Abstract
The purpose of the writing was to find out what are the factors that could lead to
improved customer service in business organization. Factors affecting customer satisfaction is of
worth importance in order to know the reasons or the factors which are
responsible to create satisfaction among customers for a particular brand or
services. A lot has been done to improve a stronger customer service through
training programs which have been conduct to meet every customers need and
ensure satisfaction. Research was done to establish whether human resource
factors such as training, staff motivation and job satisfaction, goals in
organization and also the technology aspect. The service and product range of
the organization also will affect the quality of customer service. From this
factors, strategies that exceed customer expectations should be put in place to
delight the customers.
Keywords : customer
service, customer satisfaction, quality service
Introduction
Business organizations today as many
are focusing on operating internationally or globally, they are challenged in
several different ways which require them to be competent and be more aware and
adapting to surroundings and changes. One of the most important elements for
businesses to focus is their customer service. Business organizations must look
deeper into the needs and wants of their customers as these organizations
relying strongly their business on customers’ expenses therefore, satisfying
these customers is a must. It is evident that customer satisfaction has
positive effect on organization’s profitability. There was also a positive
relationship between customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention thus, these
factors are considered important for the success of an organization (Singh,
2006). Anddai-Minkah (2011) highlights that business organization like banking
industry viewed service quality as a significant issue as they need to strive
for improved service quality in order to distinguish themselves from the
competition rising from undifferentiated products. There was also an
established positive connection between high levels of service quality and
improved financial performance. In addition, the quality of service depending
on an expected service and perceived service. It is the customer expectations
of a service and the perception of the quality of the service, and they tend to
evaluate the services and compare those of their expectations and ones they
received (Anddai-Minkah, 2011). The crucial mistake of many business
organizations is they do not spend adequate time or money investing in customer
service departments.
Due to the an important role of
customer service for the survival of business organization, this paper
identifies the factors that can help to improve customer service in business
organization. The factors discussed in this paper including human resource, the
standards and goals of customer service, and technology. Employees especially
the front-line service employees have a pivotal role to deliver good services
to customers. In addition, standards and goals of customer service that are set
in an organization are likely to help an organization in providing better
customer services and lastly, technology plays a big role in contemporary
businesses which can also help to enhance customer service.
Customer Service
Customers are regarded as the
lifeblood of business hence, the happier these customers are, the better it is
for the organization. Customer service is defined as the ability of an
organization to meet the desires and needs of its customers. It is crucial to
provide excellent customer service as part of marketing. It is also considered
as the ability of an organization in exceeding the expectations of its
customers, consistently. Customer service often reflected in the presentation
of an organization and its facilities in addition to employees’ factors such as
knowledge, attitude and their behaviour (Customer Service, n.d.). Kimando and
Njogu (2012) explains that customer involves task oriented activities besides
proactive selling which involves interactions with customer in person. The
function should be designed, performed and communicated by focusing on customer
satisfaction and operational efficiency. Services on the other hand, are
delivered face to face. Both interactions and behaviour of service provider
reflect what happens within the firm.
Customer perception of service is much drawn
from the personality and behaviour of an individual. Apart from that, quality
customer service dependent on attitude, a way of thinking and philosophy of
conducting business which stresses a strong commitment and a sincere dedication
toward making customer satisfaction as the priority (Kimando & Njogu,
2012). Customer service is a vital part of business as it can provide
satisfaction or dissatisfaction to customers. In addition, it also has been
linked to customer satisfaction and is focused at retaining customer’s loyalty
due to pressure of intense competition. Since there is a direct relationship
between customer satisfaction and loyalty, it is thus important to understand
people’s expectations and identify possible and appropriate strategies hence
selecting the best ones to implement so that the firm can provide more
satisfaction for customers (Alidadi & Nazari, 2013).
Factors that can Improve Customer Service
There are
few factors which can lead to better or improved customer service. However, as
said, the scope of this paper only focusing on factors of human resource, the
standards and goals of customer service, and technology.
Human Resource
Kimando
and Njogu (2012) established that human resource is one of the factors that can
affect the quality for customer service. Human resource of an organization is
the employees that work for the firm. Kimando and Njogu found that employees’
motivation towards their job is crucial that can lead to high standards of
self-esteem among them, besides, it also helps to promote corporate image as
well as markets the products more aggressively. With motivated staffs around,
it ensures the capability for providing customers personalized service and
attention which can lead to customer satisfaction. In addition, training
provided for these human resources is vital for them to perform their jobs well.
