Customer Service Issues Faced By Harvey Norman, Australia – A Case Study

Importance of customer servicing

Problem identified: Customer service issue faced by Harvey Norman, Australia

The aim of the study is to undertake a case study of an organization that has been facing certain issues in the recent time. Harvey Norman, Australia based multi-national retailer of furniture, computers and other communications and electrical appliance has been facing certain issues in the recent time in terms of dealing with its customers. There have been many issues that have been evident in the recent time regarding addressing the customers of Harvey Norman. Managerial decision making is the crucial element for an organisation (Productreview.com.au, 2017). It requires setting objectives and coming up with better plans and actions that directly help to overcome the problems faced by the organisation.

Customer servicing is the provision of service that is given to the customers before making purchase, during the purchase and even after sales purchase. It is a method of interaction with the consumers to maintain a good relationship with them (Terpstra & Verbeeten, 2014). If the importance of customer servicing in the recent time is taken into consideration, it has to be said that it is one of the most effective means of creating a positive image of the organisation among the consumers and the regions where it operates. It has to be understood that in the market is saturated with various companies and the competition in the market has been increasing from time to time. It has been identified that Harvey Norman has not been performing its customer care responsibility is the most effective manner. There have been many complaints against this organisation (Complaintsboard.com, 2016).

It has been found that the organisation operates in terms of both physical stores and online retailing. There is very little scope for the consumers to communicate with the customer care executives. The company has its presence in the social media network but they remain significantly absent in these platforms as well. In addition to this, the customers have been found to mis-lead by the customer care (Richards, 2016). Thus, altogether it can be easily said that the customer servicing is not satisfactory enough to deal with the consumers of the organisation.

Poor customer servicing is often defined as the poor service that a particular organisation is responsible for. This service could be related to before sale, during the sale and even the after sales services as well (Raman & Raman, 2016). Whatever the situation might be, if the particular organisation does not treat and serves the customers well, a negative impact of the organisation is created among the consumers. The problem can be analysed further:

Issues faced by Harvey Norman

Strengths	Proper customer servicing can lead to create a better image of the company among the consumers.
Weaknesses	If the problem persists, it would lead to the loss of loyal customers to the other competitors (Blut et al., 2015).
Opportunities	It can help to attract more customers due to their positive way of dealing with the customers and thus can fight against intense competition in the market.
Threats	If the needs and the issues of the consumers are not properly addressed the consumers might shift their preferences to other companies. In addition to this, they can leave negative feedback on the social media that would degrade the image of the company.

Political factor	Australia’s political policies allow other companies from foreign land to conduct their business in Australia (Gilpin, 2016). Thus, there remains the possibility that other companies might enter the market. This will increase competition.
Economic factor	Australian GDP is high. People have high spending capacity. Thus, they can easily shift to other brands if they find a particular company not performing well (Fitzgerald, Leblang & Teets, 2014).
Socio-cultural factor	People are educated and so want proper attention to be paid to them when they make any purchase from a company.
Technological factor	Advancement of technology and the availability of various technological opportunities creates better options for Harvey Norman to communicate and deal with the consumers.

The customers have been treated poorly due to inadequate knowledge of the employees to treat consumers. There might be lack of necessary numbers of employees required for the job. The employees might not be monitored properly and they escape their responsibilities and duties that they have to perform (Yoon, 2015). In addition to this, other companies might also be providing better customer servicing and had been able to create better image of them among the consumers. The cause can be many behind the poor service delivery to the consumers. However, it has to be understood that the organisation have to internally consider the situation and come up with better approach to solve the issue.

As it has been evident that the organisation has been facing certain issues related to dealing with customers and providing satisfactory servicing to the, it is important to think of certain ways that would improve the situation of the organisation. In order to generate better ideas it is important to undertake certain measures and approaches that would bring out better chances to solving the problems faced by the organisation. An analysis of the process can be done here:

It is a group activity and technique that is used to reach out a common solution to a problem. Brainstorming is the method where the participants or the members of the groups come up with their respective ideas towards a particular problem or issue. Continuous discussion is carried on in the process (Gobble, 2014). Members are also responsible to critically analyse each other’s decision and then coming down to a particular decision that would be effective for solving the issue faced by the particular organisation.

It is expected that a group of four or five members shall make a team and then discuss the same idea or situation among each other. By the end of the meeting, decision on a particular solution can be made that would be beneficial for the organisation to overcome the issue. The issue can be written on a flip paper and the members can be asked to present their own ideas. The ideas can be set according to their priority, eliminating the ones which do not get priority. This way the best suitable idea can be generated. For Harvey Norman, training and teaching the executives to deal with the customers could be the best possible solution for the organisation.

