Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Week 1: Customer Service
14 May 2021

02:47 PM

The Basics of WOW! The Guest knows best

Assignment 30%
Tests

10%

Mid Term

20%

Final Term

40%

Total

100%
Introduction
Hospitality Principles:
• Provide the service quality and value that guests expect
• Hospitality is an industry consisting basically of organizations that offer guests courteous, professional food, drink and lodging services alone
or in combination
• A expanded definition also includes theme parks, gaming facilities, cruise ships, trade shows, fairs, meeting and events, and convention
organizations
• The challenge for all organizations in this industry is to ensure their personnel always provide at least the level of service their guests want
and expect every time, perfectly
• Challenging for those in hospitality organizations is the simple reality that service quality and service value are defined entirely in the mind of
the guest
Guestology
• The study of guest- their wants, needs, expectations and behaviour with the aim of aligning the organization's strategy, staff and systems so
as to provide outstanding service to guest
• A term originated by Bruce Laval of The Walt Disney Company
• The practice of guestology makes it possible to increase guest satisfaction which leads to more repeat visits which in turn drives revenues up
• The findings of guestology turn into the organizational practices that provide sustained outstanding services
• The organization's strategy, staff and systems are aligned to meet or exceed the customer's expectations regarding the three aspects of the
guest experience:
➢ Service Product
➢ Service Setting ( Service environment, Service scape )
➢ Service Delivery System
▪ Human Components ( restaurant server, sound engineer )
▪ The Physical Production Processes
▪ The Organizational and Information System and Techniques
• The goals is to create and sustain an organization that can effectively meet the customer's expectations and still be efficient enough to make
a profit
Meeting Customer Expectations
• Expectations - Characteristics that a guest hopes and assumes will be associated with a service experience
• Customer come to a service provider with certain expectations for themselves, their business and/or their families
• First time guests may have general expectations
• A repeat guests may have more specific expectations based on past experiences
Guestologist
• A specialist in identifying hospitality organizations can be best responds to the needs, wants expectation and behaviours of the targeted
guest markets
• Seeks to understand and plan for the expectations of an organization's targeted customers before they ever enter the service setting, so that
everything is ready for each guest to have a successful and enjoyable experience
Understanding the Guest
• To meet their expectations
VIP: Very Individual People
KSAs: Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Understanding How to Manage the Guest Experience
• First step is to understand the guests in a target market, to whatever extent possible
• Understanding and appreciating that guests, their expectations and their capabilities are varied motivates the guest-focused organization to
design each guest experience from each guest's point of view
Serving Internal Customers
• Internal Customers - Persons or units within the organization that depends on and serve each other

Service
• An action or performed tasks that takes place through relationship contact between the customer or guest and representation of the service
organization
• An intangible part of a transaction relationship that values between a provider organization and its customer, client or guest
• Something that is done for us
• To the customer or for the customer
• By a person or technology
Service package, Service product : Intangible + Tangible mixtures
The nature of Service
• Are partly or wholly intangible
• Are consumed at the moment or during the period of production or delivery
• Required interaction between the service provider and the customer, client or guest
The Guest Experience
• Guest Experience
The sum total of the experiences ( consisting of the service product, setting and delivery system ) that the guest has with t he service

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➢ The sum total of the experiences ( consisting of the service product, setting and delivery system ) that the guest has with t he service
provider on a given occasion or set of occasions: often referred to as service experience in other service industries
• Service Experience
➢ Same as guest experience but sometimes used in service industries that do no typically refer to their customers as guests
Product, Setting and Delivery
• The entire guest experience might be delivered by in a single moment but for the typical guest experience, speaking of delivery system
seems more accurate
• That system consists of:
➢ An inanimate technology part ( including organization and information system and process techniques )
➢ The people part-most importantly, the front line server who delivers or presents the service or co-produces it with the guest
➢ Guest experience = service product + service setting + service delivery system
Service Encounters
• Is often used to the person-to-person interaction or series of interactions between the customer and the person delivering the service
• Crucial importance to guest's evaluation of service quality ( make or break )
• Is the period of time during which the organization and the guest interact
Moment of Truth
Expanded by others to include any significant or memorable interaction point between organization and guest
Critical incident
A memorable event that deviates significantly, either positively or negatively from what the guest expects or considers normal in service encounter
Guest Expectations:
• Meeting Expectations
➢ Benchmark organization - organizations that meet & often exceed customer expectations regarding service quality & value & that
have a high degree of excellence in their service, processes & business support systems
• Do not provide more hospitality than guests want
➢ Organizations must be careful not to over-deliver to the point of making guests feel uncomfortable or unpleasantly surprised
• Just what does the guest expect:

a
...
Courtesy
c
...
Reliability
e
...
The desired service product delivered in the appropriate service setting
Berry's ten complaints

Guest complaints

Guest expectation

1

Lying, dishonesty, unfairness

To be told the truth and treated fairy

2

Harsh, disrespectful treatment by employees

To be treated with respect

3

Carelessness, mistakes, broken promises

To receive mistake free, careful, reliable service

4

Employee without the desire or authority to solve problems

To receive prompt solutions to problems from empowered
employees who care

5

Waiting in line because some service lanes or counter are closed

To wait as short a time as possible

6

Impersonal service

To receive personal attention and genuine interest from service
employees

7

Inadequate communication after problems arise

To be kept informed about recovery efforts after having or
reporting problems or service failures

