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This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Customer service (also known as Client Service) is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
According to Turban et al, 2002, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”
Its importance varies by product, industry and customer. As an example, an expert customer might require less pre-purchase service (i.e., advice) than a novice. In many cases, customer service is more important if the purchase relates to a “service” as opposed to a “product".
Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means called self-service. Examples of self service are Internet sites.
Customer service is normally an integral part of a company’s customer value proposition.
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Customer service may be employed to generate such competitive advantage as a particular service proposition can be harder to copy for competitors.
The implementation of a particular customer service proposition must consider several elements of the organization.
A company may attempt to differentiate itself from its competition through the provision of better customer service. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, technology, and processes; although, the rewards will include improved revenue from customers that are impressed with the service provided.
Some companies do better than expected. In the 1980\'s, a customer called the LL Bean company and was surprised that he was greeted by name. The representative explained that AT&T provided Caller-ID service to all companies with toll-free lines (ten years before any phone company offered Caller ID to retail customers), and that Bean\'s computer had brought up the customer\'s record on her computer screen. She knew where he lived and what he had recently bought. If he wanted something new, she even knew the size and color to suggest. They also remembered the credit card number that had been used, although they could not be certain it was still valid. In some cases, a company will have two interfaces: during "normal business hours" in the vendor\'s time zone, the caller will reach the Customer-Service Department, which can take new orders, trace recent orders, and solve problems; a person calling outside those hours will instead reach a fulfillment house, often in another state or country, and able only to take new orders. In most cases, fulfillment centers don\'t even have catalogs for the many companies they represent. If a problem arises, the answer is "Call between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Eastern Standard Time."
There are different levels of knowing your customers. Often, customer service relies on demographics or customer data collection. Yet, customer and customer dynamics as a group are affected through modalities of experience. Hence it is important to know your customers and to the culture that you want to create. This is where psychology enters into the realm of customer service.
According to Arthur F. Carmazzi, founder of Directive Communication, how a person processes information will have a bearing on how he or she reacts in a given situation. Carmazzi says that there are four brain colors: green, red, blue, and purple. Knowing the brain color of a customer will help you understand his/her expectations of service and deliver accordingly. For instance, a red brain customer in a bank will value order and a systematic approach to enlisting him in a wealth management program.
Technology has made available a wide range of customer service tools. They include support websites, the ability to have live chats with technical staff, databases tracking individual customer preferences, pattern of buying, payment methods etc., and tailoring products and service responses based on these advanced data. Specialist software that is designed for the tracking of service levels and for helping recognize areas for improvement are often integrated into other enterprise operational software tools such as ERP software.
Many companies have started to use new channels to capture customer feedback. With record number of people now communicating through mobile phone and sending texts, many argue that the next wave of customer feedback will primarily be captured through channels familiar to most consumers, such as mobile email and SMS. This will enable companies to track the opinions of their customers much more easily and gain valuable insight into how to improve service quality and enhance the customer experience.
Customers tend to be more forgiving of organizations who acknowledge and apologize for their mistakes rather than denying them. Taking responsibility for mistakes and correcting them is considered an important aspect of good customer service. When a customer experiences poor service and is ignored, the customer is less likely to return to that company again.
Recently, many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, National Express, one of the UK\'s leading coach companies invites passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus. This has been shown to be useful as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time."Lunch Lesson Four - Customer service". Retrieved on January 24, 2008.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
