Customer Service - Assignment 1 PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Customer Service - Assignment 1 PDF

Description

Leon Willson Customer Service – Assignment 1 In this assignment, I will be creating a report to feedback for a supermarket, researching and describing different types of customer service strategies and analysing them, providing detail on how customer service can have a lasting effect on a customer and how they choose to view that business, and evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of certain aspects of customer service. P1 In this part of the assignment, I will be describing the different approaches to customer service delivery in contrasting businesses. The two contrasting businesses I have chosen to compare customer service in is Tesco, which is in the private sector and the NHS which is in the public sector. The reasoning behind me choosing these two businesses is that Tesco is all about making as much profit as they can whereas the NHS is completely the opposite and does not make any profits, and is about providing health services to people in the UK. Customer service is about how an organisation treats their customers. In some businesses, good customer service may be shown in providing people with lots of detail about certain products or experiences, and being there to answer any questions they may have. Employees have to look approachable and friendly so people feel that they ask them for any help. Good customers service is very important for any type of business, as it adds to the overall experience that the customer will have, hopefully meaning they will return again as they feel as though they are in a friendly environment. Tesco is a public limited company, founded in 1919, with over 7,000 stores across the world, making it a multi national business. Tesco specialises in providing a wide range of products for customers to purchase, mainly consisting of groceries, but also providing products such as electrical goods and products for use at home. Tesco currently holds the most market share out of all supermarket chains, so it is the leading example. The main aim for Tesco is profit. The NHS is a government run organisation, founded in 1948. In the years 2018 to 2019, the NHS spent £130 billion which was used to fund all their health and care services. The NHS is almost entirely funded on taxation, with a small amount from NI payments. The NHS is a non-profit organisation. Their aim is to provide everyone with any health or care services they need. There are several roles in Tesco that have to show good customer service. These include the customer assistants that are usually located around the front entrance of Tesco stores, so it is easy for customers to locate them. The role of a customer assistant is to provide customer with any help or any queries they may have. It is important that customer assistants appear approachable and friendly, as otherwise this may deter people away. Customer assistant have to deliver good customer service by answering any questions directly with as much detail as possible, being wary to not spend to long providing information that the customer may not need, and offering any alternative options if possible, because as a customer, if you have a question you are expecting a quick answer. Another role in Tesco’s that need to provide good customer service is the checkout operator. They need to deliver good customer service by providing an efficient checkout for customers. They must not rush the customers in any way and they need to have patience with customers. Good people skills and communication skills are needed for a checkout operator. Another role in Tesco’s is the delivery driver. For a delivery driver to deliver good customer service, they should greet the customer and be friendly towards the customer, and help them carry their shopping inside. 1

Leon Willson

Tesco’s overall approach to customer service is about providing customers with the best experience possible by shopping with them, to improve the chances that they will return to the shop. This is because as a customer, you want to feel welcome in the shop if you are shopping with them and this is why these different roles have to deliver the best possible customer service they can. If the customer did not feel they received good customer service, they may feel they have lost all their loyalty to that shop, and they may not shop there any more. For Tesco, this means that they lose a customer and that customer is likely to shop with one of their competitors, giving their competitors that advantage of having that extra customer, so Tesco needs to avoid giving bad customer service. This could be assured by giving employees of Tesco extra training in customer service skills, although this may be costly. For the NHS, they have different roles than Tesco in delivering customer service. An example of a role that need to provide good customer service is the receptionist. For a receptionist to deliver good customer service, they need to provide as much information and guidance to a customer that needs help, to ensure that the customers have all the information they need to go forward. Receptionists should be friendly as this makes customers feel as though they can ask anything they want to know about, otherwise they may not have all the information they need. Another role in the NHS is the ambulance team. They need to deliver good customer service by reaching out to people who cannot reach or get to the hospital. When with a person, they need to help them in every way possible and the need to be reassuring and calm the person by being friendly. Another role in the NHS that delivers customer service is the doctors and nurses. For them to deliver good customer service they need to cooperate with their patients needs and wants, and they need to help people deal with their problems. As a patient, they expect to have them there to ask anything or help them with anything, so appearing friendly and cooperative is helpful for them. For the NHS, their overall approach to customer service is to provide people with the best care possible. As the NHS is a non-profit organisation, they are not hoping for returning customers as it is a health service. But the NHS still need to provide good customer service to retain their good reputation and they want to make people feel that they can go to the NHS no matter what because their health is more important than anything else. The NHS could provide staff that desk with customers training, but again this will be costly and it will add to their already large costs. In conclusion, it is clear that Tesco’s and the NHS have different ways of delivering good customer service. This is because both businesses have very different roles. Customers expect different expectations of customer service from both businesses, such as efficiency in Tesco’s, and staff that is very caring in the NHS. P2 In this part of the assignment, I will be examining the ways that customer service in my selected business can meet the expectations and satisfaction of customers and adhere to relevant current legislation and regulations. There are two different types of customers that a business may have. These are internal and external customers. Internal customers are employees who may need assistance from other employees to help their own customers. These can include employees such as managers, close colleagues in their own area and supervisors. External customers on the other hand, are individuals or businesses

