Background of the Study
The essence of customer service in companies has been emphasized worldwide. Many companies have improved customer service in their organizations which has led to improved performance in their businesses. Accordingly, customer satisfaction, loyalty and increased profits have been some of the benefits of excellent customer service.
In order to cope with the challenging business environment, companies have resorted to the adoption and implementation of various strategies that would improve customer service.
Provision of quality customer service is a dynamic and interactive process that goes beyond exchanging money for particular goods and services. Provision of quality services requires customers to take part in the process by cooperating with the service providers .
Research has shown that good customer service heavily depends on the employees, especially those who interact with the customers directly. Quality customer service implies that the customers are provided with impressive services which in turn enhance their satisfaction. Delivery of quality services to customers is often associated with customer loyalty.
Exceptional and quality customer service satisfies the customers and it follows that satisfied customers remain loyal to the company. Delivery of attractive customer services encompasses psychological research and practices aimed at satisfying the customers.
It also gives a chance for the development of a framework used in customer service. Expectations of the customers, brand equity, cultural and regional differences and measurement are factors that determine the success of a business in terms of quality customer service .
Customer service requires companies to develop certain skills for dealing with customers. Among the most important skills when dealing with customers is the ability to comprehend and respond to their needs and concerns appropriately. For many years, sales have been associated with the ability to convince customers to use the services of a certain company.
Good customer service begins with complete knowledge of the customer, his conditions, aspirations and challenges. In addition, discipline in customer service is sensitive towards upholding the principles of the customers, sharing critical information about them and identifying their needs in order to provide excellent services to both internal and external customers (Zemke & Woods, 2000).
Importance of Customer Service
It is agreeable that customer service is an important component of the overall strategy of companies to conduct business. Without customers, it would be difficult for companies to sustain their operations. Despite the fact that many companies have been aware of this fact, customers still complain of poor service in some companies.
Most companies believe that they do what they are supposed to do regarding customer service. However, unless the companies put in place certain mechanisms, they would continue to provide unsatisfactory services to their customers .
In all successful business organizations, commitment towards provision of good customer service starts from the top management. The top leaders of companies must realize that they have a duty to not only meet the needs of the customers, but also to work hard to exceed the expectations of the customers.
It is critical for the leaders to come up with an organizational culture that understands and works towards quality customer service. In the current world, business competition has continued to grow on a daily basis. When customers are not satisfied with the services they get from one company or business organization, it is easy for them to move to other business organizations that serve them well.
The only chance companies have is that of making a good first impression to their customers. If leaders in companies ignore the fact that customer service is a prerequisite for the continued existence of their business organizations or fail to provide the necessary resources for quality customer service, they are likely to be pushed out of business .
Appropriate training is one of the ways through which companies can develop a culture of excellent customer service. Employees must be meant to understand what is expected of them when they deal with customers. For instance, there should be established uniform ways of answering customer calls and a predetermined chain of command for dealing with customer complaints among other issues related to customer service.
The procedures used in addressing customer problems are important than the problems themselves. Customers should feel that their interests are given the first priority by the business organization and that their concerns are valued.
Customer feedback is one method that companies can use to evaluate their customer service level. The performance of a company in customer service should not only be benchmarked by use of competitors but also on the basis of the goals that the company has set. Companies should always remember that their endeavor is to exceed the expectations of the customers.
Written surveys may be used to gauge the satisfaction of the customers. This gives feedback regarding several issues on the operations of the company. Written comments should be allowed in the surveys since they highlight areas that might potentially cause problems.
Interaction between the management of a company and the customers measures the general effort of the company apart from gauging the commitment of the company towards achieving its goals.
Managers who are detached from the customers do not have enough information on what the employees do and what the customers need. Customers feel a sense of satisfaction when they share information with people who set policies as opposed to people who merely execute the set policies .
With the stiff competition in the current markets, companies need to be the types that get things right at the first instance and quick to correct any mistakes. Perfecting these aspects leads to customer loyalty. As already mentioned, customer loyalty is an important strategy of ensuring business success and continuity.
Excellent customer service is the pillar of any business since it provides an avenue for further growth and assists in shaping the reputation of the business organization.
Different strategies can be used to attract customers to business organizations but unless a concrete way of ensuring the customer loyalty is developed, the desired profits cannot be realized. Excellent customer service also entails making the customers happy such that they market the business organization by informing others of the good services they receive (Business Case Studies, 2011).
Research Questions
The main purpose of this study is to analyze the concept of customer service in companies. The research endeavors to answer the following questions:
- What is importance of quality customer service in companies?
- What is the relationship between quality customer service and customer satisfaction?
