Importance of Providing Excellent Customer Service

Having a good customer service area within your business makes customers feel more welcome. If you make sure that your customers are well looked after and well respected, customers will be impressed and will want to return as they know that they will be respected and treated carefully. For a business, good customer service means treating customers with kindness. Customers don't want to be waiting a long time. Customers want to be helped as quickly as possible. For smaller businesses this can be difficult, as they will only be able to afford to pay a small group of people, however for businesses such as Virgin Media, they can afford to employ many more people, allowing faster response time to customers. The size of the businesses really depends on how efficient their customer service is. If you don't have the money to pay your employees, you can't have more than you afford, whereas for other big businesses, they can employ many more people, allowing their customer service section to be more efficient.

The two contrasting businesses that I will be writing this report on are Virgin Media and Bershka. Whilst they both sell things, Virgin Media provides a service and Bershka sell physical products, such as clothing. These two contrasting businesses both handle customer service in different ways. I will start by reviewing the customer services from Virgin Media. On their website, they have a few different options that you can ask for assistance for. The layout of this website is also perfect for those who may not be as confident in using the internet, or technology in general. Everything is labelled clearly, allowing you to find what you need quickly and easily. Most of customer services can be done via a phone call. This is good for a lot of people that need to be guided through a process in order to fix what the customer called for.

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Whereas for Bershka, their customer services are mostly done over email, or live chat and over the phone. Personally, I think that live chat is the best way to help someone as it is dealt with there and then, emailing is a much slower process as you have to wait an x amount of time before someone actually sees the email, then you have to wait for a response. Some businesses are good at keeping on top of emails and responding within shorter time frames, but some businesses have too many to handle. And for phone calls, it's very similar to Virgin Media as they can help customers deal with something efficiently, for example, as their website can be quite confusing, going through this with someone over the phone can be very useful.

In terms of employees, businesses need to ensure that they employ individuals with good people skills. If they are socially awkward, then they are clearly not right for the job. Choosing the right people is very important both for the business and the customers. Customers want to be spoken to with respect, with kindness, and sometimes customers enjoy having a little chat with the employee whilst they are waiting for something to be done, e.g. an update on a phone. Employees must also be trained to deal with harsher of customers. Sometimes it can be harder to deal with these types of customers as they tend to be more demanding, so having employees that can either calm them down, or stay as professional as possible is very important. It helps the business look more professional, and other businesses may take what their business does and adapt it to fit their customer services.

It is very important that businesses do have excellent customer service. There needs to be some sort of ‘helpdesk’ available during the day. Especially during the Pandemic of the Corona Virus, businesses needed to have increased customer service as people were no longer able to leave the house for any reason other than an hour of exercise a day or shopping for essentials. During this time, customer services all around became a lot more popular. So, during times like these, businesses need to make sure that they can keep on top of customer service requests and calls.

Virgin Media's customer service during the Pandemic of the Corona Virus needed to be top tier, as all of their customers were relying on their broadband to work from home, to communicate with family members, and not only broadband but also their landlines. Offering the services that Virgin Media offer means that you must be able to offer support 247. If this is not the case, then there should be information written on their website which may help the customers if they have missed the opening hours for customer services.

As for Bershka, their customer services may not be needed as often. As Bershka are a fashion brand that sells clothes, they will only be contacted regarding delivery times and possible damaged products. Naturally, they will not be as busy as the contrasting business, Virgin Media, however, customer services are still important to a lot of customers, and during the many months of 2020 when the country has been on lockdown, their stores have been closed, so the only way for customers to shop is online, and so their customer services are also online as a result. Their online customer services have gone from, being used from time to time, to being used as the primary way to contact employees, so undoubtedly, they would need more staff working to help these customers, and so there is a possibility that they may have to employ new staff to help, and there will be some sort of training to help them. This training can be done by monitoring the customer services for new staff to listen to and understand.

There are many ways to monitor customer service. Here are just a few:

• Recording phone calls
• Asking customers for feedback

By monitoring the quality of staff-customer interaction across multiple channels, organizations can learn from their customer's interactions, leading to better decision-making, service and processes. Monitoring customer services also allow you to see what can be improved to make the customer service calls andor emails be responded to more efficiently.

By recording phone calls, you will be able to see how your employees are responding, how your customers are reacting, and what your customer needs assistance with. If there are many customers with the same issue, then maybe there is something wrong with your product or service, and it should be investigated. You can also use these recorded calls to train new employees. This can be very useful as it allows new employees to deal with real scenarios to prepare for when they have to deal with real customers.

When asking customers for feedback, it is important that you take what they say into consideration. This will help you improve your customer services dramatically, as you are adapting to what the customers think. This will show your customers that you care about what they say suggest.

Legislation can help protect consumers, but companies need consistent attention for outstanding customer service. There are many laws within every business that they must all follow in order for the business to be able to operate lawfully. Some ways that businesses can be sure to follow legislation are listed below:

Keep up with ever-changing laws and regulations. Your company does not only happen to be compliant. It's a continuous process of scanning for new laws and regulations, determining how they affect your company, changing policy and enforcing policy changes, and tracking the results. Make sure you know which laws and regulations apply to your company and that you keep up to date with any changes. When you're prepared for future changes, you won't be caught off guard when new legislation goes into effect.

Specialists should be consulted. Small and growing businesses, in particular, could inadvertently break the law. To avoid this, make sure the organization's activities are clear. Furthermore, to ensure that everything is in order, it is advisable to recruit experts or consult with consultants. This enables owners and workers to seek advice if required in order to ensure that their acts and practices are compliant.