2

Leon Willson outside the business. They may contact or visit a business because they want to purchase goods or services. The difference between internal customers and external customers is that internal customers work in the same organisation as each other whereas external customers are not a part of the business. Internal customers may rely on their colleagues as they may need more information about how to help a customer. The reasoning behind them doing so is because their colleagues may be more experienced than them, and they can advise them on the best choice of action to best suit the customers needs. External customers may complain about something if they are unhappy with the treatment of themselves or a problem with a product or service. They could contact the business with an enquiry to try and solve a problem they may have. If the cannot get a problem resolved or they are unhappy with the resolution, this could cause these external customers to choose and go to another competitor. Internal customers expect to have training provided to them by the business they are working for, to make sure they have all the information they need. They need this training to be able to perform their job as well as possible and to have that confidence when they start working. However, experience is still necessary to be fully confident with their role and throughout their job they will need advice from more experienced employees. Internal customers also expect a salary for the work that they do for the business. Money is a motivational factor for internal customers and it can make them perform more efficiently in their job. External customers expect to be treated with respect once they contact or enter a business. As a customer, they expect to be treated kindly, as they will feel that if they are purchasing something from the business that they are helping them so they expect good customers service in return. If an individual or a business contacted the business, they expect a formal, informative reply that will help them answer any queries the may have. This is because it will show that the business has a positive attitude and for the business it will build their customer loyalty and give them a good reputation. Also, as an external customer purchasing products or services from the business, they expect good value for money, and good quality products. However, external customers must not expect as high of quality items if they know they paid a lot less for it than other similar products, such as purchasing products from a discount store such as Aldi. As a job that deals with customers a lot, being flexible with different types of customers is a key skill to have. As someone that has to deliver good customer service, they need to be adaptive to different customers personalities. For example, some customers may act quickly and some people like to take their time and make more informed decisions. The employee needs to act differently with different customers, to reduce the risk that nothing is misunderstood by the customer and to make sure they are satisfied with the answer you give them. Some customers may misinterpret things that they are saying and they might feel offended and you need to avoid that to make sure they don’t feel that you are being friendly and helpful towards them. Customers with special requirements may need more help than other customers with things they may need help with. For example, a disabled customer may need help moving around and getting things, so an employee would have to help them with that. If they did not help them with any of their needs, this would result in bad publicity and it would result in a bad reputation for that business and they may lose lots of customers. In the the UK there are consumer rights laws, that you can receive help if a business breaks any of these laws. For example, if a customer has purchased a faulty good and they can prove that is faulty, and it is in the guarantee period, they can receive a refund or a replacement. The business has to 3

Leon Willson provide a refund or a replacement or they are breaking the consumer rights law. Most business will provide a refund or a replacement because if they don’t it will result in a big fine that will be more than if they just gave a refund or replacement and they do not want to risk their reputation. As a customer, they expect to be treated fairly and respectably when asking for a refund or replacement, and they expect some sort of information telling them why the product or service is like this, which can help them make their next decision. In conclusion, Tesco can meet the expectations and satisfy their customers with the service that they provide. For them to deliver good customer service is relatively straight forward, with some simple training and experience in dealing with customers. However, the consequences for not portraying good customer service can be very harmful to Tesco, and would be to any other business, so they need to avoid this at any costs. P3 In this part of the assignment, I will be researching methods that a business can use to make improvements to the customer service provision. It is important for all businesses to see what they can improve on in certain areas. Businesses should see what they can improve on in their customer service area as it is one of the most important aspects of all businesses, as it leaves a lasting effect not their customers, and businesses want that to be a good experience rather than a bad one, as it increases the chance that they will return to that business again in the future. One way in which businesses can try to improve their customer service is by conducting more research into understanding their customers needs. This is very important for any business to do because if a business better understands what their customers actually want and what they look for in your business or in a product/service, then you can deliver that to your best ability. Conducting this extra research could give the business some ideas on how to improve, therefore they can implement it in and it will satisfy their customers needs. This research could be conducted as surveys or questionnaires or more effectively, you could gather information from customer feedback, as they may have purchased an item or used a service, so then they can provide information about the things that were good about it and if there is anything bad about it and it gives the business some ideas about how it can be improved so it can satisfy customers needs better in the future. Another way in which a business can improve their customer service is by offering customers special deals and discounts on products in store. This can make customers feel that they are being appreciated for shopping with the business and the would view it as good customers service. Also, the business can send emails to customers to inform them on any special deals or discounts that they are going to introduce in their business. This email could reach out to previous customers that have not visited and may have forgotten about the business, and it will give them a reason to go back. An obvious way of improving customer service in business is by offering employees training. Employees often receive training when they apply for the role, but a business could implement repeating training at different points in time, to refresh employees about how they should perform. This training should help them prepare to deal with different types of customers and how to be more efficient in their job roles. The business should set out clear standards and instructions for employees to follow, and it should help employees work out what is the best course of action for the situation. This will overall improve not only the efficiency of the employees, but it could also improve their moral as they feel more prepared to deal with anything that they might have to. For the customer, this will show that the business is very organised and that the employees are highly trained, and it provides the customer with the reassurance that they are in good hands. 4

