CERTIFICATE 4 IN BUSINESS

* Approved by the National Training Council

 Published By : IBS College of TVET
Lot 10, Section 57,
Magila Street, 6 Mile,
Saraga Campus,
Port Moresby, National Capital District,
Papua New Guinea
Telephone : +675 73421313 / 75929141 / 74114100
Fax: : +675 328 1513
e-mail : [email protected]
Web-site : http://www.ibs.ac.pg/

Year of Publication : January 2019

Issue No / Revision No. : 01 / 00

Compiled By : Ms. Donah Miskaram

Name of the School : School of Business

Head of the School : Dr. Emmanuel Aquino
Department : Business and Management
Contact No. : +675 72308657
e-mail id: : [email protected]

© IBS College of TVET

The material in this publication has been written by the author of IBS College of TVET or
compiled from other sources in compliance with the Copyright and Neighboring Rights Act
2000. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study as permitted
by international and / or Papua New Guinea copyright law. This publication may not be
reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission
of the publisher.

Printed at IBSU Printers, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea

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 CONTENTS

S.No. Particulars Page No.

1. Introduction to the Unit Guide 04
2. About the Unit Trainer 04
3. Unit Aim, Rationale and Description 04
4. Job Prospects 04
5. Advanced Standing Eligibility 04
6. Unit Contents and Schedule of Activities 04
7. Teaching / Training Methods 05
8. Learning Resources 06
9. Assessment Marking Criteria 06
10. Evidence Guide 08
11. Academic Misconduct 08
12. Grade of Achievement 11
13. Final Examination 12
14. Study Material 13
14.1 Introduction 15
14.2 Topic One Advise on Customer Service Needs 16
14.3 Topic Two Support Implementation of Customer 27
14.4 Service Strategies
14.4 Topic Three Evaluate and Report on Customer 33
Service
15 Assignment Coverpage 43-44

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1. Introduction to the Unit Guide
This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to plan, draft and finalise a basic
document.
It applies to individuals who apply a broad range of competencies in various work contexts
and may exercise some discretion and judgment to produce a range of workplace
documentation.
It is designed to meet the requirements of the Certificate in Business Course of the National
Training Council TVET Programme. This unit can also be used in various other programmes
offered by the Institute of Business Studies TVET Programme. The needs of the learner or
the business customer must be met through the competencies of this unit. This is to be met
through numerous class instruction, evidence based learning and assessment submission.
2. About the Unit Trainer
All lecturers of the IBS College of TVET are certified National Training Council trainers.
3. Unit Aim, Rationale and Description
The description of course is as stated in the Unit Description which is approved by the
National Training Council. There are in total twelve units to qualify for a Certificate 3 in
Business. A vocational education qualification must lead to a work outcome. The Institute of
Business Studies College of TVET is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) that has
designed this programme to meet:

• Specific needs of a business or group of businesses.

• Skill needs of a locality or a particular industry application of business skills.
Maximum employability of a group of students or an individual.
There are four stages of the Certificate in Business program. At the conclusion of this unit
you will be required to sit a Stage Exam. Depending on whether you pass the stage, you will
have demonstrated your ability to produce a simple, but professional document for your
workplace.
4. Advanced Standing Eligibility
There are no Advance Standing for this programme.

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5. Unit Contents and Schedule of Activities
Week Assessment
Elements of Competency Performance Criteria
No. Due Dates
1 Advise on Customer Service 1.1 Internal and External Assessment
Needs Customers – 1 (30%)
1.2 The Levels of Service
1.3 So What Constitutes
Sensational Customer Service?
1.4 Interviews and Consumer
Panels
1.5 Examining Individual
Transactions
1.6 Feedback from Employees

2-3 Support Implementation of 2.1 6 Keys to Improving Your Quiz-1

Customer Service Strategies Team’s Customer Service Skills (15%)
2.2 Identify budgetary
considerations in
delivering strategies
2.3 Six Steps to Dealing with
Customer Complaints

4-6 Evaluate and Report on 3.1 When Should Customer Assessment

Customer Service Satisfaction be Measured? – 2 (30%)
3.2 Top 5 Ways to Measure Quiz-2
Customer Satisfaction (15%)
3.3 A Six-Stage Process For
Customer Satisfaction Studies
What Should Be Measured?

6. Teaching / Training Methods

A number of delivery methods will be used in delivering this unit. The learner is required to
take full responsibility for his or her own learning. These methods include:
6.1 Modified Lectures: This approach is a mixture of lecture and discussion. Learning
activities are designed to engage learners to participate in the lecture. The trainer creates and
encourages group participation through questioning techniques. Opportunities will be given
to learners to share experiences to generate some form of discussion. Thus acknowledging
and recognizing learner’s prior knowledge and experiences.

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6.2 Group Discussions: Group discussion is one method that learner will be actively involved
in. This activity can be approached in many different ways. However, the more frequently
used ones are the ‘structured’ and the ‘open-forum’ discussion.
The ‘structured’ approach learners will be participating in very carefully designed discussion
activity that is meant to achieve certain objectives.
The ‘open-forum’ discussion, on the other hand is unstructured and is basically ‘free-for-all’,
with the facilitator / trainer acting as the referee or go-between. It is mainly used to have
learners’ voice opinions.
6.3 One-on-one Coaching: Coaching is a process of providing one-on-one guidance and
instruction to improve the work performance of the person being coached in a specific area.
6.4 Mentoring: Mentoring is more concerned with improving the employee’s fitness within
the organization than improving technical aspects of performance, thus differentiating it from
coaching.
6.5 Moodle Learning Platform: The classes will be handled with the aid of power point
presentation and the same will be uploaded in the Moodle site on the day of delivery for
reference by students. The students are expected to upload their assignments through Moodle
within the stipulated time period. The late submission will not be entertained unless there
should be a reasonable ground and approval from the concerned unit trainer. Such late
submission will lead to fix penalty by reduction of assignment marks. The TURNITIN
software will help to identify the percentage of plagiarism before uploading the documents.
If it shows more than 30% of plagiarism on the uploaded assignments, then that will be
decided by the concerned unit trainer. Under such circumstances, the decision of the quality
assurance cell is the final. Hence, original contribution will enhance the quality of learning
and avoid unnecessary delay.
6.6 Industrial Visits: It also requires students to participate in industry visit and attending
online conferences/sessions wherever applicable.

