performance excellence have been depicted in the figure below: Source: Bartley, Gomibuchi, & Mann, 2007 The six characteristics of a customer-focused culture include leadership, listening, analysis and understanding, integration and deployment, people, review and improve (Bartley, Gomibuchi, & Mann, 2007). Leadership is essential because it drives organizational action and direction whereas listening to customers’ views makes it easier to conduct business. Customer expectations and their key requirements have to be understood and acted upon (integration and development). Customer-focused culture then has to be embedded throughout the organization and the strategies and procedures should be regularly reviewed. Organizations must have a pervasive culture to sustain customer-focused services and practices. Brand building is becoming a prerogative for products but in the service industry also where employees are central to service delivery, organizations are treating the employees as customers to build brand. The workforce should believe in the company they work and they value the company based on how they are treated and cared for. This concept known as internal marketing (IM) helps in differentiation and has therefore become the focus of many staff training schemes (Strategic Direction, 2007). IM is now considered a prerequisite for achieving high quality customer service. IM has been broken into four different elements – training and education, reward system, quality standards and the image of the internal customer (Strategic Direction, 2007). If all of these elements are consistently pursued the organization can achieve a culture of customer service excellence. The organization should accept that internal customers have to be served as this would make every employee valued thereby enhancing their commitment to the organization. The purpose of IM is to motivate employees to give priority to service. Thus a certain level of input and performance becomes expected. Training and development helps change the staff attitude towards the colleagues and the customers (Strategic Direction, 2007). Rewards schemes help motivate the staff to enhance performance. Since the employees too are internal customers their wants, needs and expectations have to be given due importance so that the expectations of the external customers can be met. This Piercy (1994) contends is the general assumption but the author challenges this assumption because if customers disappoint the employees by their adverse behaviour it is likely to impact the future service delivery for the customers. The customer service satisfaction judgment is done by the external customer based on their experience and the outcome of the service. The author argues that the organization is concerned about the employee and management judgments about the customer and the company and this also can have both positive and negative outcomes. Therefore, the internal and external market issues are related to one another. Thus, the author suggests that customer satisfaction should be measured through the eyes of the internal customers as well as the external customers. Internal barriers within the company prohibit such measurement. Companies may be reluctant to measure customer satisfaction for fear that it could trigger complaints. The measure of customer satisfaction differs as some connect it to sales achieved while others consider ignorant a trivial issue. Some others see it as a weapon used in power struggles between functional departments. Such assumptions generate internal politics leading to internal conflict and political squabbles. Lack of management support for customer satisfaction measurement also depends upon the corporate culture. It is nevertheless important to listen to both the external and the internal customers and look for synergies and potential conflicts of interest. Organizations recognize the need for greater employee involvement (EI) and greater work discretions. EI can secure higher commitment and performance. EI involves self-managed teams, two-way communications, downward communications, financial-participation, problem-solving groups and suggestion schemes (AC219, n.d.). Performance has also been recognized as a function of Ability, Motivation and Opportunity. To have sustained employee involvement and keep them committed the selection process should be rigorous and the training process should be able to improve the ability levels. Incentive schemes can provide the motivation while participative structures in the organization improve opportunity to contribute. As the work environment has become unstable, unpredictable and threatening, along with the pressures of globalization, organizations lay emphasis on employee creativity (Wong & Pang, 2003). To remain competitive in the challenging environment employees have to be creatively engaged in their work through novel processes and approaches (Shalley & Gibson, 2004). In the growing global economy it is no more sufficient to deliver the services as others do. The employees must have the ability and the adaptability to manage the speed of change and this requires creativity and innovation. The right selection process becomes important because the front-line employees must be able to enhance customer value. They need to customize the service to each customer’s unique needs. However, the front-line staff, being the first customer-contact point, is always under stress which negatively impacts