1. Delivering and Improving Effective Customer Service resources for today available at http://customerservicecourseandrewgh olmes.wikispaces.com/

2. How today’s session will run I am here to stimulate your learning I will involve you in various exercises and tasks, there are no right or wrong answers. Be honest and open Contribute fully You are all here to learn

3. Applied knowledge This course isn’t just about giving you some of the theory of delivering and improving an effective customer service. You can get that from reading books. The course is about you developing practical skills as well as knowledge and you will learn most effectively after today if you start to make changes in the way you do things and apply new ideas during your work

4. The fundamental belief of a customer focused organisation “Customers are the reason for work, not an interruption of work”.

5. Moment of truth: Defined as “Any episode in which a customer comes into contact with any aspect of the organisation and gets an impression of the quality of service” (Albrecht 1988). Good customer service is all about improving the moment of truth

6. Customer, User, direct and indirect is there a difference? Customer – person or organisation who receives or uses ‘something’ produced by us, regardless of whether they pay for it or not. User – person or organisation who directly uses the product/service, sometimes called ‘end-user’ Direct = direct recipient or user. Indirect = indirect recipient or user. They may be 2 or 3 steps away from us, but our quality affects them. E.g. I didn’t buy the computer I use in my office, I am not a direct customer of the computer supplier, nor of the purchasing department but I am a user or indirect customer.

7. Customer, User, direct and indirect We have all of these. MINI EXERCISE QUESTION - Should you treat any of them any differently? Or should they all be treated in the same way ? Which one is the student?

8. What do we mean by the term ‘customer’? Anyone who interacts with us or the service we provide, either directly or indirectly, or is a affected by the quality of the product or service, whether they are paying for it or not, either indirectly or directly, whether they are internal to the organisation or not. They do not have to be in a contractual (i.e. paying) relationship with us.

9. Mini exercise When you hear the words ‘customer service’ what does it make you think of?

10. Terms associated with customer service Customer focused Delighting the customer Satisfying the customer Meeting the customer’s need Exceeding the customer’s need. Giving the customer what they want, not what we think they want.

11. Internal and external customers Staff who work within your organisation are internal customers of each other. You are all customers yourselves I am your customer You are my customer

12. Individual Exercise Who are your internal customers? Make a list. How many other internal customers does each internal customer link to? Spider diagram? May be surprising – sometimes the ‘least important’ staff link with many more people than the senior staff do.

13. Individual Exercise Now try and group or categorize the internal customers For example by: size, location, power, influence, reputation, quality – what is important to you. Compare and contrast results

14. What do we mean by the term ‘customer service’? For the purpose of today we will take it mean that it is the set of behaviours which a you exhibit during your interactions with customers and how customers perceive the behaviours. ‘Service quality comprises the degree to which attributes of the service desired by the users are identified and incorporated in the product and service and the degree to which desired levels of these attributes are perceived by the users to be achieved’ (Jacques Horovitz, 1987)

15. In other words It’s not always what you do. It’s how your customers perecieve what you do that makes the difference Perception is the key ‘manage the student experience’ or ‘manage the customer’s and customers’ perception

16. But it isn’t easy We don’t always know what customers want

17. Difficulties/Problems with measuring and assessing the quality of customer service Extremely subjective What makes one person very happy might not do so for another person Each customer is different and has a different perception of what they expect/need/demand/want With products a customer can see it before they buy it, with a service the quality can only be experienced

18. It’s not what you do but how others see it.... ‘The quality of a service is determined by the user’s perception’ (Murdick, Renders, Russel, 1990). It’s not what you do, nor the way that you do it, but how your customers perceive what you do and how you do it that determines the quality of your customer service.

19. Discussion point “It’s not what you do, nor the way that you do it, but how your customers perceive what you do and how you do it that determines the quality of your customer service”. To what extent do you think that the above statement is true or false?