6.7 Learning activities:

Activities could include, but not limited to, one or more of the following. The focus of all
activities are based on Student Centred Learning.
i) Formal training workshops (e.g., modified lectures and discussions) ii) On-the-job training
(workplace learning projects coupled with mentoring and coaching) iii) Life experiences
(reflections and enhancing work practice using improved work tools) iv) Work experiences
(enhancing current practice using improved work tools – continuous improvements)
v) Group / individual projects (personal innovative ideas and creativity) vi)
analysis (reflective analysis of current work practices and improvement plan)
vii) Role Plays
viii) Case Studies

The trainer serves as a resource person to facilitate learning. Personal attention will be
addressed through work site visits where coaching and mentoring approaches will be used.
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6.8 Class Attendance and General Studies: For the successful completion of this unit, the
student is required to undertake exercise and general studies in addition to the class room
learning. In addition to that the students are expected to attend all training sessions. 75%
attendance is expected from the students’ side for all training hours. Attendance records will
be taken at all each sessions.
Total Study Hours for the Unit
Nature of the work Hours for
the
Semester
Class Room training (4 hours per week for 6 weeks) 24 Hours
Independent Study (6 hours per week for 6 weeks) 36 Hours

Total 60 Hours

7. Learning Resources:
The requested text book(s) will be issued to students on the induction day or the first day of
the teaching period. Students’ Services and Logistics will assist the schools in distributing the
above.
7.1 Prescribed Text :
No prescribed text book.
7.2 Reference Book:
i) Author / Title / Edition / Year / Publisher / IBSN.
ii) Author / Title / Edition / Year / Publisher / IBSN.

7.3 Library Services and On-line Data Bases:

The necessary learning resources are stacked in the library, which can be used as per the
library policy. For additional learning, assignment and research purposes, you are permitted
to browse and KOHA host on-line data base can be used as per IT Services Policy.
7.4 Computer Lab Facilities:
Dedicated computer labs are provided to the students to upload their assignments as per the
allotted time slot by the unit lecturer. In addition to the lab facilities, the students can also
access through digital library for their academic purpose. As the entire campus is fully served
with wi-fi facility, there will not be any difficulty in submission of assignments and browsing
academic contents by using their own lap-tops.
8. Assessment Marking Criteria

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Competency based assessment is the process of collecting evidence and making judgments
on whether competence has been achieved. This confirms that an individual can perform to
the standard expected in the workplace as expressed in the nationally endorsed competency
standards where they exist or on competency standards developed by relevant industry,
enterprise, community or professional groups (or outcomes of accredited courses if there are
no relevant nationally endorsed competency standards).

It is important to remember that assessment of a participant’s achievements is measured

against defined outcomes. It is not about comparing their performance to another person’s.
Assessment is a process not an event so it can occur formally and informally over a period of
time.

Unit lecturers / trainers are responsible for the setting of unit assessment / assignment shall
produce a marking guide with clearly written suggested solutions to enable easy and prompt
marking of the tests / assignment papers. Test/Assignment feedback shall be promptly given
to the students within 5 working days from the date of test or from the due date of assignment.
In cases of any delays in obtaining the assessment feedback on time, the students shall report
the same to the Head of School responsible for the unit.

8.1 Assessment Task Details

Assessment Evaluation Components Total
Components Marks
Assessment – 1 Short
20 Marks
Answers
Assessment – 2 Case
20 Marks
Study
Assessment – 3
20 Marks
Presentation
Quiz 1 15 Marks
Quiz 2 15 Marks
Attendance 10 Marks
Total 100 Marks
Important Notes:
a) Students who might fail to perform well in a given internal assessment for different
reasons will be supported through an ongoing remedial action taking into account
individual cases as much as possible.
b) An assessment(s) might be dropped when the instructor believes there is a reason to
take another assessment.
c) The students will be advised of the assessment due dates during the study period.

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 d) You are not permitted to bring the following into the exam room: electronic devices
like mobile phones, electronic dictionaries and computers. For more details visit
Moodle site.

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8.2 Assessment Methods
This is a graded unit and grades shall be awarded as detailed in Assessment Guidelines. In
order to achieve a passing grade in the overall competency level of 50% or more must be
obtained.
Assessment Individual / Grading Minimum Weight Length / Due
Indicator Duration Date
Group Score

Assessment- Individual Graded 20% 2nd

1 week
Assessment– Individual Graded 20% 4th
2 week
Assessment– Group Graded 20% 6th
3 Overall
week
50%
Quiz - 1 Individual Graded 15% 3rd

week
Quiz – 2 Individual Graded 15% 5th

week
Attendance 10%

9. Evidence Guide:
This describes the essential knowledge and skills and their level required for this unit.
A) Knowledge Evidence
On completion of the unit, the individual must:

• A logical description of the document purpose must be provided.

• The correct audience must be identified.
• Ideally this document should be in email format.
However, if all requirements of the task can be fulfilled successfully by another
format, the candidate can be deemed competent.
• The candidate must successfully justify the use of the selected format.
• The key points that are included in the final document must be listed.
• At least two valid organisational requirements must be included.
• At least one structural point must be included. This structure must be employed in the
final document.

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 • At least one valid example of how the candidate will ensure the document is
appropriate for the audience must be included.

B) Performance Evidence:
Evidence of ability to:

• production of a range of documents that accurately convey required basic information;

• ability to use formatting suitable for intended audience; and
• knowledge of organisational policies and procedures for document production

10. Range Statement

The range statement relates to the unit of competency as a whole. It allows for different work
environments and situations that may affect performance. Bold italicised wording, if used in
the performance criteria, is detailed below. Essential operating conditions that may be present
with training and assessment (depending on the work situation, needs of the candidate,
accessibility of the item, and local industry and regional contexts) may also be included.

