Evaluation of Customer Service - Verizon Wireless - Case Study Example

Evaluation of Customer Service Student’s Name: Course: Instructor’s Name: University: Date of Submission Executive Summary Using the SERVQUAL model, this report examines the impact of service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction. Results indicated that all the 7 service quality dimensions positively influenced customer satisfaction in terms of loyalty and attitudes and could therefore be applied in Verizon Wireless to provide sustainable customer service. Loyal customers, from cost perspective tend to stay longer with the preferred providers, buy more and generate favorable word-of-mouth effect that may further benefit the preferred provider. Further, Long term customers tend to take less of company time and are less sensitive to price. Retaining customers has become a priority for most enterprises due to high costs of attracting new customers and in my recommended strategies for providing sustainable customer service, priority would be given to retaining Verizon Wireless’ customers . Managers are recommended to highly consider the factors that might increase customer’s retention and even attraction rate. Being able to retain customers will always show resistance to customer’s enticement and be able to give both solicited and unsolicited referrals. Introduction A sound infrastructure in the telecommunication sector is vital for sustainable economic growth of a country. In many countries today, governments have adopted privatization and removal of tariffs so as to obtain rapid growth of information and communication technology in the country. Customer service varies by product, industry and customer. It however, assumes a significant dimension in service delivery and sales of various products. This is because service firms such as those in the Telecommunication sector, have no inventory of finished goods to shield the level of production from random demand variability (Dutta and Roy 2006, p.13). Nevertheless, it is of great significance, profitability and growth that service firms hold their own in competition. The telecommunication sector is one of the fastest growing business segments all over the world which provide a lot of value addition to the society with its service and creation of employment opportunities. Considering the dynamic global environment, every country is striving to achieve competitiveness through adoption of technology. Today, society is living with advance technology and everyone wants to be up to date with new technologies. People want to have mobile phones because among other factors, they want to communicate in case of an emergency and the wireless carriers have made it easy to add users to their existing plans. This increases buyers and increases market size worldwide. The level of competitiveness in mobile phone industry in the universe has greatly grown over time. Moreover, opening up of trading boundaries and globalization of telecommunication market have pressurized the companies to maintain their market share by aiming at ensuring the number of customers is maintained. Firms are confronted with the challenges of attracting subscribers by providing high quality of services. The secret for a firm to gain competitive advantage among the mobile telephone services providers is by building itself as a brand and target to retain brand loyal customers. Branding helps companies distinguish and differentiate themselves from other players in the industry. A brand can only be strong if it has loyal customers. Brand loyalty gives the brand stability of future sales. On the other hand, it is less costly to retain customers than to obtain new ones due to high costs of attracting new customers. Mobile phone service provider companies continually seek new ways to acquire, retain and increase their customer base. Thus the ability to retain existing customer is increasingly crucial in this industry. This is possible by providing quality services to the customers; this translates to brand loyalty and therefore assurance of sales. The success of the telecommunication industry in a country depends on prudent efforts and feasible investments. In a competitive market, service providers are expected to compete on both price and quality of services and also it is necessary for the service providers to meet the consumers' requirements and expectations in price and service quality (Melody 200I, p.10). Other than instant communication that can be obtained by subscribers by use of mobile phones, customers also purchase this product for other services provided by the companies. The services provided mainly depend on some factors and customers buy that product which has many factors or attributes fulfilling their desire. Recently the concept of customer satisfaction has received much attention. In the cellular mobile market for example, customers bring higher expectations for communication from its service providers and if companies are not able to meet these expectations, the customers search for satisfaction in another service provider. Along this line, a model was developed to contend that customers compare the service they expected with perception of the service they received in the evaluation of service quality (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1988, p.17). The model is known as SERVQUAL. This model is the main reason why organizations today focus on customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. This investigation intends to explore an insight of Verizon Wireless’ practices and to identify the customer’s satisfaction towards the service provided. I adopted the SERVQUAL model to determine strategies that could be applied to deliver sustainable customer service by Verizon Wireless. Findings The investigation identified seven dimensions validated in prior research on service quality by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in 1988. These dimensions are: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, convenience assurance, empathy and network quality. The tangible dimension is the quality of physical infrastructure that is the equipment available to make the service a delightful experience and how the people providing the service are. For a company to score well in this segment customers expect that mobile customers expect that equipment at these outlets are modern and up-to-date, there is easy availability of cards and recharge services. The firm should also ensure that the frontline personnel providing services at the outlets should be neat, clean, and well dressed and give pleasing look (Chi et al., 2008). The management of Verizon Wireless therefore needs to put in place a proper physical infrastructure strategy. Convenience means accessibility of the service provider by the customers. This was a highly regarded factor by customers made necessary by the busy working schedule in today’s world. Customers do not want to waste unnecessary time