Therefore, it is important that an
organization provide effective training for it staffs continuously. Such
training programs or courses are aimed at facilitating an organization to
achieve specified goals by adding value to its key resource which is employees.
With good and effective trainings, the employees can develop a positive attitude
work which can lead to better quality of customer service. Additionally,
Kimando and Njogu also found evident in their study where job satisfaction also
leads to a happy work life on a staff that reflected through the services to
customers.
In
relation to the effect of staff training on customer service delivery, Muniu
(2015) found that staff training to a great extent, staff training has affected
customer service delivery in the population studied. The respondents on his
study majorly agreed that customer care training has been helpful for them to
adjust to the personality of the customers, an important element of banks
performance, it helps the staff to deal with customers utilizing different ways
and attitudes, it also helps to appreciate customers’ time and to tolerate with
their behaviours, besides, it also enables staff to develop strategies in
sustaining desirable relationships with customers. Overall this kind of
training helps staffs to improve and be better at their job of handling and interacting
with customers. Other than focusing on improving service delivery, training can
also help to improve employees’ knowledge on possible problems with customers.
This in turn can increase employee’s ability to provide customers with related
and up-to-date information faster, and creating a pleasant customer experience.
Other than training for human resource, Muniu also found that to a great
extent, employee motivation has affected customer service delivery, in which
motivated employees tend to deliver service better. The sources of motivation come
from bonuses, staff recognition and growth opportunities provided by an
organization to its employees (Muniu, 2015).
As
mentioned earlier, customer satisfaction is crucial which is closely linked to
the delivery of service to customer. Employees as the deliverer of the service
play a big role in ensuring effective and satisfying services to customers.
Customer satisfaction can be influenced by factors such as friendly employees,
courteous employees, helpful employees, knowledgeable employees and quick
service (Singh, 2006). This further clarifies that employees or human resource
play a key role in achieving improved customer service.
Customer Service
Standards and Goals
Setting
the standards and goals for customer service is important as it provides
guidance and guidelines for staffs in delivering customer service. The set
goals have great impacts on performance as they direct an individual’s thought
and actions, they also regulate energy expenditure and acceptable hard goals
increase individual’s persistent to achieve the goal. When the goals are focus
on customer, employees thoughts and actions are in turn centered on customer
satisfaction. Many benefits can be obtained from setting goals for examples, it
helps to clarify employee expectations about desired performance, it can
relieve boredom in monotonous jobs, as well as it helps to indicate goals
reaching for employees for example when the employees attain customer service
goals and receiving feedback from satisfied customer.
Overall, it helps to achieve better
performance. In ensuring effective standards and goals for customer service, an
organization should know who its’ customers are so that appropriate strategies
can be set for a variety of customer. Internal customers should also be
considered as high-quality internal customer service is able to improve the
ability of the firm to satisfy external customers. For example, internal
customers can be serviced by administrative support staffs too. The setting of
goals and defining of standards for customer service should be done based on
customer research data and not set arbitrarily, or in other words, by
management intuition. This is applied on both organizational level and
individual level. Empirical data should be gathered from customers themselves
in order to ensure effective determination of goals for the organization, its
individuals and its teams.
The goals must also be measurable
and verifiable because it is important to measure and verify performance in
reaching the goal so that the organization is able to assess levels of
performance or specify needed improvement. Customer research should be done
through various of ways which studies the customers themselves. One example for
this customer research is Florida Power and Light (FPL) which is conducted on
customer satisfaction and phone queues for customer service. Based on the
study, the company found that the lower longer the wait on phone for customer
representative, the lower the customers rated the performance of the company
representative.
The study also helped the company to
determine that the customers expected to wait on average 94 second for the
representative. From the findings, the company was able to establish a phone
queue device known as “Smartqueue” which periodically informed customers how
much longer they should wait before a company representative can answer the
phone. Because the customers knew the length of wait, they were willing to wait
longer. This study provide example of a company translates customer
requirements into target service levels or as we called it ‘standards and
goals’ (Improving customer service through effective performance management,
1997).