Audience may include: internal and external customers recipient/s

who receive a copy for information
primary recipient/s of the communication

11. Academic Misconduct

Students must conduct their studies at the IBS College of TVET honestly, ethically
and in accordance with accepted standards of academic conduct. Any form of
academic conduct that is contrary to these standards is academic misconduct and is
unacceptable. Some students engage deliberately in academic misconduct, with intent
to deceive. This conscious, premeditated form of cheating is one of the worst forms
of fraudulent academic behavior, for which the IBS College of TVET has zero
tolerance and for which penalties, including exclusion from the IBSU, will be applied.
However the IBS College of TVET recognizes many students commit academic
misconduct without intent to deceive. These students may be required to undertake
additional educational activities to remediate their behavior. Specifically it is
academic misconduct for a student to:

11.1 Plagiarism
Plagiarise by representing the work of another as their own original work, without appropriate
acknowledgement of the author or the source. This category of cheating includes the
following:
• collusion, where a piece of work prepared by a group is represented as if it were
the student's own;
• acquiring or commissioning a piece of work, which is not his/her own and
representing it as if it were, by o purchasing a paper from a commercial service,
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 including internet sites, whether pre-written or specially prepared for the student
concerned
o submitting a paper written by another person, either by a fellow student or
a person who is not a member of the IBSU;
• duplication of the same or almost identical work for more than one assessment
item;
• copying ideas, concepts, research data, images, sounds or text;
• paraphrasing a paper from a source text, whether in manuscript, printed or
electronic form, without appropriate acknowledgement;
• cutting or pasting statements from multiple sources or piecing together work of
others and representing them as original work;
• submitting, as one own work, all or part of another student's work, even with the
student's knowledge or consent.

A student who willingly assists another student to plagiaries (for example by willingly giving
them their own work to copy from) is also breaching academic integrity, and may be subject
to disciplinary action.

11.1.1 Penalties:
For an act of plagiarism, any one or more of the following penalties may be imposed:

b. a mark of zero for the item of assessment in which the plagiarism occurred;
c. failure or cancellation or refusal of credit for the unit in which the plagiarism occurred;
d. suspension from the University for a specified period;
e. expulsion from the University.

11.2 Cheat in examinations and tests by communicating, or attempting to communicate, with

a fellow individual who is neither an invigilator or member of staff; by copying, or attempting
to copy from a fellow student; attempting to introduce or consult during the examination, any
unauthorized (not explicitly allowed by the course instructor) printed or written material, or
electronic calculating or information storage device; and/or other communication device, or
impersonates another.

11.3 Fabricate results by claiming to have carried out tests, experiments or observations that
have not taken place or by presenting results not supported by the evidence with the object of
obtaining an unfair advantage.

11.4 Misrepresent themselves by presenting an untrue statement or not disclosing where there
is a duty to disclose in order to create a false appearance or identity.

12. Grade of Achievement

(i) Subject to the IBS College of TVET By-Laws a candidate shall be recorded as having
attained in each unit for which he/she has enrolled a level of achievement, which shall
be graded as follows:

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 • HD - High Distinction. This grade will be awarded to students with an
exceptional understanding of all aspects of the course, with competence in
application, a high ability to present material and arguments logically, and a
high degree of theoretical and practical understanding.
• D - Distinction. This grade will be awarded to a student with strong ability to
apply concepts to realistic situations, as for the HD-grade but lacking
exceptional performance in each area.
• C - Credit. This grade will be awarded to a student with a better than average
ability to apply fundamentals, with a satisfactory degree of theoretical and
practical understanding and is able to integrate information into a logical
argument.
• P - Pass. This grade will be awarded to a student with a satisfactory
understanding and is able to complete basic tasks and apply material to
problem solving in many situations.
• F – Fail. This grade will be awarded to a student who has failed to grasp the
basic and most important concepts after attending all academic activities.
• ABF – Absent Fail – Non-fulfillment of any assessments
• IC – Incomplete – Non-fulfillment of partial assessments will be termed as
confirmed grade in due course.
• DF - Deferred grade. This category may be entered when the assessment is
not yet complete. Students those who have acquired this grade need to
complete the unit requirement as per IBSU assessment policy.
• WF- Withdrawal Fail Withdrawn after census due date
All non-credit units are entered as S for satisfactory or NS for unsatisfactory.

(ii) The letter grade, grade points, status of description and class description shall be
computed from the range of marks as given below:

Class Equivalence Grade

Range of Marks Class Description
Abbreviation Points
85 - 100 HD 5 High Distinction
75 – 84.99 D 4 Distinction
65 – 74.99 C 3 Credit
50 – 64.99 P 2 Pass
<50 F 0 Fail
ABF 0 Absent Fail
WF 0 Withdrawn Fail
DF 0 Deferred
IC 0 Incomplete
(iii) On graduation a Grade Point Average (GPA) will be entered on the candidate’s
transcript. The grade point average will be computed as the average of all units taken by
him or her.
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13. Final Examination

a) The scheduled examination shall be administered at the end of each study period if
applicable.
b) Timetables shall be prepared and placed on the notice board one week prior to the
proper scheduled examination.
c) It is a requirement that scheduled examination question papers shall be collected back
from the students by the exam invigilators after the examination along with answer
scripts.
d) A pass mark shall be the only grade awarded to students who pass their re-sit
examination.
e) Special examination under compassionate circumstances will be treated on par with
regular grade.
f) On completion of Board of Assessor’s Approval, the results will be uploaded in the
Student Management System Result Platform.

13.1 Query on Final Assessment Grade

a) A student may query the grade awarded for any unit. A query of an assessment grade
shall be made in writing to the Head of the School responsible for the unit within 5
working days of the date of formal notification of the grade to the student. If, as a result
of such query it is deemed appropriate to vary the grade, the Head of the School
responsible for the unit may make such variation in accordance with policy.
b) The Head of the School responsible for the unit shall formally notify the student in
writing of the outcome of the query of an assessment grade.

13.2 Appeal against a Final Assessment Grade

(a) A student who is not satisfied with the decision of the final assessment grade, may
appeal to the Principal, IBS College of TVET on one or more of the following grounds:
i. improper action in the conduct of an assessment task; ii.
irregularity in the conduct of an assessment task;
iii. negligence on the part of any person involved in the conduct of the assessment task;
iv. unlawful discrimination against the student;
v. prejudice or bias on the part of the assessor or any other person involved in
determining the grade to be awarded;
vi. the assessment process as detailed in the unit statement, and any subsequent
amendment made in accordance with rule not being followed;
vii. where additional evidence for special consideration can be provided, or where
procedures for consideration of an application for special consideration were not
properly followed.

(b) An appeal can be lodged with the Principal, IBS College of TVET within five
working days of the date of formal notification of assessment grade.