20. It’s easy to spot ‘poor quality’, sometimes difficult to identify good quality. When evaluating whether or not a product or service meets his or her needs a customer will typically wrap everything into one. This means that ‘everything’ to do with the product /service is considered together as ‘part of the overall package’. What this means is that for us to be able to provide a quality product/service you have to get everything right. The overall package.

21. Getting it right - the overall package Getting some of it right, or some of it ‘perfect’ (whatever perfect is) is no good if something else isn’t right. So your ‘perfect’ service may be let down and regarded as poor by the customer by the surly member of staff who takes 3 days to return a customer’s phone call because they have ‘better things to’…..and that’s a problem because we are all in it together…

22. Exercise ‘the overall package’ What do you think might typically form part of our ‘overall package’ from a customer’s perspective? And to what extent do we always ‘get it right’ Do you think different customers have different perspectives?

23. What types of things or attributes are student customers likely to consider as being part of our overall package?

24. Customers will typically consider all the following as being ‘part of the package’: Consistency. Speed and timeliness of delivery. Accuracy of paperwork and information. Courtesy of telephone answering. The value of information you give e.g. accuracy and ‘useability’ of any instructions or guidance. The attitude of staff - can do or “not my job guvnor”

25. Getting it right the overall package Customers include everything as ‘part of the package’ - so you can never us the excuse – “that is the other department’s responsibility”, or “It’s central admin’s fault”, or “It’s a computer problem that caused it”. A customer expects everything to meet their expectation – so you have to ensure that everything which forms ‘part of the package’ is ‘spot on’ – even if part of the service is outside your control or authority. And that is rather difficult to do.

26. The two dimensions of quality customer service 1 procedural dimension Systems, procedures and processes - the way “how” things get done. The mechanisms by which customer’s(’) needs may be met. Normally they are systematic, formal and organised. We can influence but not control 2 personal dimension The human or interpersonal side. We can control

27. Personal dimension The human or interpersonal side includes the attitudes, behavioural patterns and verbal skills which are present in every interaction with the customer. It’s easy to lose sight of how important the personal touch is. Things such as our: appearance, attitude, communication style, telephone manner, friendliness, etc

28. An organisation can manage the procedural dimension. An organisation can help develop the personal dimension and set standards. As individuals you can improve, develop and enhance your personal dimension.

29. Skills Audit ? After today you might want to have a go at producing a skills audit? A self review of your own skills, for your own personal and professional development. Simply write down in a list: All your skills you have that you use All the skills you need for fantastic service Rate them from 1-10

30. Skills audit part 1 Skills you already haveRate How good you feel they are 1-10 Rate how good they need to be 1-10 For any 10s ask what evidence is there? E.g. telephone skills69 Computer word processing35 as you rarely use a computer

31. Skills audit part 1 Where there is a difference in your numbers for a skills then think about how, where and when you will develop that skill in order to ‘close the gap’

32. Skills audit part 2 Skills you need to develop now and for the future Why are they important?Where and how are you going to learn these skills ? Negotiating with customers Important to be able to negotiate Learn from colleagues, shadow them and ask them to explain Better telephone skillsVery important for good customer service Attend training course Presentation skillsI’ve been asked to explain a new product to potential customers Training course plus watch others learn how they do it

33. Short break ?

34. Your best and worse customers Who are your best and worst customers to deal with and why? Discuss in pairs or in threes and write up main points

35. QUESTIONS How do your customers see us as a Dept? Is it a pleasure to do business with you? Do they look forward to it? Are our systems easy to use? Are our people easy to deal with? Are staff friendly and helpful? Do they enjoy contact with us? Are they delighted with us?

36. Question How do you think our students see us?

37. Service characteristics Before you can systematically start to improve your service you need to understand its characteristics. The next exercise will help you do this.

38. What are your characteristics? Exercise What are our service characteristics? See white coloured handout What Are (y)our service characteristics? Complete the handout sheet in pairs or threes and then we’ll discuss the results.

