Customer Service
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Customer Service
Introduction
Customers of the modern age are becoming more difficult to please because they do not entertain poor customer service. Hence, customer service has become a challenge. This is due to advancements in technology, which has led to easier accessibility of information and knowledge about the products. The qualities of products can be easily compared by the sharing of information between customers, retailers, wholesalers, and even manufacturers of the products. These changes have shifted the factors of determining customer satisfaction, customer experience, and customer experience to depend highly on the quality of customer service. Customer service has hence become a significant determinant of sales in many organizations. Businesses have sought different services to improve customer loyalty and therefore improve customer service. Customer journey mapping is one of the trending practices in today’s customer service industry.
Thesis
Given that customer service has become a key determinant of performance in the service organization, it is vital to search for novel ways that will improve the services. This article will highlight the challenges that organizations face when delivering high-quality customer experience. It will also look into activities that service organizations can adopt so as to improve customer loyalty. Furthermore, the article will discuss how organizations can employ the technique of customer journey mapping in trying to deliver quality customer service. The case study in this article is a barbershop service outlet known as Kamran’s Barbershop.
Challenges in delivering customer service
The challenge is to deliver high-quality service due to increasing competition in all industries. It is, therefore, essential to know the main issues in customer service. Understanding customers’ expectations are the first and the biggest challenge in the service industry. Many service organizations target market segments that are based on the classification of race, age, gender, generation, among other customer segmentations. Customers have different desires that they take into consideration when they are purchasing products. That is the reason why communicating with customers is a good strategy in customer service.
It is essential for a business to know its clients, consumers, and customers. Researching on the customers is another challenge that most organizations face. Doing a study on the customers and gathering data about their desires and expectations is a task that involves interaction with the customers. Despite having many ways of product promotion and other numerous channels of advertisement and even media for product promotion, the challenge that remains is to get the message reaching the customer. There should be a means to get feedback from the customer, and this is achieved through research.
The other challenge that is present in the customer service industry is to exceed the customer’s expectation and not just to meet the expectation. The fact that the customers are dynamic and their expectations keep on changing over time calls for a business organization to find ways of staying ahead of the customers. Stay updated about new trends in the service industry. Consistency is another difficult problem that most businesses face when offering quality services to their customers. Keeping all the experiences consistently good across all the service channels is a big challenge. Policies in customer service should be more clear about consistency. Finding the best customer service employees is another challenge faced by service organizations.
The demand for skilled customer service personnel has increased because many companies have realized that competent customer service plays a significant role in delivering quality customer service. Maintaining those employees is another challenge since employees need proper working conditions and experience. The other problem that can be addressed in customer service is about the customer’s culture. It is essential to note the background of the customers that you are dealing with. The employees of the service organization can be assigned according to their environment. Banks have adopted this by deploying employees to places where they are familiar with the cultural practices. The organizations should hence put into consideration the culture of the customer when dealing with customers. Culture also brings out the issue of religion and its methods, which are also part of the challenges faced in delivering quality customer service.
There is also a challenge in dealing with the shortage and crisis situation. Having many customers can lead to a crisis that can be hard to resolve without proper customer service. The positions require bold personnel that will deal with the situation honestly. It is challenging to deal with a situation where there is no answer to the questions that customers ask. The key is to avoid being unclear in the response. Customers have a hard time explaining what they want if the services are weak, but when they receive quality customer service, they know exactly what they want.
Customer service challenges are dynamic due to improvement in technology and the presence of competition. It requires proper handling in order to avoid the loss of customers. Ignoring customer service is like neglecting the customers because the business of today, especially the service industry requires relationship building between the business organization and the customer. Customer service challenges, when addressed and dealt with, keep customers satisfied and retains their loyalty, and increase the profitability of the business.
Customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is a crucial part of business, especially the business of offering services to customers. While it is believed that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are the same, there is a vast difference between them. It is also a misplaced notion to think that customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty. Increasing customer loyalty is the aim of every business component. It is a factor that, when mastered, can convert buyers to repeat customers. The more customers become loyal to a particular brand is, the more they recommend that brand to other potential customers. It is essential to retain a customer, and it is easier to do so rather than to find a new customer. This raises concerns for activities that should be done to improve customer loyalty. Through the investment of time and money together with dedication and commitment, service organizations can improve customer loyalty. There are laid down strategic activities that can help to improve customer loyalty, and these activities are as discussed below.
In the case of Kamran’s Barbershop, customer loyalty activities are essential because people generally get attracted to the best haircuts. Getting instant feedback from the customer about their experience and the quality of the hair cut is essential in achieving customer loyalty. It is also advisable that the barbers ask the right questions to get a clear picture of the haircut styles that the customers want. The barbershop shop should provide haircuts while targeting different sections of customers according to social statuses. The waiting lounges also should be designed competitively to provide the best customer experience when waiting for haircuts. Other key customer loyalty activities include giving discounts to customers like student discounts on hair.
Loyalty cards are another trending issue in customer service. The cards are digital and can be read by computer systems so that the more the customer visits, the more they increase their loyalty points, the loyalty points can be used to get services for free when they reach a set limit. The practice of giving customers a free haircut on their sixth visit is a massive step towards customer loyalty. It shows that the barber knows the customer individually; the feeling of being recognized leads to customer loyalty.
