Customer Service Excellence
CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE
Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.
Service firms are increasingly using customer service to develop sustainable competitive advantage – through value generation as well as differentiation. This leads to more profitability. According to an estimate of the Customer Service Institute, US, it is five times more expensive to acquire new customers than to generate business from an existing one.1
The activities that support orders, including information, advice, configuration, order processing, handling, post-sale communication and special services. The primary objective of customer service is to increase customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and customer loyalty.
Customer Vs. Consumer: A customer is the person who makes the buying decision. He is involved in the final transaction with the service provider or the intermediary in the last chain of service distribution, experiencing the encounter. A consumer is the one who utilizes the service offered. In some cases the consumer is not the customer, for example, when a man buys an airline ticket for his son or daughter.
NATURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE Customer service is usually intangible and variable (see Chapter 3). Customers cannot see, touch or feel them, but can only experience the pleasure and satisfaction of it. Intangibility implies that customers, as well as service providers, will find difficulty in exploring their service requirement as well as in evaluating
Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.
Service firms are increasingly using customer service to develop sustainable competitive advantage – through value generation as well as differentiation. This leads to more profitability. According to an estimate of the Customer Service Institute, US, it is five times more expensive to acquire new customers than to generate business from an existing one.1
The activities that support orders, including information, advice, configuration, order processing, handling, post-sale communication and special services. The primary objective of customer service is to increase customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and customer loyalty.
Customer Vs. Consumer: A customer is the person who makes the buying decision. He is involved in the final transaction with the service provider or the intermediary in the last chain of service distribution, experiencing the encounter. A consumer is the one who utilizes the service offered. In some cases the consumer is not the customer, for example, when a man buys an airline ticket for his son or daughter.
NATURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE Customer service is usually intangible and variable (see Chapter 3). Customers cannot see, touch or feel them, but can only experience the pleasure and satisfaction of it. Intangibility implies that customers, as well as service providers, will find difficulty in exploring their service requirement as well as in evaluating