39. What are your characteristics? Exercise Your results ? If you had to draw a picture of this what would it look like?

40. Now an exercise on customer care

41. Excellent and poor customer service exercise See green coloured handout sheet ‘customer care exercise’. Think of two examples which you regard as being excellent customer service; one from inside the univ or CES and one from outside. Thinks two examples which you regard as being poor customer service; one from inside. For each example identify: The key factors that contributed to the experience, Your feelings and reactions at the time, Your feelings and reactions now.

42. What did you list for excellent customer service? ?

43. Typical factors you might have listed for excellent customer service Knowledgeable and friendly staff Professional manner of staff Staff listened to me They did what they said they would do They seemed to care They responded to me promptly They seemed genuinely concerned They smiled They treated me as a real human being; not a distraction They seemed proud of what they did and of the organisation Courteous, friendly and efficient service

44. What did you list for poor customer service? ?

45. Typical fact is you might have listed under poor customer service Nobody seemed to have a clue what they were doing Nobody explained I was kept waiting They ignored me They treated me as though it was my fault They never got back to me; I had to chase them They blamed it on the system, the managers, the computers, their suppliers, They fobbed me off They were busy doing something else and I was an interruption and a distraction from their main work

46. How long did your reactions to poor customer service last? Hours Days Weeks Months Years A lifetime And how many people have you told about the poor service?

47. Typically Feelings about really bad experiences last for many years. We tell at least five other people (and how many people do they then tell?). The organisation rarely knows how badly we feel

48. Some fundamentals…

49. 4 fundamental principles for delivering good customer service 1 the organisation is fully committed to providing excellent customer care and the customer is the key focus throughout the organisation. 2 all staff are aware of and committed to, the vision of excellent customer care. 3 all staff are trained to provide the highest quality customer care. 4 systems and procedures are designed to enhance customer care. (F & R Bee 2003 reprint)

50. Mini exercise Draw an annotated picture of what you perceive to be the essential characteristics a person who is able to provide excellent customer service. Be prepared to explain any aspect of your diagram

51. Mini exercise Draw an annotated picture of the ideal, or best environment for providing an excellent customer service. Be prepared to explain any aspect of your diagram.

52. How do we know if we are measuring or meeting our customer’s needs? It’s often a problem. There are a number of reasons for this: We tend to rely on anecdotal evidence. We tend to only really believe the positive things but often don’t want to hear the negative things.

53. How do we know if we are measuring or meeting our customer’s needs We tend to over rely on the opinions of a small number of highly articulate people or those of high status, or the ones who we see the most frequently. We tend to ignore the views of customers who we don’t like or who we believe are ‘difficult students’.

54. How do we know if we are measuring or meeting our customer’s needs We tend to ignore the views of one-off or new customers as they don’t understand our systems.

55. How do we know if we are measuring or meeting our customer’s needs We tend to rely on feedback from complaining customers which might give us a distorted picture of the situation. Conversely we tend to rely on a lack of customer complaints as being an indicator that everything is OK and our customers are all very satisfied. WE MAY BE WRONG!

56. How do we know if we are measuring or meeting our customer’s needs We tend to over rely on outdated conceptions about our organisation’s customer service - if it worked well 3 years ago it must still work well today. We tend to over rely on complaint filtering systems. Often only very major complaints get dealt with. Minor ones tend to get filtered out so we don’t know about them so we can’t do anything about them.

57. AN EXERCISE Relationship learning Relationship learning is the capacity to manage interdependencies with different stakeholders on a day-to-day basis under conditions of more or less uncertainty. The reputation of the individual and the business depends on these relationships.

58. Relationship Learning

59. Teams and relationships - relationship learning and stakeholders Relationship learning is the process by which stakeholders (that is both people and parties who have an interest in an organisation such as: government, shareholders, managers, employees, family, professional services, regulatory bodies and agencies and most importantly customers) are engaged in a two- way process for mutual benefit. We will use it to look at our customers

60. Relationship Learning Exercise This exercise will help you to develop skills in identifying the needs of your customers and seeing the reasons/needs for things from their perspective. Seeing things from someone else’s perspective You’ll split into 2 groups.