- Do companies contribute towards customer dissatisfaction through poor customer service?
- What are the strategies that can be applied by companies to ensure excellent customer service that would lead to customer satisfaction?
Literature Review
Quality customer service reflects an organization that is highly concerned about the needs of the customers (Albrecht & Zemke, 1990). Most companies have experienced numerous changes regarding how customers perceive and interact with them. Albrecht & Zemke (1990) emphasize the fact that effective customer service is an issue that private and public companies have to deal with in order to enhance their business performance.
Customers use new standards of measuring the performance of a company hence companies cannot ignore the fact that they are responsible for customer satisfaction through excellent customer service. As a result, there is the need for companies to develop customer service strategies. In developing customer service strategies, identification of potential and existing customers is usually the first step.
Most companies seem to be so busy and disinterested in people such that they never take time to understand their customers well and know what they want (Blanding, 1991). Companies can improve their service delivery by conducting a process of defining their customers and finding out what the customers want from the organization. Customers are classified into internal and external customers.
Internal customers are the employees of a company who are involved in serving external customers. The internal customers rely on services that are provided from within the company. External customers are the individuals who directly benefit from the services of the organization and in turn provide revenue for the company or fund the company through the tax they pay.
Customers are always treated as individuals instead of treating them as groups or communities . Despite the fact that a community may be comprised of many people, companies deal with each of the members of the community one by one. Each of the members has personal needs that have to be met by the company. It is imperative for companies to have good knowledge of the exact needs that the customers have.
Unless a company knows what its customers consider important, it would be difficult for the management to make the necessary changes in order to ensure excellent customer service. Companies generate different expectations from both internal and external customers.
Researchers have argued that customer service should be woven as a common thread in companies in order to create a customer service culture. Unless all employees perceive their connection with expert customer service, customers would not receive the excellent services they deserve.
The beliefs, norms, shared values and the ideologies of a company should be consciously and explicitly geared towards providing excellent customer service. Unless this happens, companies would not be able to provide consistent quality customer service that would create a good reputation for the company.
The philosophy of quality customer service culture must be passed on in a manner that enables employees to understand at a personal level, the importance of quality customer service to the overall success of the company.
Companies that develop market dominance run the risk of developing arrogance . This is manifested when employees start talking to customers rudely instead of listening to them and listening to their feelings and needs. Quality customer service is only present if customers decide that it should be there.
The most important and most reliable measurement of customer service is an evaluation of the most recent experiences of customers with a company and their level of satisfaction.
Customer Service Debates
Different authors have written on the subject of customer service highlighting different issues. Various explanations regarding why customers express dissatisfaction and what companies should do to ensure excellent customer service have been advanced.
Perhaps, one of the greatest mistakes made by companies with regard to customer service is responding to customer issues slowly. Customers judge companies on the basis of how effectively their issues are solved. Apologizing to customers may be important but if the problems are not solved, the customers are never satisfied (Zemke & Woods, 2000).
Unprofessional conduct by employees destroys the reputation of companies when customers share the experiences with other potential customers. Some customers may portray a lot of anger but the work of the employees is to listen to them. Although customers are expected to be calm, anger from customers who have been treated unfairly on issues that cost them is usually justified.
Problems in customer service become detrimental in companies when the management is poor and customers are promised that their issues would be resolved but this does not happen. Debates revolving around customer service stress a number of strategies that companies should use.
For instance, it is important for companies to ensure that any services promised to customers are made available. When errors are made since it is not possible to avoid them, customers should be given explanations because this is one way of maintaining their loyalty. Customer loyalty should always be taken seriously since their perceived lack of appreciation affects their loyalty.
It is also agreeable that the response time should be fast when customers raise issues that need to be resolved. This is only possible if companies engage the services of well trained employees. Employee training eliminates instances of unprofessional conduct that destroys customer loyalty.
In addition, there have been debates that companies should work hard towards showing customers the importance of remaining loyal to a particular company. This can only be achieved by ensuring that excellent customer service is made a priority.
Customer Satisfaction
The concept of customer service is closely related to customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has been defined and discussed by different researchers in order to measure the concept. Customer satisfaction is based on the experiences that customers have through their interactions with a particular company. Satisfaction is regarded as the customer’s assessment of the services of a company that is influenced by personal expectations.
Other researchers have defined satisfaction as the feeling of either pleasure or discontent after making a comparison between the outcome and what the customer expected. Customers react differently to certain encounters and this also influences their satisfaction. Customer satisfaction can be transaction specific or cumulative satisfaction.
Transaction specific satisfaction is the evaluation that a customer does after a particular service experience. On the other hand, cumulative satisfaction is the overall evaluation that a customer makes of a company since he started using the services of the company (The Social Customer, 2011).