8

Employee unwilling to make extra effort or who seem annoyed by
requests for assistance

To receive assistance rendered willingly by helpful and trained
service employee

9

Employee who don't know what's happening

To receive accurate answers from service employee
knowledgeable about both service product and organizational
procedures

10

Employees who put their own interest first, conduct personal business
are taking texting instead of paying attention to customer waiting

To have customers; interest come first

Quality Equation
Qe = Qed - Qee
Qe = The quality of guest experience
Qed = The quality of guest experience delivered
Qee = Quality expected
Value Equation
Ve = Qe / All cost incurred by guest
Ve = the value of the guest experience
Qe = the quality of the experience

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Week 2: Customer Service
14 May 2021

02:50 PM

Use Behaviors that Engage your customers
Behavior & Personality Factors that please customers
• Behavior ( attitude ) -> Personality = Culture
Behavior
• What people do, action that can be observed / measured, involves something explicit
• Conveyed messages to customers via both verbal & nonverbal communication
• Visible behaviors -> Good attitudes
Nonverbal Communication
• One way convey behavior to others
• People sees us doing something and extract meaning from our action
• Meaning of these cues translated differently in different cultures
• Nonverbal cues used can be unclear, ambiguous or a different language
Differences across Cultures

1
...
Silence - how long we pause between comments and how comfortable people are with such silence

3
...
Personal space
5
...
Emotional expression
7
...
Waiting in line ( or "cues" )
9
...
The personality of the individual who provides service
b
...
g
...
Greet & Approach
2
...
Offer Solutions
4
...
Educate
6
...
Welcome customers to the store with a warm, friendly and genuine greeting
b
...
Give customers your undivided attention
d
...
Walk customers toward the door, thank them and give a warm friendly good bye
Individual behavior action tips that convey personality
1
...
Establishing rapport with customers
➢ Smile
➢ Compliment freely & sincerely
▪ Some article of clothing / accessories they are wearing
▪ Their family
▪ Their behavior
▪ Something they own
▪ Avoid any compliments that might be constructed as sexually suggestive or condescending
➢ Call people by name
▪ Introduce yourself to customers & ask their names
▪ Note customer's name from checks, credit cards, order forms or other paperwork & use them in conversation
▪ Not to become overly familiar too quickly
➢ Ask often "How am I doing?"
▪ To use more formalized measurement & feedback systems, employee should demonstrate an ongoing attitude of receptiveness 接
受性
▪ It takes a lot of courage not only to accept criticism but to request it
▪ Getting a constant flow of 'how am I doing' information is a critical key to projecting in an open personality
➢ Say "Please", "Thank You" & "You're welcome"
▪ Powerful words for building customer rapport & creating customer loyalty
▪ Don't use "no problem" - seems to imply that you expected the customers to be potential problem, but dealing with them wasn't as
bad as expected
3
...
Projecting professionalism
• Pay attention to your dress, grooming & workplace attractiveness
▪ Diagnosis bias - our propensity to label people, ideas or things based on our initial opinions of them
▪ What we decide about their character, trustworthiness & ability is largely a factor of first impressions
▪ The key word in dress & grooming is "appropriate" - appropriate dress & grooming conveys important messages to customers
▪ Pay attention to the little things that reinforce the look you are trying for
▪ Determine what level of professionalism you want to convey to your customers -> Create a look that projects your competence &
your company's personality
Organizational Action Tips that convey a customer-centered culture
1
...
Get customers to interact with your organization
➢ Make it easy for customers to sample the company culture - the organizational personality
➢ Less obvious ways to involve customers with little things ( Offering a product flyer )
➢ If the organizational culture encourages such activities, the customer is increasingly likely to have a positive impression o f the company's
personality
➢ It doesn't matter so much what they do, as long as they begin to do something
3
...
Use hoopla & fun
People enjoy working in an organization that has fun

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People enjoy working in an organization that has fun
Excellent organization are fun places to work; they create rituals of their own
The fact that employees are being recognized, even with little things, can be very motivating for them
Other ideas to promote fun in the workplace include:
▪ Employee of the week/month recognition
▪ Awards luncheons
▪ Win a day off with pay
▪ Halloween costume day
▪ Family picnics, after-work sports, dinner together
➢ Employee at all levels enjoy celebrations & hoopla - the good cheer can spread to its customers
➢ Have fun & celebrate at work but maintain an appropriate level of professionalism
5
...
Stay close after the sale / transaction

➢ Organizational resources should be used to track & contact the customer after the sale
➢ Follow-up systems should support actions such as:
▪ Mail thank-you notes
▪ Call to be sure the product/service met their needs
▪ Send out new-product information / advance notice of upcoming sales
▪ Send birthday & holiday cards
▪ Build "recognition culture"

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Week 3: Customer Service
14 May 2021