61. Relationship Learning Exercise part 1 Group 1 Educating the customer (student) dark yellow handout sheet Read the handout – don’t show it to the other group. May need to be in a different room for this? Group 2 Learning from the customer (student) light blue handout sheet

62. Relationship Learning Exercise part 1 Group 1 are preparing a maximum 5 minute presentation talk for group 2. Group 2 are busy producing something.

63. Group 1 educating the customer - mini presentation Now we will hear the mini presentation from group 1

64. Relationship Learning Exercise part 2 We will now repeat the process but from opposite perspectives - with the company thinking about what they would need to know about a potential customer and the customers thinking about what the company would need to know about them. So group 1 prepare a list and group 2 prepare a mini presentation.

65. Group 2 educating the supplier - mini presentation Now we will hear the mini presentation from group 2

66. After the presentation How did the 2 group’s lists differ? What similarities were there? What crucial differences were there? How did the information differ this time? – Quality? – Type and amount of information? – Level of detail? – Specific items added? – ???? Did either group feel a vital point(s) was(were) missing?

67. Relationship Learning After today’s session you may want to reflect on this exercise – how could you use the information from it?

68. Captive customers Internal customers are often captive, that means we can’t go anywhere else for the service. E.g. You have to go to our finance dept to sort out an invoice? You can’t control what they do; but you may be able to influence them in some way.

69. Captive customers and poor service What often happens with poor internal service is that we bypass the system, we ring up somebody else instead perhaps, or do it ourselves. The net effect of this is detrimental to the efficient and effective working of our Dept. and the Faculty.

70. Internal customer reputation It’s very easy to get a reputation for being unhelpful, never delivering the goods on time, not knowing what you doing, being obstructive. Probably everybody in this room can think of at least one person they have to deal with to which the above applies???? Do you bypass the system and work around the unhelpful person in order to get the job done?

71. Is CES/the Faculty Tour Ready? Tour Ready The concept of organisation always being “presentable” should the Queen or other person such as a major new customer decide to pop over and have a quick tour of your area. What would their impression of your organisation be?

72. Mini exercise – another picture Draw a new annotated picture of the ideal, or best environment and person or people in that environment for providing an excellent customer service. Include in words any current barriers there are which prevent this environment or people from being in place today. Be prepared to explain any aspect of your picture.

73. Customer Perception Quality of a service is about customer expectation and perception. Exactly the same product or service may be perceived as being good or poor depending upon the customer’s expectations. Customer perception of the product or service is often just as or even more important than the service itself! It’s not just what you do but the way that you do it.

74. Customer expectations Customer expectations change over time (usually becoming more demanding) and are influenced by their previous experiences and their experiences of dealing with other organisations. Almost every customer is unique; but we can categorise them.

75. Ways of categorising customers Prospective customers i.e. not yet a student New students Existing students Repeat customers - postgrad Local and regional and national and international ? ? ?

76. Mini discussion point How do we (or you informally) categorise our customers?

77. Short break?

78. Complaints Do we like complaints? Customers don’t just complain for the sake of it! Nobody wants to complain; they complain for a reason. How we manage the complaint is crucial to our reputation and NSS scores too maybe?

79. Quick question How would you as an individual feel if you had made what you felt was a valid complaint, and the organisation/company dismissed it as being of no concern and not worth sorting out? What would you be likely to do? Discuss

80. Your answers

81. 12 tips for resolving customer complaints 1.Treat the person as an individual who has feelings, values and a sense of self worth 2.Let the customer have their say 3.Say you sorry to hear what has happened 4.Listen actively 5.Get the facts by questioning effectively 6.Keep an open mind, don’t make assumptions 7.Don’t argue or be defensive 8.Try and find out what outcome the customer wants

82. 12 tips for resolving customer complaints 9. Concentrate on what you can do and explain what you cannot do and why 10.Don’t impose your own solution – you must reach a solution which the customer finds acceptable 11. Summarise and check that the customer understands and agrees 12. Agree a timescale which is acceptable to the customer for resolving the complaint

83. How do you currently manage complaints? Note ‘manage’ rather than handle or solve or deal with. Manage implies a pro active approach. Do we allow the customer to complain in any way they want to? What systems and procedures do we have in place? Do we learn from them?