Ensure the workers adhere to protocols. Employees must obey company policy in order for it to be effective. Changes in policy, in particular, will not always be well received by the workforce, and workers may be unable to alter their daily routines. It is critical to include HR in this process.

Most significantly, make sure the organisation's policies and practices are well communicated. It's also important to make sure they're well recorded and available, both digitally and physically. Additionally, ensure that workers understand why policies and practices are in place or have changed. It may also be appropriate to include employee training on how to change procedures properly. Finally, you may want to consider introducing a compensation scheme for workers who follow the rules and developing penalties for those who do not.

A proposed Consumer Protection Act is expected to improve the economy by £4bn in the next 10 years. The Bill is designed to consolidate overlapping consumer legislation into one single straightforward Act, making it easier for companies as well as customers to recognize their rights and obligations.

This can have a huge impact on customer service, as it, as mentioned previously, it can help protect consumers. This will, however, require mass concentration in order to achieve great customer service that customers are pleased with.

I have taken the time to do some research on how businesses can improve customer service provision. One of the best ways to improve is to try and show the customers that you are listening to them. Clarify and rephrase what the customers say to ensure you understand them. Empathize with and reflect on their feelings by saying things like, ‘That must have upset you’ or ‘I can see why you feel slighted.'. Little things such as these show the customers that you do care, and do listen, as there are sometimes some employees that don’t listen, or simply can't understand what the customer is saying. A good business also has excellent relationships with customers. But a smart firm will always ask ‘what is good customer service?’. Good customer service centers around listening carefully and attending to the needs and desires of your customers. If you are not actively searching for ways to improve your customer service, your relationships can stagnate.

There are many other ways of doing so, such as:

• Practice active listening (as mentioned above).
• Learn to empathize with your customers.
• Use positive language.
• Improve your technical skills.
• Know your products and services.
• Look for common ground.
• Communicate clearly.
• Measure and analyse customer feedback.

These are just a few other methods that businesses can use to improve their customer service provision. I will briefly explain why these are good ways of improving customer service provision. Empathizing with customers shows your customers that you care about their opinion and that you will do everything you can to help them. Using positive language can also put the customer in a good better mood, this also shows that you care about the well-being of your customers. Improving technical skills is also a great idea as it means that you may be able to deal with a few more things yourself, without having to make the customer wait for someone else to assist them, you can do it all for them! Knowing your products and services is extremely important. There may be times where they have to sell to customers, for example, if someone using Virgin Media decides to leave them for another broadband company, then usually, the employee will offer some sort of deal to encourage them to stay longer. This shows customers that staff value their customers and will try their best to make them happy. It is also essential that you communicate clearly. If customers cannot understand you, it could frustrate them, so making sure that you are speaking clearly is very important. And finally, note down any customer feedback, it is very important that you take their feedback and use it to make your services better than other competitors.

Moving on, businesses need to make sure that they meet the expectations and satisfaction of customers, but how can they do that? I will be using my chosen business Bershka for this explanation. An obvious way to do so is to make some aims and objectives. This will allow Bershka to see what they need to do all the time, and so will be encouraged to put this into action. When they get used to it, it will become second nature for them, and they would then be doing it every day. They will also need to understand what it is their customer needs assistance with. They need to do their best to try and help them, however at the same time, Bershka will have to adhere to the current legislation and regulations. They need to do their best to meet the needs of the customer so that they return, and possibly tell others about their great experiences with Bershka, creating a free form of advertisement called, Word of Mouth.

Meeting the needs of customers is very important. As mentioned, many times, making the customers happy is what makes a successful area of customer service. Without customers, there would be no customer service, so a business (Bershka) will need to do everything in their power to keep customers satisfied, and follow any critiques they may have that will help improve these services.

When delivering customer service, different businesses will deliver differently. Virgin Media and Bershka will have different delivery methods. Virgin Media can make every experience for their customers different yet give them the customer satisfaction they need by personalizing their experience. This can build rapport, which is very important. The stronger the rapport, the more successful the business' customer services. Bershka can also do the same however customer service for Virgin Media tends to be a lot longer, as Virgin Media talk to their customers longer as their calls tend to be about upgrading mobile phones, broadband etc... whereas Bershka's customer service tends to be used for questions and returning pieces of clothing that are damaged, or just simply do not fit well. Virgin Media will need more trained staff than Bershka, as they will most definitely have more customers than Bershka, due to the size of their brand, and the different services and products they have to offer. The employees for Bershka's customer service will still need training as they do get a lot of calls and emails, however their queries tend to be short, and easily fixable. Both businesses can put in the effort of a friendly voice over the phone. This will show customers that you have friendly staff that are always willing to help. Even after a long day at work, it is important that employees build a stronger rapport with customers. For Virgin Media, they can have quite a long hold time on the phone. This is simply due to the size of their business. There are always customers waiting to talk to staff. Another way to deliver great customer service is to improve response time. This is a huge factor for delivering good customer service. Some customers are impatient and tend to hang up them phones after waiting what they think, is a long time. So, by reacting quicker to customers' calls, they will have more customers and more satisfied customers. People don't like waiting a long time for help, they call you in order to get assistance quickly, but there may be times where Virgin or Bershka are very busy, so the waiting time will be longer. You could tell this to customers so that they know what to expect, otherwise, it looks like you are just taking a long time, with no reasoning. You must communicate with your customers in order to create a strong rapport with them, and that is the key to successful customer service.

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