Reliability is a critical strategic activity in order to attract the loyalty of a customer. Keeping the promises made on product promotion shows the customer that they are essential and not taken for granted by the service organization. This will lead to mutual respect between the organization and the customer. There will be a commitment on both sides, and customer loyalty increases when customers remember the organization being reliable instead of thinking of the inability to deliver. Make a mutual relationship that does not just seem to be based on business. As a service organization, it is not just a matter of communicating with customers when doing business with them; the level of engagement has to increase and follow the social life of the customer. It is crucial to ask opinions and suggestions on the services of the organization, which gives a sense of belonging to the customer.
The organization has to broaden the relationship with the customer. Becoming loyal to the customer also brings back loyalty from the customer, Satisfying the customer is a process while commitment is a virtue or quality that is obtained over time. To get reliability, organizations have to show loyalty to their customers first. Companies should focus more on retaining their customers and not just require them during sales. The organizations should keep customers engaged after-sales and demonstrate a sense of care for them.
Rewarding customers is a critical activity in capturing customer loyalty; customers like rewards when they use products or get services. A personalized thank you card, for example, can serve a great deal in creating customer loyalty. Discounts are another way of rewarding customers. Delivery is another way towards customer loyalty. Delivering the products and services ahead of schedule is also a great way to improve customer experience and will be impressive to the customer. Through activities like this, customers develop an understanding of the organization.
Honesty and frankness is good practice in customers’ service that will improve customer loyalty. Customers have different tastes and preferences on the services and products available in the market. It is essential to accept this fact and not try to force products into the market. The customer, therefore, requires customer service, even recommending your competitor’s products because it meets their requirement will make it an iconic event to remember, and they may repeat buying products from the organization. This will show that the organization is interested in the customers ‘ needs and satisfaction and not only their business. It hence travels along the way to building customer loyalty.
Human interaction with the customer is also essential to improve customer loyalty. Even though the technology is right, it is essential to have a human touch, and there are a lot of areas where automated machines cannot answer the need or inquiry of the customer—having one on one engagement with customers of the organization make it easier for mutual understanding. The organization should show care and express that care to their customer. An example is if the organization finds out a situation that the customer has stayed away for long, they can choose to find out why by contacting them. These little things matter. The organization should express that they miss the customer, and if the situation allows, invite them back to the organization.
The customers need to know that their presence makes a big difference to the organization. If the organization does not care to show the customer that they miss them, the customer, too, will not bother to come back to the organization. Showing care and expressiveness will help to capture the loyalty of the customer. If little things are put into consideration, organizations can be fortunate to get loyal customers. They could be as small as thankyou notes and welcome back signs. Those little things should not be overlooked because they touch the heart and win customers.
It is also crucial for the service organization to train its employees on the best customer service practices. The employees should be made aware of practices like reflective listening, where the employee repeats what the customer says to them in order to be clear on what exactly the customer wants. It helps the customer to feel heard when they are frustrated with an issue about the services. Product demonstration is another skill that can attract customer loyalty. It is essential to explain in an efficient way how about the service and make the customer feel comfortable to use it.
With the emergence of social media marketing, digital marketing has been made more accessible, and engaging the customer on a personal level has also been made easier. A large percentage of customers use social media. Organizations should join the customers on social media and strive to have a personal relationship that will go a long way to establish customer loyalty.
Customer Journey Mapping
A customer journey map is a visual representation of the experiences that the customer has when engaging with the organization. The customer journey can seem to be simple, but when looked into in detail, the map is complex—starting from how the customer came to know about the organization, the reaction to that knowledge, and how the customer made a decision to subscribe to the service. This customer service skill helps to display a clear picture of how the customer came to believe in your brand, starting from original engagement up to long-term relationships. It is important to know the map of the customers so that in every step, you can give the best to better the experience of the customer.
Customer journey mapping helps the organization to look at the services from a customer’s perspective. This will assist the organization in knowing the irritating points of the service to the customer. They can analyze the service from the customer’s point of view and know the areas that need to be strengthened and the new ways of improving the customer’s experience. The barber, in this case, may use customer journey mapping to know what kind of hair cut the customer likes and what trends the customer follows. Some customer wants the best haircut due to the social group they belong to. The youth get fancy haircuts while the elderly just want the cut to be simple and clean. The barber should be aware of those perspectives of customers so as to improve customer experience.
Mapping helps the service organization to see how the customers came to know about the services offered in the organization. It is important to know the way the customer came in contact with information about the organization. It will assist in knowing which customer service is attractive to the customers. The customer service practice, which attracts the most customers, should be improved, and those that are not attractive can be dropped instead of wasting time and resources in it. It is not easy to know which customer service is bringing in more customers than the other if the organization does not apply the skill of customer journey mapping. This information on how customers came to know about the organizations and its services can be collected simply by honestly asking the customers. The data from the research can then be analyzed while focusing on customer service activities in question to know which customer service is the best.
This practice also helps the organization to know the need of the customer at each stage of engagement with the organization. When offering services like in the case of the barbershop, there are stages followed from arrival up to the departure of the customer. The customer needs unique services at each stage. It is important to know the needs and give the customer the best experience. Reading a magazine, listening to a radio, music, and other additional customer service activities at a barbershop are some of the little things that bring comfort, which is the main aim of every barbershop.