84. Exercise complaint handling List the what happens when a complaint is received by CES. Who/where does it come from? Verbal complaints... Written complaints... Where does it go? What happens.......? Any specific examples you can think of? Are there any gaps in or problems with the system? Procedural or personal?

85. Review of your results from your complaint handling analysis

86. A proactive view of customer complaints Complaints are welcome, without them we can’t improve. We learn from complaints. We must make it as easy as possible for customers to complain to us. We take customers very, very seriously. Customers really are right. Solving a problem at our expense is an important investment in our customers.

87. A proactive view of customer complaints Customers must always be respected and treated accordingly. We want no unhappy customers. We will do whatever it takes to make all our customers satisfied and happy with our service.???? We respond quickly to all our customer communications. The way in which we solve every customer service problem has crucial or long-term ramifications: ultimately on the success of our organisation.

88. Beware of Complaint filtering Or our ‘complaints system’ filters out the ‘unimportant’ complaint so that only the major complaints get properly dealt with. ‘Less important’ complaints don’t get dealt with. Yet to the customer the complaint IS important!

89. Question Do WE have any complaint filtering in operation within your organisation? Are you sure? If you don’t think you do then - How do you really know that you don’t?

90. Complaints – difference between a complaint and a suggestion – eliminating the ‘but’ The word “But” is either a ‘complaint’ or a ‘suggestion’. If it’s a complaint - sort it out! If it’s a suggestion - it gives you the opportunity to develop something new - differentiation.

91. Complaints – difference between a complaint and a suggestion – eliminating the ‘but’ E.g.“Your chips were really nice, but the batter on the fish was a bit soggy.” This is a COMPLAINT – sort it out. E.g.“Your chips are really nice, but it would have been nice to have had a choice of batter or breadcrumbs on the fish.” This is really a SUGGESTION – the customer noticed good quality. If you eliminate the ‘but’ you’ll differentiate your product/service and enhance customer loyalty.

92. What are our fish and chips?

93. Complaints LLOVE acronym Love the customer Listen to their complaint Offer an apology Verify the complaint/query Execute a solution

94. Factors which could add value to the customer service staff displaying appropriate body language staff being friendly on the phone callers not being placed on musical hold staff who actually know what they are talking about appropriate opening hours one-stop shop approachable staff friendly staff user-friendly prompt service – or reason for delay is explained.

95. Factors which could add value to the customer service Friendly and helpful staff Staff with ability to listen Appropriate tone, pitch and pace of voice Approachable staff Staff displaying appropriate body language How staff greet the customer Understanding the customer’s needs Staff with good people skills

96. Did you spot anything the points on the 2 previous slides had in common ? They are all virtually zero cost.

97. So how do we add value to the customer experience? It isn’t easy Need to know our customers needs inside out – this in itself is not easy Need to be aware of different customer’s needs Need to be aware of changing customer need Need to know what our customers expect of us Need to know what it is that our competitors do differently or better than us - and learn from it Need to be consistent, yet improve over time Small things count

98. Adding value to the customer experience? How can you add value? What can the Dept (Faculty) do? What can you as individuals do to make a difference? Ideas and suggestions from you.

