Good Customer Service is About Good Relationships

I think good customer service is more than smiling and saying “Yes Maam”  What are your views?

The Role of Customer Service

Different companies have different views of customer service.  These include:

• All the activities required to accept, process, deliver and build customer orders and to follow up on any activity that erred.

• Timeliness and reliability of getting materials to customers in accordance with a customer’s expectation.

• A complex of activities involving all areas of the business which combine to deliver and invoice the company’s products in a fashion that is perceived as satisfactory by the customer and which advances our company’s objectives.

• Total order entry, all communications with customers, all shipping, all freight, all invoicing and total control of repair of products.

• Timely and accurate delivery of products ordered by customers with accurate follow up and enquiry response including timely delivery of invoice.

These views illustrate the extent to which the meaning of customer service varies considerably from one company to another.

I think that customer service is broader than any of these definitions and that it is concerned with the building of bonds with customers and other markets or groups to ensure long-term relationships of mutual advantage.  Customer service can be seen as a process which provides time and place utilities for the customer and which involves pre-transaction, transaction and post-transaction considerations relating to the exchange process with the customer.’ The provision of quality customer service involves understanding what the customer buys and determining how additional value can be added to the product or service being offered.

Customer service decisions are made in the context of a larger marketing strategy.

Marketing deals with the development of exchange relationships with customers and customer service should form a key interface with this activity.

 

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