Since customer satisfaction is an important aspect of customer service in companies, it is crucial for companies to measure the level of customer satisfaction in order to realize their goals. Many researchers have discovered the close relationship between customer service and customer satisfaction.
They have realized that there are various factors that contribute towards customer satisfaction. For instance, companies should consider understanding fully the needs and expectations of the customers.
This research is aimed at looking at the issue of customer service and its importance to companies in detail. From the literature review, it is quite clear that customer service is closely related to customer satisfaction.
It is only after the needs of the customers are met through excellent customer service that companies would improve their services. The literature that has been reviewed in this research revolves around the importance of quality customer service and how it leads to customer satisfaction (Albrecht & Zemke, 1990).
This literature fits into the research since the research aims at among other things finding out the relationship between quality customer service and customer satisfaction. The literature review has analyzed in detail how companies should treat their customers in order to satisfy them.
The literature review would be used to conduct the primary research since it entails collecting all the relevant data regarding customer service. For instance, it touches on various aspects of customer relations such as debates revolving around customer service and the relationship between customer service and customer satisfaction.
Research Methodology
In carrying out researches, different methodologies are used depending on the type of research being carried out. This research would rely on the descriptive type of research. This type of research presents facts concerning a certain situation as it is at the time of study. A descriptive research also focuses on relationships that exist among various aspects.
In addition, qualitative research is an appropriate research method to be used in carrying out this study. This is because qualitative researchers do not only rely on statistics like quantitative researchers do (University of New York, 2010). Qualitative research focuses on the analysis of information that is not structured.
In this research, the choice of the research method would give more information about the attitudes of different people, motivations, lifestyles and value systems. During the actual data collection, the major methods that would be used to collect the data include use of questionnaires and surveys.
A questionnaire is an appropriate method of collecting information from a wide range of respondents. The questions in the questionnaire would be open ended questions for the respondents to give adequate information. Their structure would be in such a way that the respondents would understand the questions easily.
Apart from questionnaires, sampling is also another method of data collection that would be used in the research. It would be appropriate to sample employees in 3-4 companies to collect information regarding customer service. The companies would be approached through the top management and clear explanation of the aim of the research given.
After sampling company employees, it would also be important to sample 5 customers to get their perspectives and experiences on customer service with the companies. The interview method would be used to collect information from the company employees and the customers.
This is because interviews have the capacity to generate first hand information. In addition, they give the researcher and the respondent a chance to ask each other questions for the sake of clarification. Once the data has been collected from the field, what would follow is a detailed analysis of the information gathered.
Data analysis is an important process after actual field collection of information. It is a process that entails compilation of the data collected and evaluating its credibility.
In carrying out data analysis, various issues touching on ethical considerations would be considered. For instance, some of the data collected might not be accurate and during this time, information would be sorted out to remain with the most credible and relevant data for the research.
Time Scale
It would be important to have a reasonable time frame within which the research would be conducted. This is because unless there is careful and proper planning of the available time, some aspects of the research would not be tackled and if tackled, this might not be done exhaustively.
Reference List
Albrecht, K., & Zemke, R. (1990). The Only Thing that Matters. New York,NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Basu, R. (2004). Implementing quality: a practical guide to tools and techniques. Cornwall: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Berndt, A., & Brink, A. (2004). Customer Relationship Management and Customer Service. Lansdowne: Juta and Company Ltd.
Berry, L. (1991). Marketing Services:Competing Through Quality. New York: The Free Press.
Blanding, W. (1991). Customer Service Operations. New York,NY: American Management Association.
Business Case Studies. (2011). The importance of customer service. Web.
Gale, B. (2010). Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality and Service That Customers Can Se. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Goodman, J. (2009). Strategicc Customer Service. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Hinton, T. (1991). The Spirit of Service. Oxford: Kendal/Hunt Publishing.
Karl, J. (2011). Customer Service – The Importance of Quality Service. Web.
Stewart, J. (1990). Bridge not Walls. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing.
The Social Customer. (2011). Proactive Customer Service and the Great Debate on Handling Complaints. Web.
University of New York. (2010). Research methods and resources. Web.
Yahalom, T. (2010). How to Improve Your Company’s Customer Service. Web.
Zemke, R., & Woods, J. (2000). Best Practices in Customer Management. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Appendix
Appendix A
The diagram below shows the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
From: B2B market research company. Web.
Appendix B
The concept of customer service is believed to have emerged in the 1940s in Geneva Switzerland. It continued to advance and to date, most companies focus on quality customer service as part of the overall strategy of remaining in business.