Leon Willson

In conclusion, there are many ways in which a business can help improve their customer service provision. There are many advantages to improving their customer service such as increasing customer loyalty which can lead to them suggesting the business to friends and family, bringing in more customers for the business. Also providing good customer service can result in customers returning to the business to purchase from them again. M1 In this part of the assignment, I will be analysing how legislation and regulation impacts on customer service provision in my selected business. Different business have different legislations and regulations, depending on the type of business it is, as they may not have any aspects of the business that affect a certain regulation. I will be analysing the legislation and regulations Tesco have to follow and I will be identifying how this may affect customer service. One legislation that applies to Tesco is the Data Protection Act of 1998. This regulation limits the amount of data and the type of data that Tesco is allowed to gather and store about both customers and their employees. This act provides customers and employees knowledge that none of their private data that they may have provided to Tesco is shared to anyone else. If Tesco does not comply with this regulation and for example does store information about customers or employees that go against this act, can result in an unlimited fine for Tesco. The consequences of this is that it takes a large chunk out of Tesco’s profits, which can affect them because they may not be able to afford things they might have been planning to do, and Tesco might increase their prices to try to overcome this issue. Also, any regulation that Tesco might break would be announced publicly, meaning that customers and employees would hear about it. This will result in customers and employees losing their trust for Tesco, and loyal customers may switch to another competitor and employees may not feel comfortable with working for Tesco. Overall, this will lead to a decrease in Tesco’s profits and would also lead to a loss in their market share. Another regulation applies to Tesco is consumer protection from unfair trading regulations. These regulations are in place to stop businesses from misleading customers into buying their products or services and to stop them treating customers unfairly. This means that businesses such as Tesco cannot provide misinformation or misguide customers to purchase their products or services. If Tesco did misguide customers and gave them incorrect information, this could result in a big fine. This would also lead to a mistrust between customers and Tesco, therefore meaning Tesco would lose customers and they would lose profits. Customers may switch to competitors resulting in tesco potentially losing their leading market share. With the introduction of online shopping, Tesco will need to comply with distance selling regulations. These regulations consists of providing customers with information about when the delivery is going to be made, giving the right for customers to cancel their order and providing customers with a refund if they change their mind about a purchase. Any failure of Tesco not complying with these regulations may result in a fine. If a customer had a problem with even one of their online shopping purchases, they may feel as though they do not want to shop with that business which will result in them switching to one of their competitors. In conclusion, there are many legislations and regulations that help to protect customers and employees. Tesco have to follow these, as any failure to comply with these will most commonly result in a big fine. Not only will Tesco face fines, more importantly they may lose many customers meaning Tesco would face a large decrease in their profits. 5

Leon Willson

M2 In this part of the assignment, I will be analysing different methods of monitoring customer service for a product or service in contrasting businesses, which I have chosen to be Tesco and the NHS. One way in which Tesco monitors customer service for their products is by asking customers in their store to fill in questionnaires. This gives customers who want to fill in a questionnaire a chance to voice their opinion about a products or about the business as a whole. The benefits to Tesco of using questionnaires provides them with a range of opinions and some may provide information about something they like about the business or product/service and what they do not like. If Tesco analyse this data, they can gather useful information about what customers like so they can keep doing it, and more importantly what the customers do not like about the business or product/ser...