D2
Customer service is an important aspect of any business. In this competitive world, different
businesses can offer same products and services, the key differentiator is the quality of
customer service they deliver to their customers. Today, it is expected that companies and
businesses provide the best customer service that they can. According to a research, 97% of
global consumers say that customer service is important in their brand choice and loyalty.
The best way to have a successful business is to have the quality of your customer service
experience regularly monitored, evaluated and constantly improved.
A company's reputation is only as good as the customer service it provides. Please a
customer, and your client base will swell with relatives and neighbours who catch wind of
your top-notch representatives. But upset one and brace yourself for disaster. The experience
that individuals have with a company and then what they hear from friends and family
influence their perception of and likelihood to do business with a company.
Evaluating the benefits of improvement to customer service performance
Once feedback is collected, the results need to be analysed. This can be a time-consuming
and highly skilled job and relies heavily on the quality of the feedback mechanisms and the
way in which the methods, such as questionnaires are structured.
For example, they way in which questions are phrased can produce unreliable or unhelpful
responses, while providing quick-to-complete questionnaires with smiley faces can produce
hurried reactions. Similarly, if odd numbers of options are given, the middle is usually seen
as the safe (but not always the helpful option). There are two types of data which can be
generated: quantitative and qualitive.
Analyse responses – The areas businesses usually want to explore include:
- Level of customer satisfaction
- Quality of product or service
- Meeting regulatory requirements
- Balancing cost and benefits
Most types of surveys seek to analyse satisfaction levels and quality. Businesses also seek
confirmation of compliance (meeting regulatory requirements) but, when it comes to
balancing costs and benefits businesses are striving to find more creative ways to gather
feedback which can be analysed simply, quickly and more cheaply with maximum impact.
A pitfall of presenting responses by percentages is that they can be misleading. For example,
saying that 89 percent of survey participants would recommend a product appears impressive
to a customer but there may have only been 100 respondents. Eighty-nine people is not many
when you consider the whole population.
Planning for change - (resolving problems/complaints)
Businesses also use analysis of feedback to plan for change by resolving problems,
responding to complaints or finding ways to do more of what they already do well. Microsoft
does this by gathering and analysing data from users of their software. For example, when
computers crash, or programs close during operation, the information can be fed back to
/Microsoft, helping them to improve the coding of the software for future updates.