Customer Services sample essay

Maximizing customer satisfaction and building customer value is vitally important in building a successful and prosperous retail business today. I would like to research what value is to a customer, and how to maximize customer satisfaction in today’s aggressive business environment. Not only customer satisfaction is an important tool utilized by the majority of business people today, to foster sufficient customer services within the organization requires through training and preparation by customer service representatives, and providing this training and incentives by management. The following information provides background on the proposed project.

Background and history: In 1962 K-Mart discount store was established. Similarly, competitor, Wal-Mart was also established in the same year. Recently it was announced that Wal-Mart had reached the number one spot of the Fortune 500 companies in America. Also, it has been well known that for months K-Mart is once again in the throes of bankruptcy. Both retail giants reflect the efforts of the public’s perception of customer service. However, it seems as if K-Mart has the upper hand on customer satisfaction. The latter stores were sad to be often dirty, shelves disorganized, and the employees showed little or no interest in being helpful. These factors were the primary reasons of the failure to stay competitive.

On the other hand, Wal-Mart always seems to be bright and cheerful. The stores are said to be clean, organized and the employees seem eager to help. They even have “greeters” who welcome each individual shopper at the door upon entrance of the store. A simple gesture, but positively memorable. What is apparent however is the perception of shoppers. If customers feel important they will return. The customer is the final judge in all matters involving customers. It is the customer who will determine the quality of the service efforts. And the judgment is based solely on the customers’ perception, regardless of the facts. It is not that “the customer is always right,” but rather the customer feels important. Customer service is by far the most effective marketing strategy that a business can use to satisfy, capture, and retain a market share. When customer service is not a priority, the results of unsatisfied customers are predictable. In the end, all commerce is based on consumers and customers (the two notions do not always represent the same people), therefore the company may simply lose its business and anticipate bankruptcy if proper attention is not given to customer satisfaction, customer value, and customer services.

Where does competition stand for in regards to customer satisfaction? University of Michigan Business School has relinquished that consumers are becoming dissatisfied with the assistance at grocery stores and mass merchandising retailers. The inclusive status of consumer recompense with mass merchandising businesses along with department, low priced stores, and grocery markets. In the last quarter, widespread of all these types of stores customer, satisfaction was down half percent (Supermarket News 2001). Out in front, as released are Costco and Wal-Mart, which the two stand above the national average in points of seventy on a spread of one to one-hundred (Supermarket News 2001). The evidence that indicate customer recompense along with several diverse classification has been on a stable increase since 1997, corresponding to Claes Fornell, director of the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan (Supermarket News 2001). He says that if the movement to good service has been severed, its too soon to say, but satisfying consumers with the country’s good and service continue to be low in 2000 (Supermarket News 2001). Fornell also says that the all-around decline in satisfaction shown by the ACSI is not clever enough to stir top regards with the merchandising industry. He also noted that businesses would want to cut expenses and generate more publicity to gain the acceptance of customers, and maintain customer in conditions that are uncertain during economic growth (Supermarket News 2001). Such strategy is undoubtedly a productive tool that would surely entail sales, the primary goal of any profit-oriented organization; if there are customers, there are sales.

How does training employees coincide with customer service and customer value? In my research we found that customer satisfaction did coincide with employee training. Target Corporation trains all of their associates in customer service thoroughly, which will bring about more satisfaction to customer (Discount Store News 1997). Customer service training will teach employees the importance of service and customer value, but they must know that value is created. I want to incorporate customer service strategies into training, where every employee practices maximum customer satisfaction and creates value for the customer. Value is the bundle of benefit a customer gets in regard to the cost he or she pays. Customers sometimes feel that good value is just as important as cost, and in some instances even choose value over cost. I have found that in creating customer value it is crucial to consider what value is from the customer’s point of view. Understanding what value is to a customer, and creating that value in the customer service brings about not only customer satisfaction but customer loyalty too. In Business Wire (1997) Terri Flanagan, president of Total Research’s Customer Loyalty Management Division said that the unsolved gap in studies on consumer satisfaction has been the issue of consumer expectation for quality service to get an increase in value, production, and business outcome.