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INTRODUCTION
This unit of competency is all about being able to coordinate the implementation of customer
service strategies in your workplace. It will help you with the skills you need to demonstrate
competency for the unit CIB040412 Coordinate the implementation of Customer Service
Strategies. This is one of the units that make up the Certificates in Business.

This manual is broken up into three distinct sections. They are:

1. Advise on Customer Service Needs: First we will examine the process of examining
what customers want and how you can provide customer service advice to your organisation.
2. Support Implementation of Customer Service Strategies: Then we will examine how
you go about selecting customer service strategies and ensuring you have planned their
implementation to ensure it goes smoothly.
3. Evaluate and Report on Customer Service: In the final section we will examine how
you can monitor the performance of your customer service staff and look for ways of
improving overall performance.

At the conclusion of this training you will be asked to complete an Assessment Pack for this
unit of competency. The information contained in this resource will assist you to complete
this task.

On conclusion of this unit of competency you will have demonstrated your ability to advise
on, and carry out customer service strategies, evaluate customer strategies on the basis of
feedback, and design strategies for improvement.

1. Advise on Customer Service Needs

In business, we all need customers. They are the life blood of our business - providing us with
the income that we need to survive. In order to ensure that we are able to get, and more
importantly maintain, our customer base, it is vital that we have in place a solid set of
customer service policies and procedures. You have probably heard many, many times of the
importance of customer service to an organisation, but what exactly is customer service?

Customer service is the set of activities and programs that is undertaken by an organisation
to make the experience more rewarding for your customers. These activities will increase the
value customers receive from the merchandise and services that any organisation provides.
All employees of an organisation and all elements of the organisation provide service that
increase the value of the merchandise or services provided. Think for a moment about a
typical retailing organisation.

The shop assistants ensure that the customers get what they want, the staff in the distribution
centre make sure that merchandise is in stock, management ensures that staff are trained and
are able to best serve the customers, advertising staff ensure that the public is aware of what
is on offer in the store.

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As you can see, it is not just the frontline staff who have responsibilities with regard to
customer service; members of staff right through an organisation have responsibilities. There
are three major steps in providing excellent customer service, and we will examine each of
these in detail throughout this manual.

The Steps to Effective Customer Service

Begin by determining exactly what your customers’ needs are.
Then set about developing and implementing strategies to ensure that their needs are met.

Finally, monitor the service provided.

As a manager in a service organisation, you will play a crucial role leading those who provide
service to your customers. In particular, you are responsible for determining customer needs,
supporting the implementation of service strategies and reporting on customer service. Each
of these three topics will be the subject of a chapter in this manual.

Internal and External Customers

Let’s begin our exploration of customer service by looking at the types of customers that you
may be asked to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It is important to realise that even though
you may not be working in a retail store, all organisations have customers. There are two
major types of customer with whom you may have to deal. These types of customers are:

External Customers: This type of customer is one who will buy your goods or services. They
come from outside your organisation.

Internal Customers: This type of customer includes your co-workers, contractors and
suppliers to your organisation. Essentially they use the products or services your organisation
provides.

Identifying your customers, knowing exactly who your customers are (whether they are
internal or external) is crucial to success in your organisation. If you are not able to identify
and meet your customers’ expectations – the quality of service that you provide will fall short
of meeting expectations.

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The Levels of Service

Within an organisation there will be levels of customer service provided to customers based
on their needs. Often you will find that a simple problem or request does not require the same
level of service that is required of a complex problem. It is generally considered that there are
four levels of customer service.

These levels are:

Level Description
Basic At this level, you are aiming to provide the customer with the
minimum acceptable standard of customer service that will
meet their expectations. These may be things taken for granted
– you may not even notice that they are being provided to you.
However if this basic level of service is taken away – it may
result in customers not being willing to shop with you again.

Expected At this second level of service, you are dealing with what the
customer expects from you. If you provide this level of service
it will be satisfactory – but if there are providers offering a
higher level of service they will be the preferred provider.

Desired At the third level of customer service, you are dealing with the
type of service that the customer would like. At this level, once
you satisfy the need you are likely to find the customer will
become a regular and shop with your organisation on a
preferential basis.
Sensational The highest level of service an organisation can provide. Here
the service that is being provided will impress the customer so
much that they will just keep coming back. Here you will win
loyalty and build a solid customer base through word of your
service spreading by word-of-mouth – the most potent form of
advertising.

So What Constitutes Sensational Customer Service?

This is a difficult question, as the level of service provided (and that is found to be
satisfactory) will vary significantly between individuals. What is acceptable to me may not
be seen as being acceptable to you – for example. This is why it is so crucial to establish
exactly what the needs of your customers are. Understanding exactly what your customers
consider to be good and poor customer service is crucial to understanding how you should go

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about improving your level of customer service. However there are some aspects of service
that can be seen as being universally acceptable and unacceptable. These are:

Good Service Attributes

Knowing about the products and services that your organisation offers.
Giving the customer your full attention.
Being helpful.
Showing empathy with the customer.
Resolving problems and fixing mistakes quickly

Poor Service Attributes

Not addressing a customer appropriately.
Incorrectly placing an order.
Delivering an incorrect product or service
Giving poor advice.
Think of three other examples of poor service.
1.
2.
3.

Determining Customer Needs

Now that we have addressed exactly what customer service is, let’s move on and look at the
crucial task of determining exactly what the needs of your customers are. The most common
methods of establishing customer needs are:

Direct Observation
In this first technique, you will set about establishing customer service needs by observing
your customers and the way that your team interacts with them during a service exchange.
What you observe can be telling, in that it can reveal what the customers expect, how long
they are willing to wait to be served, whether they expect problems to be resolved
immediately, whether they like an interactive phone system and other aspects of service.

While it is a very useful technique, direct observation can be costly to implement and can be
very time consuming. To gain the most useful information, you must be willing to observe
your team and your customers on a regular basis. Essentially the more you are willing to
observe, the more useful the information will be.
Comprehensive Studies

Some retailers and service providers have established programs for assessing customers’
expectations and service perceptions. For example every year some retailers will pass out
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questionnaires to shoppers in a store. Shoppers will be asked about the service and
merchandise offered by the store and by competing stores. Once these questionnaires have
been collected and analysed the results for the year can be obtained.
In the case of a comprehensive study, the same questionnaire will be used year after year.
This means that the store is able to track the results over a long period of time. You can
determine whether service is improving or declining, and you can identify areas where change
can be implemented in order to boost the level of service performance in the organisation.

