Managing Customer Service - Literature review Example

loyalty is of primary importance for the long term financial prosperity of a business or any organization. The modern times we live in have forced customers to demand more and more from the service industry. What is more, they have even higher expectations of the products and services that they have paid for. Cook (2008) guides the reader through the customer service system and tries to establish an understandable focus on the customer service companies. Cook (2008) develops a sustainable customer service management emphasizing controversial strategic and practical aspects of the customer care area. Both gaining customer commitment and stimulating employees can produce an outstanding service for the corporation and to ensure that the results first satisfy the client, and then lead to successful target achievements. Service strategies vary from company to company, however, they are some general rules that need to be observed. Each service strategy aims to improve its customer care and to meet the needs of its customers in the most professional manner. Strategic approaches aim to continuously enhance the understanding about the customer service and how to implement it into the routine work with clients. In order for a company to succeed it should have easy to grasp strategy endevours, which are understood by the personnel. This constitutes a great level of the customer service, since they provide diverse pieces of advice and support for its clientele. Cook (2008) also elaborates on modern online technology and explains how those changes affected the overall customer service and employees. Customer engagement is best explained by Cook (2008) illustrating few example from eBay, Tesco and John Lewis. There is a universal structure and service units regardless of where they are positioned in the market chain and as geographical location. Among the other useful tips that Cook (2008) provides her readers is to listen to customers. Listening to customers is one of the most vital principles of service management. Attention should be paid to the customer's demands and requirements. Company representatives should carefully direct customers in order to understand and meet their needs. When customer is speaking, the employees should carefully pay attention and if necessary take notes, especially if the conversation is conducted over the phone. While listening to the customer, the employee should quickly take action on those issues that are easily solved and fixed. Another topic that Cook (2008) reviews is the implementation of customer care strategy. Since customers are becoming growingly sophisticated and inventive in their demands, this requires the implementation of well organized customer care strategy. Every business is dependent on the clients, thus to provide a high level of responsiveness to their desires is the prime aim of every organization. Developing and implementing extensive approaches to customer relation management has increasingly become the cornerstone of service management. There are also training and development programs for customer service which aim to make the servicing more interactive (Cook, 2008). There are integration approaches into these training customer service programs which debate real situations and life experiences and enable the employees to frame their impressions about the ever-changing customers' demands. Recognition and rewards are other inseparable part of excellent customer care (Cook, 2008). The company has to recognize the customer as valuable and to indicate that he is important, because he choose particularly us to provide him with the service. To connect reward with customer loyalty we have to show that we try our best to keep the customer. To achieve this we reward him in many different ways - from offering him discounts, to bonuses for returning to us again. Mudie and Cottam (1999) look closely at the relationship between marketing and public sector issues. Besides pointing out to these key areas, they also provide exhaustive examples and case studies throughout the book. Mudie and Cottam (1999) provide extensive definition of services and what expectations customers have about them. They try to list the competitive advantages of different services and to explain their strategic marketing decisions. An illustration of segmentation and positioning of services in done indicating how huge corporations seek their customers, how the services is provided, how the customer is made valuable and what the after service strategies include. Positioning of the services is divided into such companies located on the very bottom that do not hold their customers dear and are not interested in obtaining positive feedbacks. In the middle are those which concentrate on gaining more customers, however later they are unable to properly service them and on the top are the excusive servicing organizations that strive both to have more clients and to manage and treat them deservedly. Mudie and Cottom (1999) deliver a comprehensive framework both to students and practitioners, because they include case studies and examples with accessible ideas and references to various service fields. In addressing the most striking issues that characterize service organizations they seek answers in how the problems can be overcome. The perspectives in management and marketing of services that Mudie and Cottam (1999) dwell on illustrate the current tendencies in customer care and what can be done to keep the customer and assure smooth client - employee relation. Palmer (2005) notes that the service sector is the dominant feature of the well developed western countries and that they play predominant role in manufacturing the service management rules in business. The operation of service-dominant corporations requires cautious measures. The last are associated with contemporary issues such as the changes in customers' demands and complex consumer expectations and socio-demographic features, aging population, for instance (Palmer, 2005). Palmer (2005) gives a clear and concise overview of the challenges that the sector is facing, providing comprehensible examples from a wide range of service organizations. Furthermore, he outlines the compound nature of service offer and the integration of goods and services in the customer care management. The service encounter, particularly the significance of the interaction between individuals both as clients and employees should always be taken into consideration when evaluation the impacts of service quality (Palmer, 2005). Service success, failure and recovery are also addressed as issues as well as what practical approaches can be delivered to secure the benefits for the company and for the customer. Palmer (2005) illustrates the latest developments of technology and what effects they have on the service industry. Peer-to-peer and customer-to-customer communications influence the market position of the service organizations and create unique distribution channels and segmentation difficulties. There are five characteristics of service provision. Nowadays it is more difficult to choose a service provider than to choose the goods' supplier. Intangibility - It is more difficult to assess the quality of the intangible assets of a product, than of