Ensure delivery of quality products and/or services:-
2.1 Deliver products and/or services to customer specifications within organisation’s business plan
2.2 Monitor team performance to consistently meet the organisation’s quality and delivery standards
2.3 Assist colleagues to overcome difficulty in meeting customer service standards
Deliver products and/or services to customer specifications within organisation’s business plan:
Every customer has needs, wants and expectations.
This means that the customer:
Specifically requires what they need
Wants what they would like; and
Purchases what they perceive is a good price and meets their expectations.
Wants are higher than needs, while expectations are what they believe they should be receiving. For example, you need to buy a car. A car that will allow you to move from Point A to Point B will satisfy you. You would like to buy a new car, but your cash flow is low, you would not be able to afford the car that you would like.
Satisfaction is measured by the customer based on the level of expectations that they have. This satisfaction is supported by the information that you give the customer.
Customers like to make informed decisions about their choices and the products that you have. Make sure that the customer is supplied with the information to make that decision. The closer they come to their expectations, the greater their satisfaction will be. In turn, the satisfaction of the customer will be reflected in their return to the organisation to purchase more products and/or services.
Before continuing on the path of delivering a product/service to customer specifications according to the business plan, let’s look at the business plan. What is it and what does it do?
A business plan is about results. The contents within the business plan must match your purpose. A business plan aims at assisting the business in looking ahead, in allocating resources, focusing on key points and preparing for problems and opportunities. For example, as a part of meeting the organisation’s needs, you arrange for staff to be trained in the skills required to meet the changing needs of the customer.
As the purpose for developing a business plan is to have a successful business, it is important that you have a complete understanding of your organisation, the products and/or services offered, the pricing and sales information, your strengths and weaknesses in comparison to your competitors, where the organisation is now and where would they want to be in the future. Every aspect on the business plan needs to reflect customer service information such as what are my organisations strengths and weaknesses against our own?
Once you have analysed all of the information about the business plan, analysis will allow the organisation to develop a vision, mission, goals and objective, processes, systems and policies and procedures on driving customer service.
As such, your team should be in a position where they will know the main segments of the market they mainly service so they can ensure that they at least can answer the following questions such as:
Does the product have the ability to meet my needs?
Am I happy with the product/service?
Am I receiving the value for service I want?
Customer service activities should be aimed at staff and team members actively participating in the sale or enhancement of the sale.
Service starts at the first contact and only ends when the customer stops coming to you. Service is an essential part of meeting the customer’s needs. If the customer is treated with courtesy and respect, they are more likely to return to you than if you treat them with disrespect and lie to them.
Monitor team performance to consistently meet the organisation’s quality and delivery standards:-
Successful business management lies in your ability to monitor the performance in order to generate enough data by which to judge the success or otherwise of specific strategies. Three areas in which a professional firm can have commercial and professional success and needs performance indicators are:
Measuring financial performance and business development
The views of the customers in the delivery and provision of products and/or services
Personal views about all aspects of personnel in regards to their professional relationship with the firm.
Since customer service ends when the customer stops coming to you, it is important to make sure that your staff keep meeting and exceeding their expectations. To this point we have spoken about meeting and exceeding their expectations. Now let’s reflect on the importance of making sure that the customer is always presented with consistency.
The business plan shows the organisation the correct path they should take to differentiate their quality and delivery standards. Policies and procedures present the quality and delivery standards that your staff should maintain. In turn, it is imperative to monitor the consistency of the quality delivery standards to ensure customer expectations are met and therefore retained. Monitoring will assist you in identifying problems with the level of service and addressing the problems or weaknesses identified.
There are a number of standards that you can monitor. For example, the area’s in which team members will obtain benefit from monitoring includes:
Consistency of sales
Consistency of returning customers
Customer loyalty
These standards can be measured for consistency against sales, customer feedback and customer retention.
Along with sales, it is essential that customer service is also monitored from the moment the customer enters the business or contacts the business. Staff must be familiar with the organisations procedures so that customer service is measured for consistency.
Questions that you could ask are:
What impression does the staff member portray?
Does the staff member consistently use value adding, relationships and innovation to improve service?
Does the staff member demonstrate an understanding of the customer/customer service relationship including the buying choices and behaviour of the customers?
How can these be measured?
Staff can be monitored to see if they demonstrate the skills that the customer expects from them. The skills will vary from organisation to organisation and can include demonstrating:
Sound product knowledge: Does the staff member answer the customer’s questions correctly and in a professional manner?