Your Companys Internal and External Customers
The Internal customer e.g. your staff, will benefit significantly by good customer care. More effective management will lead to a more motivated workforce. It will also give you improved co-operation between your departments. Your staff will welcome the fact that you are willing to invest valuable time and money in them as individuals as well as a team, and will have more job security.
Your External customers e.g. the members of the general public are the most important people to your organisation. Without these people coming into your shop and buying your furniture your business would not succeed. If a customer feels like she is interrupting your staff she will shop elsewhere in future, which will only result in a lost sale for your organisation. It is vitally important to make your External customer feel valued at all stages of the sale, Pre-sale, during sale and after sale. If your customer enjoys her experience and has a good time under your staff, then certainly she will use your organisation again.
THE CONTRIBUTION THAT EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER CARE MAKES TO THE ORGANISATION Every business wants to be successful. Otherwise why would you go into business in the first place? If your Internal customers are contented in their workplace and have good quality customer care training they will feel more motivated and confident. Also it will lower staff absenteeism and turnover of staff. In reality why should the staff want to leave a job they feel confident and secure in!
The same good customer care given to your External customers will lead to success in your company. Your customers not only demand and expect your furniture to be of the best quality but also from the level of service they receive from your staff. Satisfied customers lead to fewer complaints for your staff to deal with, freeing up valuable time your staff could be more industrious in. The word of mouth recommendations your External customers will voice is in effect free advertising and this will without a doubt lead to improved reputation and most importantly to increased revenue.
It is essential to identify the considerations prior to development of an effective customer care strategy. To provide a positive approach to customer care it is important to follow the main key issues. Identify customer’s needs – Knowing what your customer expects and wants from your organisation. Developing the right products and services – Once you discovered your customers needs it is then vitally important that you develop your product so that it will match your customers expectations.
Measuring customer’s satisfaction – This requires constant and ongoing improvements, due to the changes in customer’s demands. Developing Internal systems – Providing your Internal customers with appropriate customer care leads to co-operation and support from all departments, which leads to the overall success of your organisation. Staff Training – It is essential for successful customer care that all staff is included in the training. It is vital that all the staff from the Cleaner to the Managing Director feel that they have an important role to play in the satisfaction of the needs in addition to wants of your customers. Once the points just mentioned have been considered then the development of an effective customer care strategy can be developed.
THE STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER CARE STRATEGY
Organisational Policy – setting out your Mission Statement pointing out your reason for existence. In your mission statement it is important that you give your customers an indication of what your organisation is trying to achieve. Customer Research – Finding out what your customer expects and needs is essential for success in your organisation. Although it can be easy enough collecting in information on your customers, it is more important to know how to analyse and put into practise feedback received from them.
Staff Perception – Getting feedback and opinions from all members of staff will lead to a more successful customer care program. It takes all members of staff doing their specific job to make your organisation a success. If your employees feel undervalued and overlooked in their employment it will lead to a less motivated workforce. Customer care training for managers – It is important that you as a manager are well versed in the role of implementing a customer care programme. In your organisation it will be your role, as well as your sales manager role, to deliver cascading customer care training to your staff. In short this means that yourself as well as your sales manager will be responsible for passing on-going training to the other members of staff. Staff will in turn follow if management lead by example.
Customer care training for staff – It is appropriate for all staff to focus on the new company attitude towards its customers. Staff must be equipped with the skills in dealing with their customers. These include listening skills, communication skills, dealing with customers with special needs, dealing with complaints, and be able to read body language. Alterations to systems – Some of the customer care training may benefit one section of your staff, but be of no use to another. You always have to be aware that the establishment of a successful customer care programme may expose weaknesses which have to be addresses and altered to meet a specific need.
