Qualification - Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Business Unit Number and Title: Unit 14: Investigating Customer Service
Learning Aim:
... [Show More] A: Explore how effective customer service contributes to business success Learning Aim B: Investigate the methods used to improve customer service in the business Assignment Title: Why is it important to provide excellent customer service?
Hand in deadline: 20/02/20
Introduction
This assignment, I have selected two contrasting businesses and these businesses are Asda, McDonalds. The reason why I have chosen Asda is due to shopping there frequently as they do sell a wide range of products to all ages. Therefore, they are also one of the largest supermarkets in the UK period. They are mostly popular in selling food and have competitors like Tesco and Sainsbury’s. They also do maintain superb customer service in order to remain one of the most popular supermarkets in order to gain customer loyalty.
Therefore, the reason why I have picked McDonalds is due to their outstanding customer service. There are one of the most successful fast food franchises in the world who cater to all ages and offer great understanding on their customer service. Their competitors are franchises like Burger King and Subway and these do offer good customer service in order to make their customers loyal.
14/A.P1 - Describe the different approaches to customer service delivery in contrasting businesses.
What is Customer Service?
Customer Service is the assistance and advice which is provided by the organisation to its customers who purchase the products or services. The reason why customer service is so important is because it provides loyalty from customers and improves business reputation.
Staff are trained thoroughly to know fully about the product and service in order to provide the best customer service possible. They must also know how to deal with the query from the customers.
Customer service does affect Asda’s business and its reputation. If the customer feels he or she did not receive the customer service they needed they will spread it through word of mouth to their friends and family which will damage the reputation and affect the sales and profits. This is why Asda have trained their staff very well to handle the situation in order for their customer to receive excellent customer service to maintain its reputation.
For McDonald’s Customer Service does have a serious impact as it offers range of services. Employees while they offer services, they have to offer good customer service through and a great positive one. If the customers are happy, they will be happy to buy more which results in higher profits.
Different types of customers
There are two different types of customer which are internal and external. Internal is the costumers who are directly connected to an organisation so they are basically internal of the whole organisation. These internal customers are stakeholders, the employees and shareholders. However, the external customer are customers who purchase company’s products or service.
Different approaches to customer service
Face to Face: is when there is face to face interaction between the staff member and customer physically. It's a more personal approach.
Online: Online communication between the customer and employee. It can be through social media or even live chat. The best thing about it is that it can be accessed anytime and anywhere.
Phone: communication through phone but only for a limited amount of time.
Post: This is when the customer posts a letter to the company but it can take some time and travelling is necessary to post the letter.
Email- This is when the customer will contact through email to the company and mostly, they will reply back within 24 hours.
Some of these methods are used by both Asda and McDonald’s which is great as customers have multiple choices of communication within their own ability for it to make it easier for them. If the customer does want to complain then the process would be easy for the customer.
In order to message Asda, email contact and telephone contact is the way to go. They do have separate phone lines for different teams for the customer’s convenience. The different reams they have is home shopping, George and store service.
In order to contact McDonalds, the customer will have to go on their website which is later redirected to the customer service team. Telephone and post are another contact method that can be done.
The effects of customer service
Customer service is highly vital for any business as a customer can provide constructive feedback which the business can use to improve. If the business provides bad customer service it can damage their reputation. However, if the customer service is good the customers will leave a positive review of the store which can result in a stronger customer loyalty. McDonald’s always try improving their customer service. For it gain a better reputation. The way they have done this is by improving their employee’s experience. This is done by increase wages and improve training. Therefore, McDonalds also provides coupons to public in order to maintain satisfaction.
Customer service does impact directly to the long-term revenue for any business as 89% say a quick response to an inquiry is more important for them rather than deciding which company they should buy from. Therefore, 97% of the customers also state that bad customer service can change their buying behaviour with 46% of them to continue to change their buying behaviour prior to 2 years after having a bad customer service experience.
For an excellent customer service, it does require a mixture of communication channels which the customers find the easiest and the most comfortable. As 60% of the customer prefer email, 58% prefer phone communication, 24% prefer SMS, and 18% prefer social media. As for complicated services 74% preferred phone, 43% preferred live engagement chat, 40% prefer email with 15% texts and 12% social media. The customers have stated that 28% do find multiple commutation channels a good way of identifying customer service with the other 28% stating not being able to contact customer service with the communication channel they’re more comfortable in as bad customer service.
Benefits of good customer service
One of the main benefits for a great custom [Show Less]