resources for today available at Delivering and Improving Effective Customer Service Faculty of Education Engagement Week resources for today available at http://customerservicecourseandrewgholmes.wikispaces.com/

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

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

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

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. Includes internal customers – i.e. your colleagues 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.

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.

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?

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 Students are now customers too?

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

Discussion point – in pairs or threes “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?

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.

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…

Exercise you can do later on ‘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 you always ‘get it right’

Students as customers ? Question for you What types of ‘things’ or attributes are student customers likely to consider as being part of our overall package? What about parents of learners?

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”

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.

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

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

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. Both are necessary

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

Question How do you think (y)our students see us(you)?

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.

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.

What are your characteristics? Exercise Your results ? If you had to draw a picture of this what would it look like? Group or individual exercise?

Now an exercise on customer care

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.

What did you list for excellent customer service?

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

What did you list for poor customer service?

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

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?

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

Some fundamentals…

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)

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

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.

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.

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’.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 the organisation.

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?

Are you 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?

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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?

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

Your answers

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

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

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?

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.

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.

Beware of Complaint filtering Does your ‘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!

Question Do YOU 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?

The word “But” is either a ‘complaint’ or a ‘suggestion’. 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.  

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.

What are your fish and chips?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Finish now ? Or jump to slide 113

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

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

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

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…

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

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….

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.

SWOT Analysis grid Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

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?

Review of your SWOT analysis

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

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 21st Century 2005 3rd edition McGraw Hill Irwin Albrecht K and Zemke R Service America! 2001 reprint Warner Books Stewart DM (ed) Handbook of Management Skills 1992 3rd 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 2nd 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

your skills audits

Skills audit part 1 Skills you already have Rate 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 skills 6 9 Computer word processing 3 5 as you rarely use a computer

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 skills Very important for good customer service Attend training course Presentation skills I’ve been asked to explain a new product to potential customers Training course plus watch others learn how they do it