02:52 PM

Use the telephone correctly for good service
Know the benefits & drawbacks of telephone communication
• People who answer the phones have been described as the conscripts of the information age
• In many cases, a large percentage of their customers make first contact with the company via phone
• There are two challenges to telephone use that can negate their benefits:
➢ Some employees are unaware of the basics of telephone professionalism necessary to convey a good business image
➢ People cannot see the person they are dealing with
Action tips for telephone use professionalism
• Check your phone attitude
➢ Telephone can be a powerful tool for sales, information gathering and relationship building by receiving and initiating calls we can
accomplish a lot
• Contact & compare your company
➢ A phone call is often the first contact a customer experience
...
g
...
This is Buddy Sampson
...
An answer after 2 rings or less convey efficiency and willingness to serve
➢ Unanswered callers get the message that you think they are not important
➢ Keep your frequently phone numbers list current and have material you need to refer to within reach
➢ Use a planner system that has room to jot down notes about your conversation
➢ Get the caller's name and number as soon as possible and summarize the conversation briefly especially any commitment is made
• Use courtesy titles ( Mr
...
)
➢ It sounds respectful
➢ Don't assume that a caller prefers to be called by his or her first name
➢ Titles and formality can create credibility
• Thank people for calling
➢ Thank you is the most powerful phrase in human relations
➢ A strong customer satisfaction booster
• Smile
➢ A smile can be 'seen' through the phone
➢ Be pleasant, concerned and helpful
➢ Keep the mirror near you
• Be sure the conversation is finished before you hang up
➢ Abruptly ending a call sounds rude
• Handle the upset caller with tact and skill
➢ 2 phrases to handle upset or difficult people
▪ Understand why they are upset or difficult
▪ Diffuse the anger or frustration with statements or questions
1
...

2
...
What would be a good solution from your point of view?
Action tips for expressing yourself on the phone
• Keep your conversation tactful & business like
➢ "May I ask who is calling?"
➢ "I'm sorry, Ms James, someone else must have helped you earlier
...
Jones when she calls you back?
➢ Note the time and date the message was taken and add your initials in case there are any questions
• Make your greeting message efficient
➢ Keep your greeting message current and not too long or too clever
➢ When you as a caller leave a message on another person's machine, do include:
▪ Your name ( spelled if necessary )
▪ Time and day of your call
▪ A brief explanation of why you are calling
▪ Your phone number
▪ When you can be reached
• Don't let the telephone interrupt an important live conversation
➢ Excuse yourself if needed
• Use the hold button & call transfer correctly
➢ Be careful not to be too abrupt
➢ Ask customers if it'll be okay if you put them on hold for ( a specific amount of time )
➢ Be open if you don't know any details when receiving a transferred call
• Learn to use your phone's features
➢ Customer dissatisfaction with a firm's phone call-handling stems from two general classes:
i
...
Shortcomings in treating customers with the highest degree of courtesy
• Plan your outgoing calls for efficiency
➢ Jot down notes that include:
▪ The purpose of your call
▪ A list of information you need to get or give
➢ Be aware of probable lunch hours and long-distance time differences
➢ Be specific about when you plan to call a person back
Call centres: centralized phone handling
• Call centre is a facility where customer service representatives handle high-volume phone traffic, whether inbound or outbound, using
sophisticated telephone & computer technology
Call centres typically:
• Serve external customers by answering questions, taking orders, responding to billing concerns or pitching products & service through
telemarketing
• Provide the primary presale contact point with the customer
• The primary post-sale customer care channel

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Week 4: Customer Service
14 May 2021

02:54 PM

Listen to your customer
Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process
...

Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood
...
You can also call them egocentric,
egoistic and egoistical
◊ People become self-centered when they feel lonely because it helps protect them from harm, scientist have said
◊ The degree of 'vested interest' we may have in our own point of view
◊ When a difference of opinion arises among people, our vested interest in our ideas can create a listening barrier
◊ We are listening through a predetermined set of biases, looking for flaws in our 'opponent's' views rather than seeking
common understating
◊ Has a direct impact on the amount of information we receive
▪ Self-protection
◊ Anticipating where a conversation may lead before it occurs can distort meaning
◊ We protect ourselves by playing out an anticipated conversation in our own minds before the real conversation even occurs
• Environment elements
➢ The listening process is also impacted by factors of the communication determine what we are able to listen to & what we cann ot
➢ These factors can impact our individual ability to listen & our organization's listening capacity
➢ The factors include:
▪ Our individual listening capacity
◊ Can be hindered by too much information or too little
▪ The presence of noise
◊ Refers to those sounds that are irrelevant to the conversation
◊ May be either environmental or internal
▪ The use or misuse of gatekeepers
◊ Gatekeeper - one who previews incoming information to determine if it is appropriate to the needs of the person the message
is aimed at
◊ Gatekeepers may filter out messages we need to listen to

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◊ Gatekeepers may filter out messages we need to listen to
Listening habits to avoid
• Stop talking
➢ Listen two or three times as much as you talk
• Go to a good place
➢ Where we listen can have an impact on how we listen
➢ Find places where you are less likely to be interrupted by other people or noise
➢ Inviting a person to a better listening play can signal your desire to understand them
• Avoid faking attention
➢ An attempt to be polite to someone during a conversation & results in what someone called the 'wide asleep listener'
➢ Accomplished by:
▪ Looking directly at the speaker when you are really thinking about something else
▪ Automatically nodding responses
▪ Saying 'yes' & 'uh huh' to conversations you have mentally tuned out
➢ Commit yourself to expanding the needed effort to listen & give that conversation your active attention
• Be patient; defer disagreement
➢ We may have response to the customer's 'mistaken' point of view
➢ Let them have their say before 'correcting' or debating what they say
➢ Be sure they have had ample opportunity to express themselves fully before you offer additional information or respectful dis agreement
• Listen for more than the facts
➢ Messages almost always include both facts & emotions or feelings
...
org, google
...

• Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, ranging from entertainment and social networking to providing news and
education
• All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web, while private websites, such as a company's website for its
employees, are typically part of an intranet
Web Page
• A document that acts as a web resource on the World Wide Web
• A document commonly written in HTML ( Hypertext Markup Language ) that is accessible through the Internet or other networks using an
Internet browser
• Is accessed by entering a URL address and may contain text, graphics and hyperlinks to other web pages and files
Why should we have a Web Site
• The internet has become the place for searching and shopping
• Millions of people access the Internet ( or 'Web' ) fully expecting it to provide information about products and services worldwide
• All of us assume that companies have a Web presence
• Web sites, email, instant messaging and e-chat are becoming a much more commonplace
• Many people are moving in that direction as a customer comfort with technology grows
Key characteristics of Web-based customer service
• Where contact can occur in several ways & for several purposes:
➢ Self-serve common answers
▪ Here customers take care of themselves using knowledge bases, which are databases of answers to frequently asked questions
( FAQs )
▪ Knowledge bases may be structured or unstructured
▪ Unstructured knowledge bases are repositories of customer interaction such as email correspondence with customer service or
postings on an electronic bulletin board and blog
➢ Delayed answers
▪ When customers can't get the answers they need from self-serves sites, they often turn to email or instant messaging ( IM )
▪ Customer assistant representative look up answers and take turns responding customer-initiated inquiries
➢ Live answers
▪ High assistant service can be provided by such things as Web chat or live chat - more costly but often welcome addition to
customer's service options
▪ With live chat, the customer service representative communicates live ( in 'real time' ) with the responses
▪ A variation on chat rooms is the use of blogs - online forum for discussion
➢ Self-personalized answers
▪ Personalized service - customized real-time data about the customer's specific problem is ideal technology assisted service company
can offer
▪ Personalized self-serve solutions rely on real time tailoring of Web content to the customers individual needs
▪ E
...
- checking flight status, in-flight meal menu, tracking parcel by entering tracking number to check location
Recognize disadvantages of web-based e-service
• E-service is just one more assistance approach that must be designed, implemented & maintained
• It is costly & highly dependent on available technology
• Technology applications are moving targets - the rate of change is extremely fast:
➢ The hardware used has a life cycle averaging less than five years before it comes obsolete
➢ Software life cycles are even shorter
➢ Minor product updates appearing every few months & major updates every 18 months
• Poorly managed e-service systems can result in a reputation for bad service
Apply action tips for avoiding e-service problems
• Be there & be quick
• Make sites friendly
• Make site navigation simple
• Respond quickly
• Make a progression of solutions seamless
• Provide human communication alternatives
• Pay attention to form & function

Utilize action tips for evaluating & growing e-service effectiveness
• Track customer traffic
➢ Companies can track anything using available software if using web
➢ Company can use the services of firms that specialize in 'Web analytics' - the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet
data for purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage
➢ Analytic data can show them such things as the 'click path' the customer took to get the site and whether the customer is a first time visitor
➢ A click path is a record of all the URLs or web addresses the customer clicked on to get to your site
Data analytics - the science of analyzing raw data in order to make conclusions about that information
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•