99. Finish now ? Or jump to slide 113

100. Ideas – overcoming barriers to making changes to improve customer service Good ideas can often be ruined or ‘killed’ before they are even properly considered. In order to improve our customer service we might need to consider some new ideas and not kill them off. The next few slides are typical idea killers

101. Idea killers We tried it last year and it didn’t work It would take too long It’s not my job to… You may be right, but... Our department is too big Our section is too small  We don’t do it that way

102. Idea killers We have always done it this way If it ‘aint broken it don’t need fixin’ It sounds ok in theory, but…. It would cost too much Something that cheap obviously won’t work That company down the road tried it and they wasted a lot of time and money and scrapped it in the end

103. Idea killers It’s impossible It’s too simple It’s too complex It’s obviously not going to work We need more time to research the full implications  We need more time…

104. Idea killers Why should I bother My staff are too busy We are all suffering from stress Our budget has been cut Our team has its own way of working Maybe next year we’ll re-consider it

105. Idea killers We need more …………. before we can implement it It seems like a good idea; but….. I need more information before I can make a decision I need others to make a decision before I can make a decision I can appreciate that there is a problem, but… I can’t; because….

106. Tool and Technique The SWOT analysis Allows us to consider our: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats All can be internal or external or both Can be done for the company as a whole, the Hull branch, a department within the Hull branch, or an individual person.

107. SWOT Analysis grid StrengthsWeaknesses OpportunitiesThreats

108. Exercise Have a go at producing a SWOT analysis for your organisation. Think about: Complaints Customer service Systems Procedures People Barriers to improvement What else is important to you?

109. Review of your SWOT analysis

110. Problems – the problem with problems Why should a customer be bothered about your problems? Customers are not always bothered about your shortage of staff, the fact that your computer network has gone down, power cuts, rail strikes, leaves on the line, frozen points, portion control policies, your customer service policy, your need for a lunch break etc.

111. Why should the customer be interested in our problems? The customer is not interested in these things, don’t bother telling him or her about them, you will only make him or her angry and bored. They seem like feeble excuses. No matter how good our tests, our quality assurance system, our customer services, your systems have usually been designed by us, not by our customers.

112. The moral The moral is that quality service is not what our internal guidelines or tests or market surveys or policies or procedures or statements indicate is satisfactory. Quality and customer service is what the customer says it is, not what you say it is.

113. And “Customers are the reason for work, not an interruption of work”.

114. A question to consider later -Future proofing ? How might the key characteristics of your service change in the future if the customers and their expectations change? Student fees – rising expectations etc ? ? What next for CES? What should we be doing ‘even better’ in 6, 12, 18, 14 months time?

115. Exercise for you after today? Have a go at producing a personal SWOT analysis for your own skills and knowledge. Do you need to work on developing any skills and knowledge?

116. Customer care and quality service – further reading Johns T Perfect Customer care all you need to get it right first time 1998 Random House ISBN 0 09 940621 7 This is a very good book, highly recommended Cook S Customer Care Excellence How to create an effective customer focus 2005 Kogan Page Lucas RH Customer Service building successful skills for the 21 st Century 2005 3 rd edition McGraw Hill Irwin Albrecht K and Zemke R Service America! 2001 reprint Warner Books Stewart DM (ed) Handbook of Management Skills 1992 3 rd ed (1998 reprint) Gower publishing ISBN 0 566 078899 R Heller and T. Hindle The Essential Manager’s Manual 1998 Dorling Kindersley P Honey Improve Your People Skills 1996 2 nd ed. ISBN 0 85292 396 1 section on customer satisfaction Philip Crosby Quality is Free 1979 (or later reprint) McGraw-Hill Philip Crosby Quality is Still Free 1996 McGraw-Hill Mullins L. J Management and Organisational Behaviour Financial Times Prentice Hall 2005 8th edition

117. your skills audits

118. Skills audit part 1 Skills you already haveRate How good you feel they are 1-10 Rate how good they need to be 1-10 For any 10s ask what evidence is there? E.g. telephone skills69 Computer word processing35 as you rarely use a computer

119. Skills audit part 2 Skills you need to develop now and for the future Why are they important?Where and how are you going to learn these skills ? Negotiating with customers Important to be able to negotiate Learn from colleagues, shadow them and ask them to explain Better telephone skillsVery important for good customer service Attend training course Presentation skillsI’ve been asked to explain a new product to potential customers Training course plus watch others learn how they do it