The survey questionnaire is useful:

• When you need information about a large population or widely dispersed group.
• When the specific issues or topics to be explored are known.
• When you need to minimise the costs of your customer research.

Interviews and Consumer Panels

Rather than surveying many customers, some organisations use a panel of 10 or 15 customers
in order to gain insights into their expectations and perceptions regarding service
performance.
Store managers might meet with a consumer panel once every month or two in order to ask
for information about their experiences in the stores and to offer suggestions for improving
overall performance.
To reduce any gaps that exist between what the customer wants and what is provided, some
organisations will conduct personal checks on customers throughout a day – finding
customers who have made very large or very small purchases. They may call these customers
and ask what they liked or did not like about the store. In the case of very small purchases the
manager may ask why the customer did not purchase more, could they find everything they
needed, did they get the assistance that they required?

Examining Individual Transactions

Another method of conducting consumer research is to survey customers immediately after a

retail transaction has taken place. For example you may walk up to a customer who has just
passed through a checkout and ask them what they thought the service was like. You may
call up someone who has just called your organisation to ask what they thought of the service.
There are numerous approaches that you can take.

Customer research on individual transactions provides up to date information about

customers’ perceptions and expectations. The research also indicates the retailer’s response
in providing good service. Since the response can be linked to a specific encounter, the
research provides a method for rewarding employees who provide good service and
correcting those who exhibit poor performance.
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Interacting with Your Customers

Managers of small organisations will have daily contact with their customers and will thus
have accurate firsthand information about them. In a larger organisation, managers often learn
about their customers through reports, so they miss the rich information provided by direct
contact with customers.

Some managers feel that they can become too reliant on numbers and neglect to think about
the customers or the merchandise or service they are providing. MBWA (management by
walking around) can provide you as a manager with extremely useful information regarding
what it is your customers want.

Customer Complaints

Complaints allow organisations to interact with their customers and acquire detailed
information about their service and merchandise. Handling complaints is an inexpensive
means of isolating and correcting service problems. For example, you may collect all
complaints and reasons for returns of merchandise in a retail store.

These complaints and returns can be summarised daily and given to customer service
representatives so that they can improve their service. For example think of a circumstance
where three people have returned the same pair of jeans on the same day because they were
too large. If you were a Customer Service Representative (CSR) who knew this information
you could tell customers to select a size smaller than usual to ensure a good fit.

Although customer complaints are a useful source of information, you cannot solely rely on
this source of market information. Typically a dissatisfied customer will not complain. To
provide better information on customer service, you need to encourage complaints and make
it easier for customers to provide feedback on their problems. For example, some
organisations provide a complaints desk in a convenient location where customers can get
their problems heard and resolved quickly.

Feedback from Employees

Sales people and other employees in regular contact with customers often have a good
knowledge and understanding of customer service expectations and problems. This
information will improve service quality only if they are encouraged to communicate their
experiences to those who can act on it. Some organisations will survey their staff asking
questions like:

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 • What is the biggest problem you face in delivering high-quality service to your
customers?
• If you could make one change in the company to improve customer service what
would it be?

Communicating and Using Customer Information

Collecting information about customer expectations and perceptions isn’t enough. Any gap
in service that exists is only reduced when retailers use this information to improve service.
For example, store managers should review the suggestions and comments made by
customers daily, summarise the information and distribute it to store employees and
managers.
Feedback on service performance needs to be provided to employees in a timely manner.
Reporting the July service performance in December makes it hard for employees to reflect
on the reasons for reported performance. Finally, feedback must be prominently presented so
that service providers are aware of their performance.
How you communicate the information will be very much dependent on who you are
communicating it to. For the most part, you will use written or verbal communication
techniques when communicating with your team.
When providing information regarding service and its improvement to your staff, it is
important that the advice that you provide is both relevant and constructive and promotes the
improvement of customer service in your organisation.

Providing Information on Customer Needs

While providing advice to your staff based on information you have received is a useful
technique, you may also find it useful to present information about customer needs in a more
formal way to your staff. This may be for example presenting information to your superiors
who require information on customer service. In these cases, you must adopt a more formal
and structured way of presenting this information.

Presenting this information is very much like making a presentation on any subject. Knowing
how to present the information and what is required of you is of crucial importance. You must
begin by ensuring that your audience understands the purpose, business and position of the
organisation, and is aware of the importance of high quality customer service to your
organisation. Ensure that you emphasise the fact that management is committed to providing
excellent customer service.

Creating a Service Plan

As with any function in an organisation, service requires a plan in order to be effective.

Without a plan, your service programs are likely to be ineffective and miss the point of

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attempting to build customer satisfaction. As with any plan, it should all begin with a set of
objectives.

Objectives

Like any objective, a service objective aims to establish a base point for all service provided
by an organisation. It establishes the minimum acceptable service that can be provided. You
will remember that earlier in this section we addressed four key levels of customer service.
These can be used when setting service objectives.

Sensational service should always be the overall aim for any organisation, but it must be
realised that this level of service costs tremendous amounts of time and money and other
resources, so therefore it may not always be the most appropriate level of service to provide.

Once you have set your service objectives, and these have been accepted by management,
you must ensure that these objectives are communicated to your staff, and then planning on
how to ensure the objectives can be achieved can begin.

At this stage, it is important that you involve your team in the planning process. Working
with your team members for ideas and ways of implementing a plan can be a motivating force
and can help to significantly reduce resistance to change.
Start by thinking about ‘Moments of Truth’, [A critical moment upon which much depends]
and think about the quality of service you are providing. Examine your customers’
experiences and focus on how the customer sees these experiences in terms of the
organisation. If you can see things as the customer sees them, then you have arrived at a
moment of truth. From there, you’ll be in a much better position to define, deliver and
measure the quality of service you are offering.

Customers don’t consciously look for ‘Moments of Truth’ — what they want is to have their
needs met. You can meet these needs by going through a whole process from beginning to
end — a cycle of service.

