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Management and Quality Services |
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There can be little doubt that everyone wants good customer service,
whatever it is that they are buying. Even the "customers" of local
support agencies and charities who pay nothing still expect a good level
of customer service. The standard of customer service expectations is
constantly and relentlessly rising. Any commercial operation that fails
to track these changing demands risks losing (or not attracting) customers
without warning.
The vast majority of organisations that supply goods and services believe
that they provide a very good or an excellent service. If they use
criteria, measures and indicators that are generated totally within their
own organisation, they will gauge themselves against those standards. If
you want to gauge your own level of customer service against a benchmark
of excellence, send for our FREE "Excellence in Customer Care - Internal
Survey" via the Sample Questionnaires. However, without direct customer or
client input to those measures, they can be falsely reassured. This is
why, when the customers of those organisations (who rate themselves so
highly) actually rate these suppliers' customer service levels, they give
an appreciably lower rating. This leads to the most important rule of
customer service:
Customer service is good (or very good, or excellent) .....
..... only when your
customers actually say it is.
The implication of this is that every organisation that wants to establish
its true level of customer service needs to ask its customers what they
think. Organisations who are serious about customer service do this
already - some quite regularly. Those who don't care what their customers
think (whatever the reasons) don't bother to ask.
Imagine a situation where customers receive goods and services from a
range of suppliers and these fall into two broad groups - those who ask
what they think and those who don't. What is the difference in impression
created by the two groups and do you believe it matters?
For many years Carshaw has been involved in measuring customer
satisfaction levels in various ways. These include surveys and audits (in
any combination):
* Telephone surveys
* Postal surveys
* Fax surveys
* e-mail surveys
* Face-to-face interviews
All of these are customised to match the individual client's requirements.
You can decide what you want to ask (and in what ways) and how many
responses you would like at whatever frequency. If you are not sure what
to ask, we can use our experience in this area to help you.
Organisations that carry out regular customer satisfaction surveys gain
incredibly valuable feedback that they can use to adapt and improve their
levels of service. Those that don't keep wondering why they have constant
battles to maintain or improve their customer base. If you have not asked
your customers lately what they think of your service, you can send for a
very short FREE survey form entitled "Customer Satisfaction Survey"
via the Sample Questionnaires. You can adapt
and modify this simple form to suit your needs.
If you are not sure how to implement a system for ensuring a high level of
customer service, send for our one-page guide "Implementing Customer
Care" via the bulletin board.
Customer service is the major means of differentiating an average or
mediocre supplier from a good, very good or excellent one. You know what
kind of suppliers you prefer to deal with, don't you?
Internal Customer Care
This is the attention given by people in any organisation to how well they
provide their service to their own internal customers within the same
organisation. Why is it important? Very simply, the people who provide
the client-facing or external customer care depend heavily upon the
quality of the service and support from others within the organisation.
While the quality of external customer service relies upon how well the
client-facing staff perform, they cannot perform consistently to their
peak if there are regular failures in the internal systems or procedures
that they rely upon.
Carshaw understands that good internal customer care depends upon:
a) co-operation and teamwork
b) customer focused attitudes of management and staff
c) having appropriate systems and procedures
d) relevant training
We have the experience of diagnosing just where the problems may lie when
internal customer service is not as good as it needs to be. Having
pinpointed the problem areas, we also provide structured solutions that
have an enduring impact.
These solutions can take the form of :
* Selling the benefits of internal customer care
* Leading an internal customer care project
* Identifying the internal customer-supplier relationships
* Setting standards for improved internal customer care
* Improving teamwork and co-operation
* Negotiating internal service level agreements
* Establishing commitment to the internal customer care contract
* Resolving internal problems and conflicts
* Maintaining momentum in the improvement process
These solutions can be applied separately but they are more likely to have
an enduring effect when used in an appropriate combination as part of an
improvement programme.
More information
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