Sky Link Fashions and Designers Company's Management of Quality Customer Service - Case Study Example

Management of Quality Customer Service Name: Institution: Contents Overview of organization…………………………………………..…………….………………3 Vision and mission …………………………………………………..……….…….……………4 Internal customers ……………………………………………………………………………….4 External customers………………………………………………………………………………5 Customer information collection……………………………………………………………..….5 Customer service plan....................................................................................................................6 Policy and procedures ……………………………………………………………….……..……7 Communication within organization………………………………………...……..………..….. 8 Quality monitoring strategies………………………………………………….…….……..…… 9 Reference………………………………………………………………………….…………...11 Overview of organization Sky link Fashions and Designers Company is clothing and fashions retailer that deals in design, manufacture and sale of women, men’s and children’s clothes. The organization is based in Canberra-Queanbeyan, Australia. The company was established as an entrepreneurial sole proprietorship by Jimmy Arnold McCain, who then worked as the head of the production department at Zara before he resigned to concentrate on personal business. Since then, Sky Link Fashions and soon has grown into a renowned clothing production organization with an employee population of about two hundred workers within its central stores and over fifty others managing constituent businesses of the firm situated in different parts of Australia. Sky Link has adopted a matrix type of organizational structure in which the whole organization is divided into departments, each under the supervision and direction of an overall departmental head. The departmental heads are answerable to the managing director who is at the second top most level of the hierarchical order. At the top of the hierarchical order is the founder, Jimmy Arnold McCain, who serves as the chief executive officer of the company. The company’s central production mills and workshops are situated in Canberra-Queanbeyan, Australia. All the fabric design and production are carried out here. Upon completion, the finished fabrics and cloth designs are then distributed to various warehouses and stores both at the company headquarters and at the constituent firms. This is usually done according to the customer demands and requirements as provided by the marketing and product distribution department. Vision and mission of the organization Sky link aims at producing the best and latest designs in clothing wear through creative innovation and incorporation of customer tastes and preferences within its manufacturing line. This is the core vision of the firm which serves as the guiding principle for all its activities and organizational operations. The firm’s mission is to enhance human satisfaction through provision of affordable clothing. In this case, the company produces quality clothing fabrics in line with the latest fashions and designs but sells them at slightly subsidized prices than similar producers so as to enhance affordability amongst all social classes. The company also engages in several corporate social responsibility activities in which it offers cloth fabrics and finished clothing to the less fortunate in society. This is purely in line with the core objective of the founder; to uphold clothing as a basic human need regardless of the social status. 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. Sky link Fashions and Design 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 Sky Link Fashions and Design 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 who are contracted by Sky Link Fashions and Designs Company to provide either products such as raw materials, stationery and refreshments or services such as cleaning and transportation. Most of them work on contacts awarded at the start of each financial year. 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 Sky Link Fashions and Designs will thus collectively refer to all those individuals that purchase the textile products of the company. The main external customers of the Sky Link Fashions and Designs include residents of Canberra who constitute retail customers as well as major distributors within Australia who directly pick their merchandise from the central stores. Distributors buy the clothes and fabrics 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 Canberra, the firm has customers across the entire Australia. Customer information collection Sky Link Fashions and Designs greatly strive 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. 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. Customer service plan Customers are regarded as the most important stake holders of sky link Designs and Fashions 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. Sky link practices great care and concern 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. 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. 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. Services standards High quality service and customer satisfaction are the major pillars of all operations at sky link. 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 textile industry. Sky Link Fashions and Design Company has an active and interactive website through which customers channel complains and dissatisfaction, enquiries and suggestions. As f 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. Communication within the organization Communication is one of the important aspects of a successful organization structure. The flow of information within the organization greatly affects the performance and the rate at which an organizational achieves its objectives. At Sky Link Fashions and Design, all new employees joining the firm usually undergo a one month induction program during which they are introduced to the organizational culture and operations strategies of the firm. There are also subsequent on job training and refresher programs for the entire employee fraternity. These are carried out both as on job and outside job training forums in line with the various production and marketing requirements. The company has a management trainee program whose intention of establishment is to pick out, nature and train potential managerial skills in preparation for future roles within the same capacity. Such individuals are sponsored to attend managerial courses in various fields. They then become the perfect replacements for managerial staff that may leave the organization by way of resigning, retiring, dismissal, retrenchment or other natural courses. The company thus always has somebody who is well versed with the existing organizational culture hence easily adopted to serve in the given managerial appointment. Quality monitoring strategies Although Sky link Fashions and Designs employs the most qualified staff as well as adheres to high quality production requirements, several oversight bodies have been set up to oversee on the same aspects of quality production. 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 product which then serves as a target to be achieved in the following year. This therefore enhances annual quality improvement in the quality of the fabrics and designs of 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 production. 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 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 Sky Link Fashions and Designs churns out high quality fabrics and cloth designs to the public. Quality production is further emphasized by the management strategy and the organizational structure at the firm which greatly encourage innovation and creativity. Quality production and evaluation is a compulsory aspect taught to all managers within Sky Link Fashions and Designs. 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 production, it follows suits that all other subordinate staff working under the manager will adhere to the same aspects. Reference Barlow, J., & Stewart, P. (2010). Branded customer service: The new competitive edge. s.l.: Read how you want. Read More