customer service
...ng, and identifying areas to be focus on, achieving better than average customer service is a success in itself. For businesses there are many ways to enhance customer service effectiveness, not all can be implemented with total success, the core piece of the puzzle is the employee themselves. In order to minimize inferior customer service management must look at the situation from the customers’ standpoint. How do they want to be treated, what will satisfy them, what will make them return? There have been many times that I have gone somewhere and received excellent service, and then the next time inferior service. A case in point would be calling a company for information, for me it would be Rogers Communications. I had High Speed internet for a promotional offer, I cancelled and returned the hardware once the offer had completed. On my next Visa bill it showed I was still being charged. I called to resolve the discrepancy, the service representative said they had no documentation that I returned the hardware; she will investigate and call me back. She never called me back, I called them, spoke to another person, they said they understand and will correct the situation. My next bill I’m still being charge, the previous charge had not been reversed. I went to the head office spoke to a knowledgeable person who was courteous and friendly and had the whole situation resolve. If I had spoke to the last employee first my perception of Rogers would have been positive, unfortunately this was not the case, my whole perception of Roger’s is negative and will not use their service again. This draws to the question for businesses of how can you recruit the right people for the job? I think businesses must have a clear understanding of what the job involves and gear their hiring practices towards these aspects. This involves being thorough enough to identify and reject the applicants who are not naturally suited for the job. The result of not using these practices may be staffing whose service delivery maybe satisfactory when they are being supervisor but inconsistent when there is not supervision. Case in point Rogers, over the phone support unsatisfactory, but when I went to head office and supervisors are present, service representative was good. I believe this case in point solidifies the fact that hiring the right person is crucial to the success of delivering above average customer service. When hiring, management should focus on the employee’s attitude rather than the right skills. Skills for most can be taught quite easily if they have a foundation, while it is very difficult to change peoples’ attitudes. Some managers try to find experienced staff, only to find that they have inherited the recruiting mistakes of other businesses. Therefore to summarize, enhancing customer service by focusing on the employee is one small part of the puzzle and is a start to achieving successful customer service. There are many ways to tract the success of good customer service, some are better than others depending on what type of business it is. A case in point is services that ask for personal information, such as dentists, eye doctors and even car maintenance facilities. The first time you visit they enter your personal information along with the date and time, and any other specifics to your visit. Now that they have a profile, each subsequent visit can be tracked. One such particular service that I have used recently that I believe has a good customer concept and tracking technique is Mr Lube. Once I arrived at the facility there was no wait, the employees were prompt, they greeted me with a smile, offered me a coffee and a complementary newspaper and then proceeded to ask for my name. From this they can check their database to review my last visit and what services I had done and maybe recommend some other service other than just an oil change. Mr Lubes tracking system allows them to query their database on a regular basis to determine which customers are due for an oil change and then mail out a reminder. All this doesn’t guarantee success but with the information collected it can give the business a pretty accurate assessment of how there plan is working. If oil changes or extra services are declining at the Lube shop, the tracking software could analyze the data for one month, two month etc... to try and determine if it is a problem with employees, or the customer service philosophy. The tracking software could also be used to indicate increase revenue; this would show that the customer service philosophy is working. How often hav...