‘Moments of Truth’

A ‘Moment of Truth’ in customer service occurs any time a customer comes in contact with
your organisation and gets an impression of your service. When the customer has a ‘Moment
of Truth’ with your organisation, you will meet, exceed or fall below the customer’s
expectations. It is the customer’s perception of value that determines how your organisation
will be measured in this moment of truth.

Start by thinking about ‘Moments of Truth’ for the customer in relation to your organisation.
This critical moment upon which much depends is all about the customer. Think about the
quality of service you are providing. Examine your customers’ experiences and focus on how
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the customer sees these experiences in terms of the organisation. If you can see things as the
customer sees them, then you have arrived at a ‘Moment of Truth’. From there, you’ll be in
a much better position to define, deliver and measure the quality of service you are offering.

The ‘Moments of Truth’ in service delivery are not something which are actively sought or
often even noticed by your customers, they are there to have their needs meet. However the
Moments of Truth are something that allows the customer to notice the work of the
organisation in satisfying them, as well as allowing the customer to experience the whole
gamut of service an organisation has to offer.

The Customer Service Cycle

A service cycle within an organisation exists to guide the company in the development of
systems to improve overall customer service as well as showing the steps and stages that
service delivery goes through from the start to the finish. The service cycle should be
something that you, as an organisation, can control, and have repeated over time to ensure
that the service is delivered in the most effective manner.

The cycle of service allows you to look at things in a slightly different way. It forces you to
think from the point of view of your customers, rather than looking at things from a
managerial point of view. By looking at things from this point of view, you can begin to see
things that need improving, things that need to change, you can understand the customer’s
point of view and by understanding this, you can begin to examine what needs to be changed
and how you can go about changing it.

As a customer, you will find yourself making a considerable number of choices, statements
and judgements about the organisations that you deal with on a daily basis. These judgements
are often about those critical moments that are your ‘Moments of Truth’. You then take these
judgements with you when you make decisions about where to shop and what to buy.

Think of these judgements in a similar way to how you might think about grades at school.
The higher the grade, the more likely you are to enjoy the experience and of course vice versa.
Units like this are generally judged on a competent or not yet competent basis, so too you
may judge the organisations that you deal with on an everyday basis.

When you deal with an organisation that meets or regularly exceeds your service
expectations, you will find yourself very happy with the experience or you may even find
yourself shocked with the level of service that you have received, so high is the current level
of expectation with service in Australia. Average service is good, above average is great! It
helps make you as a customer feel needed, special and highly motivated to shop there again.

However, the opposite is also true, when an organisation fails to meet expectations, you might
feel angry, unhappy or again even surprised. You do not expect there to be service failures

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and when they do occur they can surprise you enough to not want to shop at a particular store
again.

Resolving Problems

The Cycle of Service is a useful means of identifying where any problems may exist in your
organisation, and in the provision of service. The cycle will allow you to ascertain exactly
where problems in service delivery exist, and by analysing the problems you can establish
solutions.

Let’s look at some of the key problems that can exist in terms of service delivery. These are
depicted below.

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Common Service Problems

The Big Wait

Waiting in line because some of the checkout aisles are closed
I Just Work Here
Powerless sales assistants who lack the authority to solve problems
Broken Promises
Service providers who do not do what they say they will
Red Alert
Organisations who think their customers are stupid or dishonest
True Lies
Dishonesty or unfairness
Don’t Ask
Sales Assistants who are put out by questions or answers
Automatic Pilot
Impersonal sales assistants who provide no eye contact and who are not friendly
Suffering in Silence
Employees who do not respond to customers
Misplaced Priorities
Sales assistants who spend time visiting each other and talking
Lights On, No one is Home
Staff who do not know the answer to common questions

2. Support Implementation of Customer Service Strategies

6 Keys to Improving Your Team’s Customer Service Skills

How to make sure your customer service team is skilled, empathetic, and engaged

What is the most important thing you can do to improve relationships with your customers?
The answer is as obvious as it is overlooked: improve customer service. No matter how great
your product is or how talented your staff is, one of the things that customers are most likely
to remember is the direct interaction they have with your company.

Bottom line, your customer service team is often the face of your company, and customers’
experiences will be defined by the skill and quality of the support they receive.

A strong company will already have great customer relationships. But a smart company will
always be asking “What is good customer service?” Good customer service centers around
carefully listening and attending to your customers’ needs and desires. If you are not
constantly on the lookout for opportunities to improve your customer service, then your
relationships will stagnate.

1. Strengthen your customer service skills

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First, it’s important to make sure that your customer service team has the right skills for your
managing customers’ needs. No amount of CRM software can compensate for shortcomings
in this area. But what skills should you be looking for in a customer service rep?

• Empathy, patience and consistency. Some customers will be irate. Others will be full
of questions. And others will just be chatty. You must know how to handle all of them
and provide the same level of service every time.
• Adaptability. Every customer is different, and some may even seem to change weekto-
week. You should be able to handle surprises, sense the customer’s mood and adapt
accordingly. This also includes a willingness to learn– providing good customer
service is a continuous learning process.
• Clear communication. Ensure you convey to customers exactly what you mean. You
don’t want your customer to think he’s getting 50% off when he’s actually getting
50% more product. Use authentically positive language, stay cheerful no matter what
and never end a conversation without confirming the customer is satisfied.
• Work ethic. Customers appreciate a rep who will see their problem through to its
resolution. At the same time, you must have good time management skills and not
spend too much time handling one customer while others are waiting. Stay focused
on your goals to achieve the right balance.
• Knowledge. Ultimately your customers rely on you for their knowledge of your
product. Stay informed enough to respond to most inquiries and know where to turn
if the questions become too detailed or technical for you to answer. But don’t be
afraid to say “I don’t know” either. Customers will appreciate the honesty and your
efforts to find the right answer.
• Thick skin. The customer’s always right… right? The ability to swallow one’s pride
and accept blame or negative feedback is crucial. Whether your team works directly
with customers or looking for feedback on social media, they’ve got to keep the
customer’s happiness in mind.

Not sure if your reps have the right customer service skills? Survey or interview your
customers to understand whether your service team is showing each of these traits. Running
a customer feedback survey through your CRM program, at the point of sale, or when you
send customers an invoice is a great way to see where your team’s skills do and don’t measure
up.

