Customer service is assistance and advice provided by an organization to people who buy or use their products or services. The goals of providing customer service vary based on an organization's focus in industry. But all organizations provide customer service to a certain degree. When done right customer needs are satisfied which results in return business and people saying good things about your organization. If you doubt the importance of customer service, consider a time you had a problem with a product and the store you bought it from helped you and send you away happy. You'll probably buy from them again. On the other hand I'll bet you've had bad customer service too and you probably don't do business there anymore unless you absolutely have to. There are five key components to a customer service environment. The customer, organizational culture, human resources, deliverables, and delivery systems. With the exception of the customer, you have some control over all of these, so let's talk about them a little more. First and foremost is the customer. Customers are the main characters in the customer service story and should be the central focus of all workplace efforts. Identifying and meeting the needs of each customer helps ensure their satisfaction and repeat business. All employees deal with customers of some sort and everyone's job depends on keeping them satisfied. Simply stated, no organization can exist without them. For customers organizational culture includes every element of an organization that they encounter. Each component of the organization contributes to organizational culture and the overall service environment. Culture surrounds and includes the core values and beliefs of the organization and the people who work for it. Organizational culture sets the tone for how service providers interact with customers. Human Resources refers to the employees of an organization. Policies and procedures are worthless without motivated, competent employees. Customer-centric organizations put a lot of effort into finding, training and keeping employees with the knowledge, skills, and competencies to serve customers professionally. The right people are often hard to find, but are worth the effort because customers appreciate them very much. There really is no sense in skimping on the people who will have the most contact with your customers. In most organizations all employees are expected to serve customers, but they also have specially trained employees to perform specific customer related functions. These workers have a variety of titles, customer care representative, member councilor, etc, but perform similar service functions. The fourth component of a service environment is deliverables. These are goods or services that are sold to customers. A deliverable could be a report, software, server upgrade, a car, a hamburger, or even cleaning services. No matter what a company sells, quality and quantity are the greatest potential for producing customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Customers who receive a well-made product or excellent service in a timely fashion will likely be happy. On the other hand, customers who get a substandard product or service will likely be dissatisfied and take their business elsewhere. Even worse, they may tell others not to do business with your organization. The other dimension quantity, is pretty much the same. Customers who received as much as or more than they expect will usually be satisfied, whereas those who get less than they expect will not. For example, one of my favorite restaurants serves a huge pile of french fries with their sandwiches. Now, even though I rarely eat them all, it does make me feel more satisfied that the restaurant cares about making sure I get good value for my money. The fifth component of an effective service environment is choosing which delivery systems to use. Delivery systems are simply the ways you get your product or service to your customers. For example, UPS and FedEx are means of getting products in a customer's hands. Organizations consider five factors when picking a delivery system. Number 1, industry standards. What methods does the competition use and our delivery standards in line with them? Number 2, customer expectations. How do customers want to receive your products and services and how quickly do they expect and want to receive them? Number 3, capabilities. Does the organization have the resources to offer additional options?Number 4, costs. Can the organization afford to offer more options and will they offer more value and will customers pay for them? Finally, number 5, current and projected requirements. Are customers satisfied with current delivery options and will they continue to be so in the future? In the streaming media business, this is a good example of how these two forces work. Netflix began as an online DVD rental service after a few years they saw that customers wanted more than just DVDs and started to offer streaming content. It proved to be quite popular and promised to be an even greater demand in the future. They started to offer more and original streaming content. Customers proved more than willing to pay for it and the company prospered. When other services like Hulu and Amazon Prime came along a few years later, they had observed and learned from Netflix. They debuted solely as streaming platforms because that was what their competitors were doing and what their customers expected.
