Customer service - Personal Statement Example

The importance of good service is something that is often spoken about in business organizations, but is often ignored when it comes to allocating funds for training and new employee induction programs. Organizational leaders sometimes view good customer service as something abstract. It helps to build a culture or positive brand image, but can always be ignored or cut when budgets get tight. This attitude towards customer service is far from healthy for the long-term viability of any company.

Developing a superior customer service mechanism requires commitment from organizational leaders. This commitment will pay off in real revenue, not just in a boosting of public perception of the brand or as an aid in building a company culture. The most important function of the customer service mechanism in a company is to ensure that problems are solved so customers are retained. The retention of customers is the most immediate way customer service adds to the bottom line. A customer that spends $100,000 per year can be lost or retained by the customer service representative.

If the customer is lost as a result of poor service, the immediate loss is the money they would have spent for the remainder of the year. But this is not where the losses end. If the industry average for customer retention is twenty years and the customer leaves during year five due to poor service, then the loss is actually closer to $1.5 million. This article shows that there is a very real connection in the long run between customer service and revenue. Another concept in the article that was proposed is the idea of continuous training within the organization as a way of constantly improving customer service.

Customer service training needs to be ongoing and cannot be viewed as a destination, but a journey. Several steps are important in this process. The first step is to collect data on the strengths and weaknesses of the customer service mechanism within the firm. Data driven decision-making ensures you are not operating on feelings or at the emotional level. It will ensure that improvement can be focused and measured along the journey. If you are going to collect data, then it goes without saying that training needs to be modified to suit the specific customer service needs of the company.

The training must be of high quality and must engage the learners as adults capable of independent thought. Training can be a valuable opportunity to receive feedback from customer service employees. Often the solutions to problems can be found by listening to employee concerns. Once the training has been established as a part of the comprehensive plan for the company, another important factor that needs to be included is management. Customer service training often focuses on the skills of the individual customer service representatives.

Management is often excluded from the training because they are not the ones that will be dealing with the customers in a service capacity. This article makes clear the importance of involving management in the training. Managers must understand the skills and competencies of the customer service representatives. They must know how they are being trained to solve customer problems. Conflict can arise when manager’s expectations for customer service representatives do not coordinate with the training the representatives have received.

Including management also raises the profile of the training. When something is presented by management as a “big deal”, then more people are likely to take the training seriously. The article offers one final suggestion for improving customer service. It is pointed out that often, the barriers to good customer service run across departments. The establishment of interdepartmental teams focused on improving customer service is a good way to keep the momentum of the new training going forward.

The sustainability of the changes lies in the continued efforts of these teams. This article helped me understand that good customer service is something that must be infused into every part of a company if it is to really succeed. Companies with successful customer service departments are companies that involve management in customer service training and view customer service as an important way of adding long-term revenue to the company. This article helped me to see that customer service training is not simply a one-time event that new employees participate in as part of their induction training.

Great customer service is a mindset that is established after many years of consistently stressing the most important aspects of service for the given industry. Bibliography "Revitalizing Your Customer Service Culture." (2005). Pathways to Performance. Retrieved from. .