2. Look at every touchpoint

A bad customer experience at any point in the customer lifecycle can ruin your relationship.
In addition to making sure the right skills are demonstrated, you need to be sure they’re being
demonstrated consistently. Pay the most attention to key touchpoints, but make sure you have
a full view of the customer experience, or you risk lapses in service that can really hurt
business.

3. Improve your customer interactions

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If your staff has the necessary skill set, that’s a good start. But they still need to relate to your
customers. Here are some tips for making sure customer service is both thorough and well
received:

• Ask reps to try to identify a common ground–like shared interests–with the people
they help. Having this point of understanding makes conflict easier to overcome by
humanizing the relationship, and it endears customers to your rep (and ultimately your
company).
• Practice active listening so your customers feel heard. Clarify and rephrase what the
customers say to ensure you understand them. Empathize with and reflect their
feelings by saying things like, “That must have upset you” or “I can see why you feel
slighted.”
• Admit your mistakes, even if you discover them before your customers do. This builds
trust and restores confidence. It also allows you to control the situation, refocus the
customer’s attention and resolve the issue.
• Follow-up after a problem is solved. Make sure the issue stays fixed and that your
customers were satisfied with the service. Sending an email, or even a feedback survey
is an excellent way to let the customer know you’re still on their side.

4. Enhance your customer service strategy

Your staff may have the skills and know-how to interact with your customers. But what
organizational strategies can you employ to please customers? Practice proactive customer
service by making your customers happy before they come to you with problems. Here’s
how:

• Get personal. Your customers want to feel like they have access to real people, not
bots and FAQs. Offer more than just automated email responses, and do not let your
telephone prompts or website send them down a rabbit hole. Take full advantage of
social media (such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp) and write responses when your
customers post on your page. Post photos and bios on your website. This shows your
customers that you are real people working on their behalf.
• Be available. Part of the personal touch is making sure your customers can reach you.
For example if your business is primarily online, meet in person occasionally with
local customers and offer video calls (such as Skype) for those farther away. Work
early and late when needed, especially if your customers are in different time zones.
Even providing customers with your physical address helps build their trust and
reminds them that your company exists off the internet as well.
• Cater to your customers. Make sure you are fully meeting your customers’ needs.
Consider assigning reps to specific customers so they can build a relationship. Offer
VIP treatment for your best customers to let them know they are appreciated. What
special services might your customers like? Set up focus groups, interview customers,
or run a survey to get ideas.

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 • Create communities. Your customers will feel even more valued if you treat them as
important members of a community. You can bring various customers together in
numerous ways, including webinars, interactive websites, social media, trade shows
and conventions. And don’t forget that while your customers come to these forums to
learn from you, you can learn as much–if not more–from them.

5. Make sure your reps are engaged

You can have the best customer service skills and the best training in the world, but if your
reps are checked out, it won’t matter at all. Improving employee engagement is another way
to make sure customers have a great experience. Dissatisfied employees are unlikely to come
forward with their problems, so consider an anonymous suggestion box or an employee
engagement survey to see what makes your employees tick.

You’ll want to know how your customer service team feels about working conditions and
compensation, opportunities for career advancement, training and their peers. Our employee
engagement template offers a good overview. We’ve also compiled benchmark engagement
data to help you understand how your employees’ engagement compares to other companies.
6. Give your customers a way to provide feedback

No matter how proactive you are, you’ll never be able to get in front of every customer issue.
To make sure you learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly experience your customers
have, create an easily accessible way for customers to give feedback.

Whether it’s a phone survey at the end of a service call, an email survey sent directly from
your CRM tool, or a form on the “Contact Us” page of your website, creating a means for
customers to give feedback makes it easier for you to learn what needs improvement. It also
helps keep unhappy customers from voicing their displeasure on highly visible places like
your social media pages.

Whatever steps you choose to take, remember feedback’s importance to customer

satisfaction. Unsure what your strengths and weaknesses are? Don’t know why the numbers
are dipping? Make an effort to get closer both to your customers and your reps.

Not only will you discover touchpoints and skills that need improvement, but your customers
will see that are dedicated to providing top-notch, proactive customer service.

Identify budgetary considerations in delivering strategies

Implementing a strategy to improve customer service may require you to identify and
allocate budgetary resources. Budgetary resources include funds, staff and time. This area of
responsibility requires that you identify budgetary limitations and research your costs. Any

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training that is required to improve customer service should also be recognised as a cost in
terms of time and money.
Depending on the strategy, different budgets may be relevant. An IT strategy, for example,
may be achieved with funds allocated from a project budget, while many other customer
service strategies will be accounted for in a marketing budget.
Here is how one organisation might prepare its budgets.

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Six Steps to Dealing with Customer Complaints

At some point, everyone in business has to deal with an upset customer. The challenge is to
handle the situation in a way that leaves the customer thinking you operate a great company.
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If you’re lucky, you can even encourage him or her to serve as a passionate advocate for your
brand.

When it comes down to it, many customers don't even bother to complain. They simply leave
and buy from your competitors. Research suggests that up to 80 percent of customers who
leave were, in fact, "satisfied" with the original company. Obviously, customer satisfaction
is not enough. Businesses nowadays need to positively delight customers if they want to earn
their loyalty.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but a business owner’s ability to effectively deal with customer
complaints provides a great opportunity to turn dissatisfied customers into active promoters
of the business. Here are some customer-oriented tips I’ve learned while working in the
business coaching business:

• Listen carefully to what the customer has to say, and let them finish. Don't get
defensive. The customer is not attacking you personally; he or she has a problem and
is upset. Repeat back what you are hearing to show that you have listened.
• Ask questions in a caring and concerned manner.
The more information you can get from the customer, the better you will understand
his or her perspective. I’ve learned it’s easier to ask questions than to jump to
conclusions.
• Put yourself in their shoes.
As a business owner, your goal is to solve the problem, not argue. The customer needs
to feel like you’re on his or her side and that you empathize with the situation.
• Apologize without blaming.
When a customer senses that you are sincerely sorry, it usually diffuses the situation.
Don't blame another person or department. Just say, "I'm sorry about that.”
Ask the customer, "What would be an acceptable solution to you?"
Whether or not the customer knows what a good solution would be, I’ve found it’s
best to propose one or more solutions to alleviate his or her pain. Become a partner
with the customer in solving the problem.
Solve the problem, or find someone who can solve it— quickly!
Research indicates that customers prefer the person they are speaking with to instantly
solve their problem. When complaints are moved up the chain of command, they
become more expensive to handle and only add to the customer's frustration.