in reaching out to the service provider and as such they emphasized on convenient hours of operation and convenient locations of cell phone providers’ outlets (Lim 2005 p.13; Kim, Park & Park 2007 p.19). A proper location strategy therefore needs to be considered by Verizon Wireless’ management team. Empathy on the other hand, demanded that firms placed customers above everything else in any direct interactions with them. The customers’ emphasized their desire for the staff to be sympathetic, facilitating, and reassuring to their needs. This dimension on personalized approach and caring built long term relationships between the customers and mobile phone service providers due to the pleasant experience enjoyed by customers. This factor was very important in building the brand image of the company and therefore creating a brand loyalty base from the customers. A proper employee training and development strategy is needed by Verizon Wireless. Responsiveness of the service provider was another factor in creating brand loyalty. From my investigation I observed that customers were keen to prompt responses to their needs. Three researchers (Gerpott, Rams & Schindler 2001, p.9) stressed the need of timely service to the mobile phone users. From my investigation of the customer service provided by Verizon Wireless, I noted that the frontline employees anticipated the needs of the users and proactively responded to those needs. Mobile phone users are keen to get prompt response from the employees regarding their complaints and enquiries. This strategy of effective mechanism for quick handling of enquiries and efficient customer services established by Verizon Wireless’ gave it a competitive edge over its competitors since continual delays experienced by a subscriber could make them look for a better alternative. Network quality is very critical in terms of customers’ perception of the quality of service of a cell phone service provider. Customers need assurance that the service providers they have chosen provide all-time availability and no drop calls. Voice quality in the areas of network coverage of the service provider was also important as customers shunned straining too much to get concepts while communicating on phone. Verizon Wireless’ customers were satisfied with the strength of our network’s signal but a strategy of continual improvement and upgrading of our network’s system had to be adopted so that no customers are lost due to poor network quality. The dimensions of reliability and assurance went almost hand in hand. The reliability aspect called for the service provider’s staff to provide accurate service pertaining to billing. The customers expect that their record of use of service is kept accurately and readily available (Ozer & Aydin 2005, p.495) and also timely provided to them. The customers believed that assurance on the expertise of the employees about the multifaceted knowledge of the services provided, courtesy and their ability to instill faith and dependence in the service providers’ competence gave them ease and therefore increased the company’s reliability. In my investigation I observed that my firm gave assurance to its customer since the staff was competent in building trust and confidence among the customers about the ability of Verizon Wireless’ in anticipating and meeting customers’ needs. Etiquette of our staff in terms of their politeness when talking to customers also ensured that customers had a good experience with the organization. The strategy discussed earlier of continued employee training and development would ensure sustainability of these aspects as customers would be assured of accuracy of details given and the professionalism of employees. Conclusion Competition among various players in the mobile service is more intense than ever, which is inevitable. They compete not only in network quality by a large amount of investment, network extension and upgrading, but also in customer satisfaction, customer retention and acquisition through other dimensions. An aggressive strategy is needed to enhance the trustworthiness of Verizon Wireless by keeping customers’ best interest at heart, providing customized services and exemplary behaviour of contact personnel to make the interaction a memorable experience. The competitive environment demand constant assessment of service quality to meet rapid changes in customers’ demand. In view of this, Verizon Wireless will focus on other dimensions including: tangibility, assurance, responsiveness, and empathy as they show customers’ perception of service quality of Verizon Wireless. From my investigations convenience and responsiveness were important in creating a strong brand image and therefore strategic location is important for Verizon Wireless and also quick responses to customers’ enquiries which create brand loyalty. The other dimensions like network quality, assurance and reliability also determined whether or not the customers stayed with Verizon Wireless or switched to our competitor. Recommendations Verizon Wireless should invest in network coverage, upgrading, and quality to attract new customers and retain the existing customers. This is as observed from my investigation that strategy of mobile phone operators to enhance quality of network is important in how the customers rate the service provided by that particular service provider. Consumers’ awareness to higher quality of services, and the prospects of new entrants in the market will enhance the existing level of competition. The emerging competitive market environment will offer challenges to Verizon Wireless and the management team will therefore need to proactively pursue customer focused strategy for building and sustaining competitive advantage based on the dimensions used to rate the quality of service. The investigation’s results clearly indicate that the issues of providing promised service, timely, accurately, and dependably are highly rated. Because of the importance of the reliability dimension, our organization needs to pursue a strategy focusing on improving internal processes and customers’ needs. An aggressive strategy is needed to enhance the trustworthiness of mobile phone operators by keeping customers’ best interest at heart, providing customized services and exemplary behaviour of contact personnel to make the interaction a memorable experience. Employees play a significant role in this sector of providing mobile services and therefore the frontline staff needs to know the importance of their role in service delivery. Management should ensure that human resources dimensions are addressed to optimize the service delivery by staff. References Antreas, D.A. 1997, Another look into the agenda of customer satisfaction. International Journal of Bank Marketing. Cronin, J. J. and Taylor, S. A. 1992, Measuring service quality. A Re-Examination and Extension. Journal of Marketing, 56, p.55-68. 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