Analysis of the problem

Brainwriting is also a similar approach like brainstorming. However, in this method the decision making is not carried on together by the means of team engagement, but each individual remain significantly responsible for presenting their ideas and views on the particular issues (Litcanu et al., 2015). It is when one person presents his or her idea it is passed on to the other person and the other person adds other significant and valid points towards the improvement plan. This is also an effective means of coming up with a better solution to address the issues faced by the organisation. However, it can be said that brainstorming is a better means of discussing on a particular issue as it involves all the members all at a time.

Brainwiting sheets can be made available to the members. In this situation, it can be said that the members from the organisation as well as from certain consultancy firms can be asked to participate in the brainwriting activity (Litcanu et al., 2015). The experts shall present their particular ideas and provide appropriate steps to combat against the issue. The significant solution to the problem is to improve the customer servicing in order create a better image of the company among the consumers of the regions where it operates.

This technique can be considered as the most effective and impactful technique for Harvey Norman to address the issue that it has been facing in the recent time. According to this model, the six hats represent six different dimensions of problems and how significantly they can be addressed. Therefore, these hats can be represented as follows:

1. The White hat: This calls for the necessary information and the facts responsible for the particular issue or problem. Thus, the group responsible for managing the issue should find out the information regarding the issue (Kivunja, 2015). In case of Harvey Norman, it has been found that the executives have not been addressing the queries and the complaints of the customers.
2. The Yellow Hat: This shows the symbol of brightness and optimism that helps to explore the positives and probe for value and benefits. In this stage it is expected that the members would create value and benefit situation to deal with the issue.
3. The Black hat: It is the stage of judgement where the members make significant judgemental decision on the implementation of plan. This stage also recognises the difficulties and the risks that might occur if the particular plan is implemented to solve the issue (Payette & Barnes, 2017).
4. The Red Hat: It signifies the feelings, intuition and hunches. This help to express the emotion and feelings of the members of the team. It can happen that the idea proposed by a member might not be acceptable by others and thus, the decision has to be made in a way that would address each and every member’s contribution in the decision making.
5. The Green Hat: This calls for creativity and innovative techniques to deal with the situation. Any kind of opportunity available to the particular organisation should be made availed and put into use. For instance, it can be said that Harvey Norman might come up with some innovative solution to address the customer and provide them better solution to their concerns (Aithal, Kumar & Shailashree, 2016). For example, the Company can launch their own app that can be used by the consumers to lodge their complaints or to talk with any customer care executive.
6. The Blue Hat: This is the final process which is responsible for the thinking process. It is the step when the mechanism process is highlighted. This is the step when the final decision made to overcome the issue shall be made.

It is expected that significant determination shall be made on improving the present condition that Harvey Norman has been facing in terms of customer servicing. Training the customer care executives: Primarily, it is most important to train the executives who are responsible for dealing with the customers directly or indirectly. In addition to this, there shall be a manager appointed at each store of Harvey Norman to serve the visiting customer in the right way. The organisation also needs to be active in the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and should communicated with the consumers often to create a trace of them among the consumers.

The complete training process is expected to be completed within a span of one moths or four weeks. It is expected that the management would be responsible for taking active approach in setting the training session and train the customer care executives (Eisingerich et al., 2014). It is expected that there shall be a 2 week’s classroom training session and then a practical session where they would be directly asked to deal with customers. However, they shall be kept under utter control and monitoring. By the beginning of the 4th week, each member should have to pass a test and if they fail they shall be given training again. For the training and development process, it is expected that a consultancy can be hired who shall be responsible for training the staffs.

The action plan:

Activities	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Collection of various data and resources
Survey of the market
Planning the training session
Implementation of the plan
Classroom training
Practical training
Getting feedbacks
Make necessary changes
Proceed with new plan
Final outcome

Table: Action Plan

(Source: Created by the author)

References: 

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Complaintsboard.com (2016) Lie to facilitate agreement Retrieved from: https://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/harvey-norman-c751.html [Accessed on: 23-4-2017]v

Eisingerich, A., Merlo, O., Heide, J., & Tracey, P. (2016). Customer satisfaction and purchase behavior: The role of customer input. In Looking forward, looking back: Drawing on the past to shape the future of marketing (pp. 220-220). Springer International Publishing.

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Richards, D., (2016) Harvey Norman Among The Worst Retailers When It Comes To Complaints Claims NSW Fair Trading Retrieved from: https://www.channelnews.com.au/harvey-norman-among-the-worst-retailers-when-it-comes-to-complaints-claims-nsw-fair-trading/ [Accessed on: 23-4-2017]

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