Total Research has concentrated on creating and forming of marketing studies, as well as a number of research technologies, that help businesses around the world make better choices to enhance their business (Business Wire 1997). In order to enhance modern business, customer service representatives need to be taught, and they also should understand that customer service is not always a natural talent but sometimes it needs to be cultivated. An important thing to teach is that customers expect a certain type of service. This is an augmented strategy in building good customer relations. It could be just giving a customer your undivided attention. The strategy is aimed at building up a certain view on customers as sort of “gold mines,” which should be kept not matter what. Of course violence is out of the question, so customer service representatives must treat customers with respect, and honor their desires, inquiries, concerns, or whatsoever. Customer service representatives must always be somewhere near the clients to provide answers, advise, or cater for their needs. This strategy is the basis of success.

Rushing customers can be offensive, and to allow every customer the appropriate amount of time and consideration is a must. Yes, taking care of the customer is vitally important, but it becomes annoying when a service representative takes too much care. First, it is impolite. And secondly, the customer stops thinking he or she is valued, because the shop assistant takes literally too much care. And thirdly, if the representative is constantly bugging the customer with how-can-I-help-you, the customer generally perceives this care to be spurious. Whenever customer service representatives are ugly or act unconcerned with customers, the after effect could be drastic for a business. Building customer relations was found to have a strong effect in customer loyalty along with customer satisfaction. It is more than a customer preferring one store to the other, rather than smart customer service managers want loyal customers to shop with them even if another store opens near by. They should feel that they must incorporate into training the knowledge of all departments for every associate.

K-mart Corporation is ranked the lowest in customer satisfaction among discount department stores. Both Wal-Mart and Target have the upper hand in discount retailing, partly because of their ability to better service customers and create value for shoppers. K-mart has had complaint of dirty stores, unsatisfied customers, and associates with poor attitudes, who are unconcerned and take no initiative to help customers. A solution would be to research customer satisfaction and customer value, store image, and formulate strategies to maximize customer satisfaction, then to incorporate such strategies into annual and initial training of all employees.

I will perform the following research to gather information on customer satisfaction and customer services representatives to determine strategies to be incorporated in management activities that are aimed at increasing customer satisfaction in stores, K-Mart in particular.

Part 1: Customers satisfaction in mass merchandising retailers. Part 2: Competitors on employee training and customer service. Part 3: Interview with K-Mart’s field store manager. Part 4: Store image. Part 5: Motivating Employees.

Part 1: Customer satisfaction in mass merchandising retailers. I researched the status of local businesses and their quest to maximize customer satisfaction. One business in particular is CVS Corporation. This company is obsessed with maximizing customer service, and wants every employee from vice president to the teens working on the sales floor to grasp the picture of customer satisfaction (Drug Store News 2002). Larry Merlo, executive vice president, feels that they hold an account for the consumers’ experiences as they visit their store (Drug Store News 2002). I feel that if K-Mart employees grasp the picture of true consumer satisfaction they would become the top competitor in customer satisfaction. K-Mart is ranked the lowest on the scale for customer satisfaction for discount department stores. Wal-Mart leads in customer satisfaction with a total of 756 points, Target has 744, and K-Mart is ranked at 681 (HFN The Weekly News for the Home Furnishing Network 2002).

Task 2: Competitors and employee training and customer service. I am currently researching Target, Competitor, and found that they feel customer satisfaction is linked to employee training. I have found in Discount Store News (1994), Target says “when you train associates well, you will result in more satisfied shoppers.” “Target uses more funds to teach and develop employees than other retailers,” said Larry Gilpin, vice president of human resources (Discount Store News 1994). Also, Gilpin feels this policy creates closeness between the company and their associates. They take pride in training their staff to better service customers. Target sends their number one employees Disney to be trained (Discount Store News 1994). Target understands that good service is expected, therefore they make provisions to give employees the proper training they need, so they can give customers the best service possible. In Discount Store News (1994), we see the education of Target’s employee administer a value impression to consumers that strengthen Targets high classed image.

