Customer Service And Relationship Management

Customers play significant role in a business. They are the heart of the business, on which the profit of the organization depends upon. Customer uses the product and service of the company and they judge the quality. Hence, it is important for the organization to retain the customers and attract new consumers to flourish the business (Gulati, 2013). Therefore, organization tries to improve its quality of customer service. The customer service ensures customer satisfaction with a particular product or service offered by the firm.

Customer service varies according to the type of the business and according to their needs. Customers can be individual people or another business. Therefore, customer services must be different in case of Business-to-Consumers and Business-to- Business. Each customer is valuable to the organization. Therefore, a company takes care of customers individually in a B2C case. Customers’ need is immediate and they look for a product to meet specific need of their life. In this case, there are many leads (prospective consumers) (Strategy, 2015). It is important for the business to quickly rank the customers and put effort on the potential customers. The customer support or sales team can approach to the customers at first if they know the immediate need of the consumers. The customer service of this business unit must identify the motivation behind the decision of buying, as B2C purchase might be logical or entirely impulsive. In contrast, customers of B2B requires product or solution for entire division or company. The buying period is longer and not immediate. This kind of business requires highly individualized customer service. In this case, the short term and long term needs of each division and all relevant personnel has to be identified. In this kind of business, the company deal with multiple decision makers and the customer service incorporates managing contacts of the people who are responsible for purchase decision. The customer service in a B2B framework, requires developing relationship with each business division, as the customers are engaging huge amount on product. The customer service in the case of B2B focuses on long term goals rather than short term goal of selling the product only (Hutt & Speh, 2012).

The theory of customers’ satisfaction is based on identifying and satisfying the needs of the customers. The company can be committed in delivering consistent services to gain customer loyalty (Martinez & del Bosque, 2013). The needs of the customers are identified because; the needs are different and the company should modify its services according to their needs. The services are different in different industry because the products are different in different businesses. Product that has search qualities, can be determined by customers before purchasing. For example, clothing, automobile; jewellery etc. Customer services of these business are mostly associated with after sales services. Product with experience qualities can be determined only after purchase or during the consumption (Oliver, 2014). For example, vacation package (tourism); restaurant industry etc. Customer service associated with these kind of business is very crucial as the success of this kind of business is mostly depends on the customer’s satisfaction level. Products with credence qualities are very hard to evaluate even after purchase due to lack of customer knowledge.

According to the Two-Factor theory, customer service must incorporate motivation factors and hygiene factors to maintain the satisfaction level of the consumers. Absence of hygiene element leads to customer dissatisfaction, however, presence of this factor does not contribute to customer satisfaction. Hygiene factors are necessary but not sufficient for customer satisfaction. Presence of motivation factors contributes positively on the customer satisfaction. These factors exceed the customers’ expectation. The more is the motivational factor; the more is the quality of service that exceed expectations.  Therefore, based on the expectations and needs of the customers the quality of services differs. The hygiene factor and the motivational factor are different in different businesses because of the different requirement of the customers of that industry (Lo, Lin & Hsu, 2016).

Customer service is important in the retail business; manufacturing business; hospitality and tourism business; financial business and in all kind of other businesses. The product or services offered by industry is different from each other. The customer’s needs are also different in respective sector (Yoo & Bai, 2013). The business specific needs and corresponding technical requirements are also different. For example, in the financial sector, customers pursue informative financial advice as a part of the customer service. The financial company has to offer new products and offers in order to promote the business. The customers’ needs include safe interaction with the financial advisor through several channels. In the retail sector, the companies diversify their strategy to ensure customers’ satisfaction. The customer service of this type of business incorporates proper communication with the customers to understand their needs (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2013). At present, customer service has been diversified through online stores; social media and mobile apps. By offering needful products, the retail companies want to improve their customers’ loyalty. They also focus on the after-sales services.

Another important business where customer services are of major importance, is the hospitality and tourism industry. Understanding the customer services of hospitality and tourism industry is crucial for the customer service management. The customer service of this in industry needs to be personalized and diversified. It has to be more efficient. The employees of this industry must have proper training to serve the customers. The service at a hotel or restaurant must facilitates the guests with high quality service (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015). The employees must have manners etiquette. There are many departments in a hotel or tourism industry, therefore, there should be proper integration between the departments. Good coordination between the staffs and department can improve the service quality. Therefore, it can be said that customer service is different at different industry and due to different customer needs (Shaw, 2016).

It can be seen from the given video link of a TV Show “Faulty Tower”, one customer has faced trouble at the reception of a hotel. By identifying the faults in the customer service of the hotel, the “quality service” can be discussed. There should be sufficient employees at the reception of a busy hotel. This will shorten the que at the reception. However, even if the employees are employed, the management must ensure that they are performing their duty properly and not escaping their duties in working hours. If there were more than one receptionist in the counter, then he or she could have managed other customers. In addition to this, the service provider must be trained with proper etiquette. No matter how the customer is behaving, they must behave in a proper manner. The customer handling staffs must have patience to tackle different of the customers. The staffs of this kind of industry must have the skill to tackle odd or unwanted scenario while its customer is impolite. They must have the capability to convince the customers (Thompson, 2014). Customers are not same; they have different characteristics. Some can compromise and wait, while some are too impatient to wait. Therefore, based on the need of the customers and their urgency, the situation should be handled to provide quality service to all kind of customers. Sometimes, services are provided on the first-come-first-serve basis. However, sometime service should be provided on the priority basis. This would increase the satisfaction level of the customers. However, in other businesses, service is provided on the first-come-first-serve basis, unlike the hospitality and tourism industry. This indicates that customer service might be different according to the needs of the customers in different industry. Regardless of the accuracy and speed of the service, it must be kept in mind that satisfaction level individual customers are to be taken care off. Another important aspect of the “quality service” depends on communication skill of the employees. Employees must have proper communication skill to interact with the customers (Claycomb & Martin, 2013). Improper communication method may lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Misunderstanding may hamper the reputation of the business. The customer handling managers must be clear about their action and they must make the customer understand the actions, so that no miscommunication arises (Dinnen & Hassanien, 2013). The staffs must be fluent in the languages spoken by the customers. If the majority customers are of English speaking, then the staffs must be able to communicate in fluent English. Otherwise, misunderstanding may lead to huge dissatisfaction of the customers. However, in an industry like hotel and tourism, there can be customers with non-English speaking background. In such case, depending on the trends of the customers, there must be some staffs who can speak in those languages. Hence, proper communication enhances the quality of the services (Eid, 2013).

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that customer service differs depending on the type of business and the needs of the customer. This is because, the business activities are different in a B2B and B2C framework. Different businesses have different functioning and customers’ need is also different. Moreover, the products are also different to be evaluated and hygiene and motivation factors are different in different businesses. Therefore, customer service varies over the businesses. It has been found that the quality services of a business are sufficient manpower to handle customers; manners and etiquette of the staffs; ability to make decision on prioritizing service and proper communication skill. These quality service are different in the different sectors.

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