Customer Service.

What’s customer service? I asked this question to friends. We Goans are so involved in the tourism industry that we hear these two words quite often, so I wanted to know just what they meant and what they meant to people. One said: “Standing around wearing some make-up and a smart uniform, greeting with hands folded and smiling all the time at everyone.” You mean like in airlines? I asked. Yes, was the answer. Another said: “Getting mobile phones or televisions or fridges or computers repaired, or the technicians who repair those.” Yet another said: “Call-centre agents who sit phoning customers.” An online definition says ‘Customer Service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, Customer Service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. I asked my friends whether they considered lawyers’ clients and doctors’ patients as customers. They looked shocked. But, since the client/patient is paying for a service, s/he is a customer, no? No, was the firm reply, given with no explanations, no reasons. To add to my friends’ consternation, I explained that it was illogical that a doctor and a hair-dresser (the word barber is no longer used in polite society) should charge the same amount of money for giving 30 minutes of advice or activity. It takes a doctor takes years of training, skill and experience to know which tests to prescribe and declare a customer normal after seeing the results. The hair-dresser takes three months, take or give a couple of weeks, to learn to expertly cut, curl, straighten, wash, rinse, dry, plait, bun, roll and style hair. Yet, people are willing to pay more for the latter because they sit in a comfort zone, not in a waiting area, get pampered without experiencing pain/nausea/breathlessness. How strange is that. I’d imagine that one would want to pay more for being in good health. But the fact that people happily pay for a meal in a hotel many times the amount they’d pay to get their dental problems resolved proves me wrong. Back to Customer Service; it is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest". The more complicated the components, the more innovative the product and the higher the price, the better the Customer Service is the thumb rule. In a tourism-dependent place like Goa, hotels, shops, cops, taxi-drivers (sigh, we have to rope them in everywhere) must be trained pro-actively not only to say ‘hullo’ and ‘good-time-of-day’ nicely, but in their jobs, too. The old technicians in the Central Laboratory at Porvorim don’t pain or injure my 88-year-old relative when they draw blood from her veins to check for sugar: they don’t need to smile politely and say pleasantries. The proficiency gives the customer satisfaction. Taxi-drivers who help with luggage, receptionists who freely share information on cheap shopping-centres, postmen who fill in forms for illiterate peasants are all doing Customer Service of a fair without anyone writing about them. A good customer service experience can change the entire perception a customer holds towards the organization. A tourist who has enjoyed his hotel stay will return. Or will tell his friends to visit the place. A telephone operator who speaks clearly, accurately and patiently wins over customers as much as a slick marketing executive. If you’re in business, make sure your telephone operators are well trained. Professionalism works. Customer Service includes taped messages that tell me to press a number for English and another for technical problems and yet another for complaints and a fourth to speak to a human being. I prefer directly speaking to a proper voice and giving instant feedback. Recently we bought a computer. When we tried to load a very basic, home-use software on it, an error message informed us that the disc didn’t have enough space. The company, when contacted said, that’s how the product is made, if I wanted the software, I’d have to either be constantly online to use the free online software or buy an addition to attach to the computer. No one from the company could tell me why such a user-unfriendly product was being sold at all in the market. Make in India promoters must make note of such examples of poor customer experiences. Make in India need not be shabby or sub-standard. Make in India can well be superior to or at least equal to the best in the world. Read about Kiran Muzumdar-Shaw’s work and you’ll know it’s possible. Criticism keeps quality high. Customer Service was born out of criticism. If one wants to improve, one ASKS FOR criticism and takes it to heart. Customer Service assists customers in making cost effective decisions, buying suitable products (like they do in shoe-shops) and using that product correctly. See the stall-walas at ‘exhibitions’ showing the public the various uses of peelers. Customer Service includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble-shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Plumbers, carpenters and electricians are the ones to be trained in these points. Architects, and garbage disposal experts, too. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. technical support Automated customer service[edit] Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means[citation needed]. Examples of automated means are Internet sites. An advantage with automated means is an increased ability to provide service 24-hours a day, which can, at least, be a complement to customer service by persons.[5] Another example of automated customer service is by touch-tone phone, which usually involves a main menu, and the use of the keypad as options (i.e. "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish", etc.) However, in the Internet era, a challenge has been to maintain and/or enhance the personal experience while making use of the efficiencies of online commerce. "Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to them), so it's easy to shortchange them emotionally. But this lack of visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal, human-to-human connection in the online arena."[6] An automated online assistant with avatar providing automated customer service on a web page. Examples of customer service by artificial means are automated online assistants that can be seen as avatars on websites.[5] It can avail for enterprises to reduce their operating and training cost.[5] These are driven by chatterbots, and a major underlying technology to such systems is natural language processing.[5] Metrics and measuring customer service results[edit] The two main ways of gathering feedback are: customer surveys and Net Promoter Score measurement, used for calculating the loyalty that exists between a provider and a consumer.[citation needed] Customer service metrics that are followed by companies depend on the tool used for customer service. Most popular metrics include: • first response time, • average response time, • total handle time, • customer satisfaction score (CSAT).[citation needed] Instant feedback[edit] Recently[when?], many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, National Express in the UK has invited passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus. This has been shown to be useful, as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time.[7] Technology has made it increasingly easier for companies to obtain feedback from their customers. Community blogs and forums give customers the ability to give detailed explanations of both negative as well as positive experiences with a company/organization. Standardization[edit] There are few standards on this topic. ISO and The International Customer Service Institute (TICSI) have published the following ones: • ISO 9004:2000, on performance improvement • ISO 10001:2007, on customer service conduct • ISO 10002:2004, on quality management in handling customer complaints • ISO 10003:2007, on dispute resolution • ISO 10004:2012, on monitoring and measuring • The International Customer Service Standard (TICSS) • CCQA Customer Care Standard (Care Quality Alliance) www.CCQA.org.uk There is also an Information Technology service management standard: ISO/IEC 20000:2005. Its first part concerns specifications and its second part the code of practice Some have argued [8] that the quality and level of customer service has decreased in recent years, and that this can be attributed to a lack of support or understanding at the executive and middle management levels of a corporation and/or a customer service policy. To address this argument, many organizations have employed a variety of methods to improve their customer satisfaction levels, and other key performance indicators (KPIs).[citation needed] • Demand chain • Institute of Customer Service (UK) • Interactive voice response • Live support software • Privacy policy • Professional services automation • Public Services • Sales • Sales process engineering • Sales territory • Service climate • Service system • Social skills • Support automation • Technical support • Help desk software References[edit] 1. Jump up ^ Buchanan, Leigh (1 March 2011). "A Customer Service Mak