creativity. Role ambiguity impacts creativity but role conflict has a positive impact and can enhance creativity (Coelho, Augusto & Lages, 2011). In frontline settings role conflict is unavoidable and if the employees have the ability they can use creativity to cope with the unreasonable demands of the supervisors, of their peers and the customers. This enhances the importance of training as well as the right selection of people. Southwest Airlines (SWA) has been under pressure to sustain competitive advantage due to the current economic downturn but they have not compromised on the needs of their internal customers. They have the lowest employee turnover rate in the industry because of the way they treat their employees. To keep the staff motivated the airline gives them challenging jobs for which they accept responsibility and enjoy performing their jobs (Bunz & Maes, 1998). They are constantly challenged to think differently and creatively for product differentiation and innovation. When employees enjoy their work it is known as intrinsic motivation. The employees are also challenged to take risks where normally people would fear to venture. They are encouraged to deliver more than the customers expect. The work environment is happy and congenial which is why they are able to make the external customers happy. When the work environment is supportive for creativity and innovation, the intellectual stimulation provided by the leader leads to enhanced organizational performance (Jung, 2011). Because of a de-layered organization communication is effective at SWA (Applebaum & Fewster, n.d.). They regularly take employees survey where they invite suggestion from the employees on the running of the company, such gestures from the management keeps the employees close to the organization and the management. The management believes that when employees have a sense of ownership they will deliver in the best interests of the company. Thus it can be seen that organizations are under competitive pressure due to the current economic situation but the situation is not insurmountable. Organizations have learned how to keep their internal customers happy through internal marketing. Organizations realize that customer service excellence is critical to the success of the firm and this can be achieved when the internal customers are happy with their work and the environment. Organizations thus employ different techniques such as employee engagement, employee creativity, employee motivation and encouragement to sustain their interest in the jobs. A sense of ownership and belongingness goes a long way in achieving the organizational objectives. Timely recognition of their contribution along with suitable reward system supports management effort in retaining key talent crucial for service delivery. The process of recruitment and selection itself should be exhaustive so that people with the right mindset are employed. Empowerment too is essential but empowerment should be accompanied with authority. All these techniques have helped many organizations to cope with the challenges posed by the current economic situation. Reflective Journal The process called ‘customer service excellence’ may initially suggest that service delivery needs to be simply focused upon. How this ‘excellence’ can be achieved and how many perspectives the management has to consider, to achieve excellence in service, is amazing. The earlier assignment had been on customer service excellence in a cross-cultural environment. At that time I did not know that there could be other obstacles to achieving customer service excellence. This research has further allowed insights into how each HR function contributes towards achieving service excellence. The term ‘internal marketing’ itself has been intriguing. It would mean that the organization has to market itself to its employees first – they must feel that they want to work for the organization just as the organization wants the external customers to purchase their products or services. It does reveal that we have to be happy with ourselves first before we can spread happiness around us. We have to be committed to our growth and development before we can satisfy the external customers. Hence, to make the internal customers happy, the organization employs various techniques such as motivation, effective reward system communication, employee engagement and so on. This enhances the role of HR in an organization to serve its own people. The role of HR thus stretches beyond the payroll and administration. Training and development programs may need to be upgraded to train the senior management to market the organization to the internal customers. Truly, the concept of internal marketing has been interesting and the term has been very intelligently coined. References AC219. n.d. Employee Participation, Involvement. http://courses.essex.ac.uk/ac/ac219/Employee%20Relations%20Lecture%209% 20Employee%20Involvement.ppt (accessed 20 December 2011) Applebaum, S.H. & Fewster, M. n.d. Human Resource Management Strategy in the Global Air line Industry – A Focus on Organisational Development, http://www.touchbriefings.com/pdf/12/avia031_p_apple.pdf (accessed 20 December 2011) Bartley, B., Gomibuchi, S. & Mann, R. 2007. Best practices in achieving a customer-focused culture. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 14 (4), pp. 482-496 Baum, T. & Nickson, D. 1998. 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