Part 3: Interview with K-Mart store manager. I interviewed Richard Samuel, store manager of K-Mart in Shreveport, La. on the importance of customer satisfaction in conjunction with employee training. Samuel agrees that employee should be trained to understand what value is to a customer so they can better satisfy customers. Samuel says that in order to satisfy the customer you must know what they want. He also says that they must put themselves in the customers’ position in order to fully understand them. Although Samuel agrees that tall employees need better training, upper management does not feel that they need to take the time to conduct such training for company wide employees. The question he was asked was, “why all employees were only accountable for knowing the information about just their department, instead of an overview of the entire store.” Samuel replied that it was up to the employees to become knowledgeable of other departments, but there is no penalty for not knowing about other departments and not specified training for it. Another question was whether he felt that it was important to teach customer service to all associates. The answer that followed was that many employees do not automatically have customer service skills, and that some needed to be taught the skill.

Part 4: What is store image and how important is store image from the customer perception of the business? Store image is a part of customer value and customer satisfaction. In Automotive Marketing (1993), the writer says a consumer’s outlook of a retailer (and also its associates) is a substantial part of retailing. A well kept good looking store with polite associates is essential to a business. Richard Samuel, a K-Mart store manager, gives account of an associate with a nasty attitude, who upsets a customer, and as a result the customer left two buggies of merchandise and grocery in the middle of the checkout line. The items in the buggies had a grand total of $563 (Samuel). One associate with a bad attitude caused K-Mart to loose $563 in sales (Samuel). Moreover, the store’s image is not just for the service offered inside the store but also outside. A messy cluttered parking lot can deter customers from shopping at that store (Samuel). Associates need to be taught to be able to see what exactly would better satisfy the customer to understand what value is to the customer.

Part 5: Motivating employees. Customer service representatives may be well trained to perform according to the customer needs and wants, however if a person does not want to perform better (or is not motivated), there is no use in arranging training programs. In order to combine the skills to please the customer and the desire to do so, managers and supervisors have to take appropriate action. Management should get their employees to believe that a positive action will enhance employees needs fulfillment. They can also persuade the employees that they should follow a specific path of actions to prevent a reduction in need fulfillment (Davis 1967). To be efficient motivators, managers should know what mannerisms they want their employees to hold. It is not only important to motivate people to join the organization, but once they are present they must be motivated to perform well to please customers and make a good image of the company. The classical thought that comes to most heads is when considering reward incentives in money. Of course, monetary compensation is an important dynamic of an employees satisfaction, however most employees are looking for other types of acknowledgment for a job well done (Richardson 2003).

While it is important to keep employees motivated, sometimes it is difficult because of the work that is being performed. According to a personal interview conducted with Debra Diehl, manager of the accounting department of a plumbing distributor, the largest setback she encounters while trying to motivate employees is the repetition of work. Debra is the manager of a center with over 100 employees, seventy five percent of her subordinates are entry-level clerks. According to Debra, she finds that the employees soon begin to lack motivation to perform the work because they are constantly doing the same unchallenging work day by day. The same problem is encountered in discount stores, because shop assistants and consultants face the same tasks every day.

Having discussed the issues above, it become obvious that the employees, who work in customer service positions, are literally the face of the company. First images clients make of a company come from the people who interact with them, the customer service personnel. This way, if the shop assistant is poorly trained and not motivated, the entire company may feel the result of such an employee behavior. The first impression that customers experience is very important. During this very first experience the customer decides (although sometimes without even noticing it) whether he or she will be a return-client of a particular store or not. Thus, if an untrained and skilled, indifferent employee exhibits no care and customer value, the first impression would be negative, and the company would lose a prospective client. The most interesting and controversial fact to note is that maybe this particular store was the one that customer needs (offers the exact product the client needs at the most suitable price), however this is no longer important, since the client had not felt important or valued. Therefore, the supervisors of customer service representatives should put effort to train their subordinates and motivate them. Otherwise, company’s public relations and overall success would deteriorate.

Bibliography

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4. Anderson, D. (2002). Maximizing Revenue: Customer Services Discussed. Drug Store News. Page 21.

5. Solman, G. (2002). Where We Shop? HFN The Weekly Newspaper for the Home Furnishing Network. Page 13.

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12. Leland, K. and Bailey, K. (1999). Customer Service for Dummies. For Dummies Publishing. Page 2.

13. Zemke, R. (1999). The Best Practices in Customer Service. Amacom Publishing. Page 5.
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