•

•

•

▪ Data analytics - the science of analyzing raw data in order to make conclusions about that information
▪ Click path or clickstream - the sequence of hyperlinks one or more website visitors follows on a given site, presented in the order
viewed
Benchmark service levels
➢ Benchmarking means keeping careful about existing service levels
➢ Web sites with successful customer care benchmark and compare against their best competitors
➢ This statistics can then be used to set targets for the future
➢ Typical services monitored include:
▪ Site uptime
▪ Average response rate per page request
▪ Average time to respond to email inquires
▪ Average time to respond to Web chat inquires
▪ Number of resolved and unresolved inquiries per day
Teach your site to learn
➢ Successful e-service requires learning such things as:
▪ What customer service solutions work or don't work
▪ What content is missing
▪ What click paths end in dissatisfied customers
▪ What new questions are your customers asking
Build an ongoing e-relationship
➢ Successful human relationship require two-way communication ( verbal and nonverbal )
▪ To build an e-relationship
▪ Offer email notification to customer
▪ "Notify on change' puts the customer's e-mailbox to use
▪ With each change in product, catalog or content area, the company can automatically fire off an appropriate email to its customer
base
▪ However, the company need to get a permission from customer first
▪ Sending unwanted email ( spamming ) can damage a relationship rather than enhance it
▪ If customer do agree to accept notifications, the company should always give them the option with each email to have their name
removed from the notification list
End high for better loyalty
➢ One common model for providing traditional in-person customer service suggests
▪ apologizing for any inconvenience ( expressing caring )
▪ solving the problem ( showing competence )
▪ offering a peace token ( providing comfort ) such as small gift or additional points in customer loyalty program
▪ This last step is designed to leave the customer on high note, thinking positively about the company
▪ With Web-based customer service - it still make sense to make peace or provide comfort
▪ Before customers log off from a Website, thank customers for visiting and using your website
...
The easiest way to understand a customer is to recognize a customer's
satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction
• At the end of the day, what do your customer like or dislike?
• Several methods that may be used to pinpoint customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction
➢ Customer Surveys
➢ Customer Feedback Questionnaires
➢ Customer Focus Groups
➢ Customer Interviews
➢ Customer Advisory groups
Categorizing Customer Turnoffs
• Value Turnoffs
➢ A fundamental turnoff for customers is the feeling that they receive poor value from a product or service
➢ Value is a function of a product's quality relative to its price
➢ Value propositions - what the company intends to exchange with its customers
...
about company
systems
➢ Examples:
▪ Slow service or help not available
▪ Business place dirty, messy or cluttered
▪ Low selection or poor availability of product
▪ Inconvenient location, layout, parking or access
• People Turnoffs
These are the things we most often associate with poor service and include lack of courtesy or attention, inappropriate or un professional
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➢ These are the things we most often associate with poor service and include lack of courtesy or attention, inappropriate or un professional
behaviour, or an indifferent attitude - in short, any behaviour that conveys a lack of care or consideration for the customer
➢ Almost always arises from communication problem
➢ Employee who fail to communicate appropriately, both verbally ( with words ) & nonverbally ( without words ), can quickly irr itate a
customer
➢ Communication turnoffs often result when employees are ignorant of the kinds of 'messages' they are sending to customers
➢ Companies benefit from identifying certain communication taboos - words or phrases that should be avoided
➢ Examples:
▪ Lack of courtesy, friendliness, or attention
▪ Employees who lack knowledge or are not helpful
▪ Sloppy appearance, poor grooming or annoying mannerisms
▪ Distracting clothing, piercing or tattoos
Create loyal customers
• Even satisfied customers may be neutral toward their relationship with a business
...
This is best done by responding to customer perceptions &
expectations
➢ Dissatisfied - Satisfied - Motivated
• Value the importance of service recovery
➢ Showing customers that you truly care is fundamental to building loyalty
• Customer loyalty grows when service is your core business
➢ Service must be seen as the very essence of your business, not a side function
• Earn your customer's loyalty with three steps:
i
...
Reduce or eliminate value, system & people turnoffs
iii
...
which is used as a basis for improvement
Synonyms: response, reaction, comment, report
Feedback is used either to reinforce or to rectify a specific behaviour in a given situation
Without feedback, improvements or changes could not occur

Why feedback is vitally important
• View feedback as a form of coaching
➢ Examples:
▪ When we work with a coach, he or she is constantly giving us negative feedback and we appreciate it
▪ A golf coach, will correct the 'lay you hold or swing the club and you're delighted to get the negative feedback
...
But the
information they provide is often too little, too late and too broad-brush
▪ Internet
 Provides the easiest way to give feedback
▪ Direct Communication
 With an organization's employees
 Telephone
 Letter
 Preferable by some people
 Creating a climate in which people will give real-time, on-the-spot feedback is almost always more effective than printed
customer feedback cards, telephone follow-ups or focus-group sessions

Why should companies be so concerned about getting feedback?
• Helps improve products and services
• Helps you measure customer satisfaction
• Collecting customer feedback shows you value their opinions
• Helps you create the best customer experience
• Helps to improve customer retention
• Is a reliable source for information to other consumers
• Gives you data that helps taking business decisions
Complaint
• Is a statement in which you express your dissatisfaction with a particular situation
Act on complaints in productive ways
• Two fundamental steps can lead to a successful resolution and enhanced customer loyalty:
➢ Feel the customer's pain: Empathize
▪ Treat them with respect & empathy
▪ Listen to their concerns, understand their problems & take them seriously
▪ Compensate them or provide restitution for the unsatisfactory product or service
▪ Share their sense of urgency: get the problems handled quickly
▪ Avoid further inconveniences
▪ Punish someone for the problem ( sometimes )
▪ Assure them the problem will not happen again
➢ Do all you can to resolve the problem
Take whatever steps you can to solve the immediate issue

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▪ Take whatever steps you can to solve the immediate issue
▪ If the product is unacceptable, get them a replacement
▪ If an employee was rude, apologize immediately and do whatever you can to repair the relationship
Other proactive ways to get feedback
• Ongoing naïve listening strategy
➢ This kind of listening conveys that you don't know - are naïve - about what customers want
...
The research found the average firm has a
➢ 60~70% probability of successfully selling again to 'active' customers
➢ 20~40% probability of making a successful sale to new prospects
➢ And only a 5~20% probability of making a successful sale to the new prospects
• If you win the customer back, they enter second life with you
• This second life cycle ( recovered customer ) can differ greatly from the 'first life cycle' of the customer in at least four ways:

1
...
You don't have to teach him or her about what you
can do
2
...
The customer may feel flattered by your efforts to win him or her back
...
The length of the 'prospect phase' and the 'new customer phase' would arguably be shorter in the second life cycle than in the first one
...