the tangible ones, because they can not be seen, touched, tastes, smelled or heard prior to the purchase. Examples of intangible products are: vacations, all sorts of events - from sports to concerts, education. Variability - Modern era services tend to be more versatile. Service providers today can deliver you the service even on holidays or days off. There are providers which are not suitable for the specific service that the customer seeks. Compatibility - Each service is dependent on the quality that it presents to the consumer and on the flawless interaction between client and providers. Examples of compatibility are when an elderly client likes the shop assistant in a store, or when a customer doesn't like the hairdresser, because she is too talkative. Untestability - We can refer this to the intangibility, because very often a service can not be tested out, and if it does not respond to our expectations returned. Whether a vacations or movie ticket or change of haircut, we have already paid for the service without knowing the final outcome. Perishability - The service is consumed, the moment that is produced and delivered. Service sectors that provide such business solutions are the internet providers Rashid (1998) observes that in markets where the entry barrier is lower, the tendency for quality to vary significantly raises. The market for Human Recourses consultancy is applicable here. Rashid (1999) continues that "word of mouth" recommendations also bring substantial credentials to the service provider and guarantee the overall "good" impressions that the company leaves both for the customer and for the competitors. Organizations which are increasing seeking to rationalize the service provisions have to strive to evade standardization of the procedures and widen the perimeter for their potential customers. In the technical age we live in service management went internationally, because many companies seeks customers and suppliers from all over the world. In order to properly maintain the balance in international service markets, employees and managers have to be prepared to compete internationally which requires certain provision of knowledge. The establishment of the European Union make is obligatory for countries to oblige common laws and regulations. Keenan and Riches (2007) provide an extensive coverage of the European Union Law and recent progress in tort law. The case commentary and the discussions encourage seeing the legal perspective of the customer care management. Navigating through the consumer law, criminal liability, employment and business administration, the reader is introduced to the basic legal concepts. There is a special section on "Companies Act 2006" which is related to the business sector and concerns the international and European service industry (Keenan and Riches, 2007). For companies operating on a global scale it is valuable to know the legislative law developments, especially in the employment area. Huge corporations have to be aware of the local and international legislature, to handle age discrimination, employee transfer procedures and regulations and alternative employment strategies. "Customer focus is, at best, only one element of the relationship between a company and its customers (Faulkner, 2002, p.11)." The other element is to take care of the employee and to motivate him in such a way so that to underline the ultimate assets in front of the client. Thus, customer focus should be both meaningful and relation-oriented. Faulkner (2002) introduces the customer-centric approach. Because all departments in an organization are interrelated, they have to work in harmony and not with strategies isolated from one another. Complete synchronization in the organization requires smooth communication between the employees themselves and between employees and customers. The customer oriented organizations credit customer loyalty as the highest achievement in the customer-centered approach. "The customer has to be central to most of the decisions made by the company. The payback will be high, but the cost can be high also (Faulkner, 2002, p. 13)." The most controversial, commercial relationships derive from the paradigm - customer-driven, price-driven or product-driven. The best strategy to implement is to be customer-driven. Such organizations do not necessarily compete on product or price. They rather perceive the consumer as part of the whole business chain (Faulkner, 2002). The customer-driven strategy aims to please the clients, to ensure that they like and appreciate the service and will come back again. The product-driven organizations concentrate on differentiating their products. This is recommendable for companies that have extensively invested in research and development and occasionally come up with unique products. The product-driven strategies are the ideal solution in such cases. Price-driven organizations inevitably compete on price. They focus on price differentiation and margins. "This will require those organizations to cross out the value of their customers (Faulkner, 2002, p. 14)." Consequently, their market positions are very unstable, because when another company comes with a lower price of the same product, the lack of customers' loyalty leads to quickly switching to the other company's services or goods. Because no client reliability has been built, this justifies the customers' downturn. Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2007) point out that there should be a balance kept between the conceptual and the practical side of the service management. Methodologies and approaches are now customer-centered in order to provide functional and exceptional quality service. Service management demonstrates greater flexibility in terms of service excellence and innovative operations perspectives. The efficiency of customer care managements will ensure that equilibrium between the client and the company will be sustainable and that improvements will be done in this direction. Service standards form certain expectations in customer. Therefore, studying in depth the customer service management will transform the management approaches to clients and will shape the satisfaction level that the company is targeting. Customers are determined to receive the most appreciative attitude for choosing a product, service or provider. So their perceptions of quality should overlap those of the senior management. In this way both companies and consumers will remain content from their mutual communication. References: Cook, Sarah, (2008), Customer Care Excellence: How to Create an Effective Customer Focus, Kogan Page Ltd. Faulkner, M. (2002), Customer Management Excellence: Successful Strategies from Service Leaders, John Wiley & Sons Fitzsimmons, J. and Fitzsimmons, M. (2007), Service Management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology, Mcgraw-hill College. Keenan, D. and Riches, S. (2007), Business Law. Longman. Mudie, Peter and Cottam, (1999), Management And Marketing Of Services, Butterworth-heinemann . Palmer, A. (2005), Principles of services marketing. (4th edition). Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Rashid, S. (1998) Quality in contestable markets: a historical problem', Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 103, 245-50. Read More