Therefore, customer service
standards and goals can also be one pushing factor towards excellent customer
service. Good and effective standards and goals can potentially help the
company to deliver better service to customer and at the same time ensuring
customer satisfaction.
Technology
In
modern day, technology plays an important role in an organization and also can add
to competitive advantage for an organization to compete in international level.
Technologies innovations have revolutionized many industries and some companies
may find dead end to their businesses if they failed to move with the
technological advancement. Technology in this context, involves all software
and hardware required by an organization to achieve its goals. Information
technology which is the use of electronic ways in handling information, is very
widely used today. The information is stored, accessed, transferred and
delivered in electronic ways. Information systems in modern organizations
cannot be ignored as thy play a critical role in the success of contemporary
firms.
The adoption of technology allows a
company to compete at par with other competitors. In banking industry for
example, technology helps to provide multiple banking services that led to
faster services (Muniu, 2005). These services include request of credit
advances by customers, ordering checks, paying bills, fund transfer, and
account balances view (Chou & Chou, 2000). Due to this electronic services,
they reduce transaction processing cost which enables the banks to make more
profits as they able to create new products and services and able to grow
customer base (Mishkin & Eakins, 2009). Besides, technology also led to
real time information exchange as well as to improved banks performance (Ukai,
2003).
Security
and privacy are regarded as the main source of dissatisfaction toward
technological banking among banking customers which influence their
satisfaction. However, apart from that, many other benefits or advantages can
be drawn from technological banking that leads to customer satisfaction including
easier accessibility, convenience and design as well as increasing service
speed and reducing several costs at different levels (Muniu, 2005). Muniu has
found that to a great extent, technology has affected customer delivery in the
population studied. Additionally, the studied population also strongly agreed
that electronic banking has made great impact on the quality of customer
service delivery. Muniu’s finding also confirmed that technology services help
banks to strengthen their competitive side.
In addition, technology also help to
enhance privacy and security which leads to customers’ satisfaction. Muniu
(2005) concludes that technology has been significantly influence customer
service delivery in Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya. Moreover, Otiso,
Chelangat and Bonuke (2012) found that information and communication technology
(ICT) service delivery is positively related to customer satisfaction. They
went on suggesting on increasing ICT service delivery or improve services by
the use of an appropriate ICT.
Alton
(2015) highlighted the big mistake of companies always do which is lack
investment on their customer service departments and that most customers bail
on a transaction if they experience a poor customer service. Therefore he
agreed that businesses should stay up to date and continually offer convenient
services for their customers which can be done through implementing new
technology to improve customer service as a whole. One of the ways to establish
communication with customers. Firstly, establishing appropriate communication
through the use of communication technology that is preferred by the customers.
There are several methods for communicating such as phone calls, emails, SMS
messaging and apps, as well as live chat. These technology also ensures the
capability of businesses to be available anytime and anywhere utilizing all
forms of communication. This gives a so called freedom to customers as they
have the option to contact a firm whenever and however they want.
In addition, self-reliant customers
can highly benefit from the use of technology and more customers are now able
to answers their questions themselves because of information sources made
available on blog posts, podcasts, webinars, videos and other sources of posted
media. Lastly, technology invention of social media has also enhance
business-customer relations. More companies are now able to connect with
customers through sharing of blog posts, infographics, webinars, how-to videos
and so on. This allows customers to come to the businesses and is a great way
for businesses to acquire and retain customer base (Alton, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, customer service is a
paramount important aspect of business as it can help to acquire and retain
customers, ensures customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this paper, three
factors that can lead to improved customer service are discussed including
human resource, standards and goals of customer service and technology. Human
resource or employees especially the front-line service providers are regarded
as important individuals in delivering excellent service to customers. They
must be competitive, capable of providing personalized service to customers,
knowledgeable, and in general, provides a high level of satisfaction to
customers. However, setting good and effective standards and goals of customer
services is similarly important as the employees will base on these standards
and goals for their thought and actions.
The goals
and standards also provide guidance for not only individuals, but also teams
and organizations as a whole, in achieving desired and improved customer
service. Lastly, contemporary businesses should never neglect technology
innovation today as doing so, they may be left behind. Technology is a great
tool to improve customer service as it provides alternative ways for businesses
to engage and communicate with customers. It is therefore important for any
business to address these three factors and make adjustments where necessary.
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