Example:
• An airline company using a sincere apology
• There is nothing worse than having your holiday dreams shattered by a delay, a rebooking or cancellation of your flight
• To make passengers' lives a bit easier in these unfortunate cases, KLM, the Royal Dutch Airline, automatically offers coupons for food and
beverages for delays longer than three hours through their app
• They also do an amazing job at sending time updates on the status of your flight, acknowledging the sense of urgency you feel while waiting for
your flight information
Why try to recover a potentially lost customer?
• Studies show that recovered customers will give a company more business than new customers
• If you win the customer back they have a second life with your organization, this is a new start that you can build on as a company
➢ The recovered customer is already familiar with your business
➢ You are likely to have more data about the customers likes and dislikes so you can appeal to the customer's needs
➢ The customer may feel flattered that you have tried to win them back, so they will become even more loyal as a customer or use more
company services
Maintain healthy attitudes about customer recovery
• Customer recovery isn't always easy but it is tremendously profitable
• 'The customer is always right' may not be a good motto
• Better think about win-win relationships, not who is right and who is wrong
• Always see customer complaints as challenging opportunities to cement relationships
• Defensiveness against feedback is the enemy of improvement
Attitude of Opportunity
• In addition to problem solving rather than blame setting attitude, service recovery is best handled when seen as an attitude of opportunity
rather than painful chore
• Begin with understanding the complaints are trigger for improvement
• There can be no positive change without negative ( corrective ) feedback
• Much or corrective feedback comes to us disguised as complaints

Actions Ideas to deal with difficult customers
• Don't let them get to you
• Listen
• Stop saying sorry
• Empathize
• Built rapport
Develop your recovery skills: How to recover a lost customer
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Develop your recovery skills: How to recover a lost customer
• To reduce negative ripple effects of 'uncovered' customers, we need to develop recovery skills
• Ripple effect: means continuing and spreading results of an effect or action
• We can do this best by applying the following ideas:

1
...
Go Beyond: Offer 'Symbolic Atonement'
➢ Offer the customer Symbolic Atonement
▪ Symbolic Atonement means giving the customer something to make up for the problem they have had
➢ It may not compensate for the damage done but symbolically it indicates that the company is trying to appease the customer and win
them back
➢ What are some ways you would be able to appease a healthcare customer
...
Clarity and Do All You Can to Resolve the problem
➢ Ask for clarification of customer concerns but don't interrogate, which can make customers act defensively
➢ Use phrases such as 'help me to understand' or 'can you tell me exactly what happened' convey a sense that you are genuinely interested
in helping

Different Types of complaining customers
There are Five types of complaining customers
...
The meek customer
➢ Generally will not complain
2
...
The high-roller customer
➢ Expects the best and is willing to pay for it
➢ Complains in a reasonable manner, unless they are like the aggressive customer
4
...
Constant and
repetitive 'not good enough' response to efforts to satisfy this customer is an indicator of a rip-off artist
5
...
Think about how you used your recovery skills
and ask yourself questions like these:
➢ What was the nature of the customer's complaint?
➢ Was it generated primarily by value, systems or people turnoffs?
➢ How did the customer see the problem? Who was to blame; what irritated the customer most; why was he or she angry or frustrated?
➢ How did I see the problem? Was the customer partially to blame?
➢ What did I say to the customer that helped the situation?
➢ What did I say or do that seemed to aggravate the situation, if anything?
➢ How did I show my concern to the customer?
➢ What would I do differently?
➢ Do I think this customer will do business with me/us again? Why or why not?
Handle the occasional customer from hell
• Here are some action tips for dealing with these challenging people:
➢ Be sure this really is a chronic complainer
➢ Know what to do with this guys ( or gal )
➢ Take a break, cool off, reflect

Handle a nasty complaint letter or email
• Answer them
• If you choose to respond to a letter and email with phone call, be certain to have the original message in front of you and to refer to the specific
points as written
• If you answer a letter/email with letter/email of your own, be certain that your message conveys an attitude of problem solving, projects
goodwill and exhibits professionalism
• A poorly written document will come back to haunt you as it is in hard copy
Use Receiver Centered Messages to respond to the customer
• A receiver centered message is a message that is phrased in terms of the other person's viewpoint
➢ Being receiver centered conscious you would - make sure that the tone of the conversation, letter, or email, reflects a sincere interest in the
other person, the message would cater to the other person's wants and needs

BHH 1023 Page 17

other person, the message would cater to the other person's wants and needs
• When you use receiver centered messages you convey an interest will hopefully translate in the customers mind into caring and concern from
the company

Use Human Relations Skills to Convey Appropriate Tone
• There are 6 action tips for applying fundamental human relations principles to bolster customer relations
a
...
Use receiver-centered messages
▪ One important way to reflect consideration for another person is by phrasing your message in terms of that person's viewpoint
▪ The receiver-oriented communicator thinks of the other person first
▪ Phrasing ideas in terms of the receiver's viewpoints conveys an interest in the other person and recognizes the principle of good
human relations
c
...
One way to do this is through direct address or 'this means you!' statements
d
...
It also tends to be more upbeat with a more pleasant tone
▪ Focus on the positive - what is or what you can do rather telling a person what is not or what you cannot do
▪ Positive language has a pleasant ring to the ear
e
...
Be appropriate assertive but not aggressive

▪ Assertiveness:
 Being pleasantly direct
 The ability to speak up for ourselves in a way that is honest and respectful
▪ Aggressive:
 Ready or likely to attack or confront; characterized by or resulting from aggression
 Behaving or done in a determined and forceful way
Calming Hostile Customers
• A hostile or angry reaction usually follows a certain pattern if it is handled skillfully
• This pattern is called the hostility curve

Using the Hostility Curve to resolve hostile situations
• Consider the following steps that will guide you through the Hostility Curve:

1
...
They function at a rational level
...
When irritations pile up about a specific incident that rational person may become irrational, possibly becoming abusive, and expressing a
lot of hostility
...
This stage of being unreasonable cannot last forever
...
They may feel embarrassed
for making a scene

4
...
You may say something such as, 'I know
this has been an upsetting experience for you'
5
...
Once the person has come down to a rational level you can start to try solve the problem and work out the situation, maybe first trying to
find out what caused the anger
How can you learn from difficult situations with customers?
• To positively learn from a situation with a customer, ask yourself the following questions
1
...
How did the customer see the problem? What was to blame? What irritated the customer most? Why were they angry/frustrated?
3
...
What did you said that seemed to aggravate 加剧 the situation?
What to do if the customer is still not satisfied?
• Professionalism requires us to do everything possible not to let our frustrations out on customer
Don't take it personally
BHH 1023 Page 18

• Don't take it personally
• If you have tried your best to satisfy the customer, then you have done all that you can do
• Don't rehash the experience with your coworkers or in your own mind
...
Revising the situation will not change it
...
Either type can have high perceived value

Exceeding Customers Expectations with Information
Understanding A-plus Information
• Communicating in ways that are more timely, clear, interesting, or creative than its customer anticipate
• Virtually every product has an informational component - something communicated to the customer
• Understand the special informational demands of E-commerce
Know 5 ways to produce A-plus information
• Informational hand-holding
• Media selection
➢ Strive for creativity in messages
E
...


BHH 1023 Page 20

•

•
•
•

•
•

➢ E
...

▪ Use symbols, icons, cartoons in instructions
▪ Replace 'owner's manual' with DVD, on-line information
▪ Look for opportunities to give personalized information, guidance
Message clarity
➢ Use simple wording
➢ Use illustrations
➢ Avoid tech jargons, unclear language
➢ Be conversations
Information accessibility
Be open & trustworthy
Provide timely answers
➢ Give info what customer needs it
➢ Real-time tracking
➢ Keep FAQs current, updated
➢ Make it easy to get info - now
Better information for internal customers
Create and support user groups
➢ Communities of practice - internal customer can share tips and ideas
➢ Cross-departmental cooperation can be enhanced by getting to know each other & each other's functions in the company
➢ Businesses should try to increase the level of interaction with their customers & employees using any available media
➢ Examples:
▪ Auto repair business auto maintenance classes
▪ Harley owner's motorcycle group ( HOG )
▪ Credit union 'be money smart' website
▪ Employee 'community of practice' to share ideas

Pay special attention to A-plus information in E-commerce
• Make customer support accessible
• Honour the customer feedback loop
Evaluate your A-plus information efforts
• Logging common questions ( FAQs ) consistently
• Evaluate messages with communication audit
A final thought
• Giving customers and employees appropriate, easy-to-use information is a powerful way to build loyalty
• Be creative and listen to customer concerns

Exceed Customer Expectation with Convenience & Timing
Understand A-plus convenience & timing
• Customer convenience arises from speed of service and ease of doing business
• Organization that strive for efficient, easy-to-use-services capture customer loyalty
• Companies that overpromise & under deliver when it comes to speed of service soon drive customers to more efficient competitors
• Consistently beating a time deadline provides customers with A-plus speed & convenience

How to produce A-plus convenience
• Give serious regard to customer time & convenience
➢ Time is valuable
➢ Make sure customers get a realistic perception of how long things take
• Consider the use of virtual waiting techniques
➢ Creative & effective ways to apply
➢ Possible strategies for mitigating the dissatisfying nature of waiting:
▪ Manage the reality of the actual wait through the use of techniques that better match capacity with customer demand
▪ Manage the perception of the wait by distracting customers
▪ Make the wait invisible through developing the virtual queues which allow customers to participate in other activities while waiting
▪ Match capacity to demand
 To reduce undue waiting is to plan for peak-time loads with adequate staffing
▪ Respond to how customers perceive the wait
 Provide customer distraction
▪ Make the wait invisible
 E
...
Restaurants located in shopping malls give customer a pager that flashes when their table is available
• Make things easier for customers
➢ Continuously check for unnecessary redundancy
...
Make life easier for your customer by simplifying forms, applications and so on
• Create once-and-done service
➢ Strive for once-and-done services
➢ Make it easy for customers to get everything they need and any problem solved at a single place or through one person authorized to take
'ownership' of the customer's issue
➢ Try to solve customer transaction problem in easy step - not by passing the customer off to others
• Make doing business easy
➢ Simple things like shopping carts and convenience store location can enhance customer loyalty
➢ E-commerce / online
➢ Using online retailers make easy for customer to compare products and pricing
➢ Everything they need in one place ( Walmart, Tesco )
Offer ancillary services
BHH 1023 Page 21

• Offer ancillary services
➢ Offer complete women-only fitness club equipped with saunas, tanning beds and a day care center and etc
...
If your cannot articulate
your vision to others, they will struggle to see how their contribution will achieve a common goal
• Step 1: Developing a customer-driven strategy is to articulate a theme
...
Beware of unintended consequences of reward systems

BHH 1023 Page 23

Week 13: Customer Service
14 May 2021

03:09 PM

Emerging Trends in Customer Service
Insight into emerging trends in customer service
• Three particular areas of change are having significant impact on customer service & loyalty:
➢ Enhanced personalization
▪ Customers will no longer tolerate being treated as one of a demographic category
▪ They won't accept a 'one-size-fits-all' mentality
▪ They will demand & get individually customized products & services
▪ Successful companies will thrive by exceeding customer expectations in 'goodness-of-fit'
▪ The ability of today's technology to make one-to-one customer relationships possible may well be a master key to better service
▪ Today's computers & point-of-sale electronic data gathering devices are commonplace & customers assume such
personalization
▪ Personalization may result in store offering discount coupons to the customer at the check-out counter
▪ One of the most significant trends is in the increasing ability to efficiently generate personalized, one-to-one messages tailored
to the needs & wants of individuals, especially customers, co-workers & associates
▪ Communication experts have long recognized that:
 The more we know about our message receiver(s)
 The more we personalized a message to the receiver(s) wants & interests, the more effective we will be communicating &
building relationships
▪ One-to-one, individually tailored messages can now be sent to huge audience
▪ We should not underestimate the power of customized messages in business & professional communication in an organization's
marketing function
▪ Today's technology lets us easily include past buying information & personal preferences to convey a sense that we know &
understand our customer
▪ Today's media go beyond the simple merging of names & addresses
▪ One-to-one marketing builds relationship that allows business to earn a larger share of the customer's business instead focuses
on understanding individual customers as much as possible & responding to their needs
▪ One-to-one opportunities with internal customers:
 The one-to-one principle holds for internal customer relationships too
 Workers who so engage tend to be more satisfied & fulfilled
 Effective managers ask employees about their wants & needs; they don't assume
 Two-way communication about individual needs is a key to building any effective relationship
▪ Today's communication media typically combine the power of computers to allow such one-to-one relationship building on a
larger scale
▪ These media have the following characteristics:
 They are individually addressable & highly adaptive to unique needs
 They are interactive, creating two-way, not one-way communication
 They are affordable & powerful
 They make things easier for people
➢ Evolving customer demographics
▪ Demands of various age categories & ethnicities continue to evolve & customer service must be aware of & in sync with such
changes
▪ Younger people become active consumers at earlier ages & with increasing sophistication
▪ At the other end of the age spectrum, baby boomers are changing the image of active 60-plus buyers
▪ The demand for individual understanding will continue to be complicated by the ethnic mic of customers & employees
▪ On the social & economic scene, we see substantial demographic shift
▪ Workforces are increasing diverse - made up of people from a wide range of economic circumstance, cultures, religions & both
genders
▪ Today's workforce consist of more traditional family units with single parents, multigenerational households & other life-sharing
arrangements, each with unique needs
▪ Internal customers - employees expect to be more involved in organizational decisions, to have their input considered
▪ External customers - customers expect to have their input considered as companies developed products & services
▪ The shifting social conditions of customers have stimulated demand for new & different products & services
▪ Customers have come to expect different kinds of satisfaction that go beyond the core product or service
▪ Products & services that help busy working families more efficiently are often attractive options
▪ Customer demographics evolve & insight into such changes should help steer a company's service strategy
➢ Increased transparency
▪ How companies do business can no longer be hidden
▪ Attempts to be unduly secretive reduce trust while enlightened companies are doing just the opposite - becoming increasingly
open & trusted
▪ Trustability - a quality that goes beyond being just trustworthy
▪ Trustable companies do more than just post accurate prices, maintain good quality & reliability & do what they say they will do
▪ They exceed expectations for transparency & openness
▪ Companies that build trustability benefit from increased customer loyalty
▪ An important insight for customer service professionals is that transparency - that is, being open & honest - is not just good
business but, to a large degree, inevitable
▪ Trustability is damaged when the company's profitability ( or convenience ) is put ahead of customer needs & wants
▪ Lower trust ultimately kills customer loyalty
Understand that come things remain consistent
Having said all we have about technological, economic, social & organizational change, we must also acknowledge that many asp ects of

BHH 1023 Page 24

• Having said all we have about technological, economic, social & organizational change, we must also acknowledge that many asp ects of
the customer satisfaction process remain the same
• In particular, key psychological & behavioural factors have changed little
• Human & organizational needs remain largely the same
• A basic sense of caring, concern & competence will continue to play a critical role in building customer satisfaction & loyalty
• Somethings remain consistent are:
➢ Demand for fair value
➢ The need to satisfy individual customer needs & wants
➢ The need for relationship marketing
➢ The need to prioritize customer share over market share
Demand for fair value remains constant
• People want fairness in exchanges, good value for their money
• Companies that profit from inflated prices, confusing rate structures, hidden charges & unreasonable penalties will not survi ve long term
• Bad profits - include those which may generate short-term income at the cost of long term customer relationship
➢ When companies put more emphasis on maximizing short-term revenue than on building sustained customer relationships
• Going beyond customers, relationships of any type will be damaged when people feel exploited or unfairly treated
• By contrast, relationships are strengthened when exchanged are fair & equitable
• In the future, people will increasingly demand totally honest service relationships
The need to satisfy individual customer needs & wants remain constant
• Today's consumer face an unprecedented number of choices, values, system & people will tip the scales for one business over o thers
• A consumer will go where he or she gets the most value, the most efficient & helpful systems & the most trustworthy & persona ble
transactions
• For a business to understand its customers' perception of value, systems & people, it must establish & maintain a relationshi p with those
customers
The need for relationship marketing
• Customers in a free-market economy expect good products at reasonable cost

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