There is no getting around customer complaints, regardless of your industry.

However, by employing these steps and taking the time to review the issue with the
customer, you can turn challenges into something constructive.

3. Evaluate and Report on Customer Service

When Should Customer Satisfaction be Measured?

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Proper timing of customer satisfaction surveys depends on the type of product or service
provided, the type and number of customers served, the longevity and frequency of
customer/supplier interactions, and the intended use of the results.

Three very different approaches to measuring customer satisfaction exist. Each produces
meaningful and useful results and are appropriate for different situations, uses, and needs.

1. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Post Purchase Evaluations

Post-purchase evaluations reflect the satisfaction of the individual customer at the time of
product or service delivery (or shortly thereafter).

This type of satisfaction survey is typically used as part of CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) and VOC (Voice of the Customer) systems. Each focuses on securing a
longterm relationship with the individual customer.

2. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Periodic Satisfaction Surveys

Periodic satisfaction surveys provide an occasional snapshot of customer experiences and

expectations and are conducted for specific groups of consumers on a periodic basis.

3. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Continuous Satisfaction Tracking

Continuous satisfaction tracking is often part of a management initiative to assure quality is

at high levels over time.

Benchmarking satisfaction as an NPS (Net Promoter Score) would be an example. You can
base tracking on post-purchase evaluations or a succession of regular customer satisfaction
surveys (conducted daily, monthly, quarterly, etc.).

Moving Forward…

Regardless of the approach, satisfaction surveys provide an understanding of customers’

expectations and satisfaction.

They usually have multiple questions that address satisfaction on many different levels, such
as overall satisfaction, satisfaction with different service providers from the organization,
satisfaction with individual product and service attributes, and satisfaction with the benefits
recorded as a result of purchase.
Satisfaction measurement is like peeling away layers of an onion-each layer reveals yet
another deeper layer, closer to the core.

Top 5 Ways to Measure Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is notoriously difficult to measure for several reasons.

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To begin with, you have to count on customers not only to give feedback, but also to be honest
in their assessment. Many people, when satisfied, feel no need to contact the company, while
others will quietly grumble about flaws in service or products and swear off a company
without ever seeking redress or voicing their complaints so that the situation can be remedied.

Requirements for satisfaction are not only unique to each individual customer, they can be
extremely difficult to quantify, even on a personal level. However, if you are able to set
standards for employee conduct where interactions with customers are concerned (both from
a point-of-sale and a customer service perspective) then you can certainly implement
procedures and guidelines to ensure customer satisfaction and measure their success. You can
start by going to the source.

1. Survey Customers

This is probably the only way to get customer feedback unless they contact you, which most
people are too busy to bother with unless they are extremely upset for some reason.

You can provide surveys in several ways (through mail, email, or over the phone) and in order
to get the best information, you should allow customers to answer questions on a weighted
scale (as in “Rate your experience on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 indicating complete
dissatisfaction and 5 indicating complete satisfaction”). You may also want to survey repeat
customers to see how their experience changes over time.

2. Understand Expectations

If you know what your customers expect from you, it logically follows that you will be better
able to offer them an enjoyable experience. So make an effort to discover the expectations of
your customers in terms of both service and products in order to ensure that you’re meeting
their needs.

3. Find Out Where You’re Failing

If you’re not meeting customer requirements, you need to find out where the failure is
occurring. Are the products less than what is advertised? Are employees making promises
that cannot be met? Are customer service representatives dropping the ball on dispelling
customer concerns and managing their complaints? You may need to take a step back and
reevaluate your management abilities. Learning how to manage your employees better will
undoubtedly have a positive affect on your customer service. Whatever the case, it would
behoove you to know where the lines of communication are breaking down so that
relationships with customers can be mended.

4. Pinpoint Specifics

Whether a customer is satisfied or not, the data you collect will need to accurately assess what
is working and what isn’t. So inquiries into level of satisfaction should include more than just
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the overall experience. You need to determine the products or services they purchased, what
they liked or disliked about their sales interaction, how the actual purchase compared to their
expectations, and any suggestions they have for improvement.

5. Assess the Competition

If you don’t know why customers prefer another brand over yours, you cannot hope to keep
them from flocking to the competition. So as part of your survey process, you may want to
consider inviting customers to compare and contrast similar products or companies to find
out what they are offering that you are not.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys & Research: How to Measure CSAT

It seems self evident that companies should try to satisfy their customers. Satisfied customers
usually return and buy more, they tell other people about their experiences, and they may well
pay a premium for the privilege of doing business with a supplier they trust. Statistics are
bandied around that suggest that the cost of keeping a customer is only one tenth of winning
a new one. Therefore, when we win a customer, we should hang on to them. Conducting a
customer satisfaction survey is a good way to start measuring where you stand in terms of
customer loyalty.
Why Customer Satisfaction Is So Important

Why is it that we can think of more examples of companies failing to satisfy us rather than
when we have been satisfied? There could be a number of reasons for this. When we buy a
product or service, we expect it to be right. We don’t jump up and down with glee saying
“isn’t it wonderful, it actually worked”. That is what we paid our money for. Add to this our
world of ever exacting standards. We now have products available to us that would astound
our great grandparents and yet we quickly become used to them. The bar is getting higher
and higher. At the same time our lives are ever more complicated with higher stress levels.
Delighting customers and achieving high customer satisfaction scores in this environment is
ever more difficult. And even if your customers are completely satisfied with your product
or service, significant chunks of them could leave you and start doing business with your
competition.

A market trader has a continuous finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction. Direct contact
with customers indicates what he is doing right or where he is going wrong. Such informal
feedback is valuable in any company but hard to formalise and control in anything much
larger than a corner shop. For this reason customer surveys are necessary to measure and
track customer satisfaction.

Developing a customer satisfaction programme is not just about carrying out a customer
service survey. Surveys provide the reading that shows where attention is required but in
many respects, this is the easy part. Very often, major long lasting improvements need a
fundamental transformation in the company, probably involving training of the staff, possibly
involving cultural change. The result should be financially beneficial with less customer

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churn, higher market shares, premium prices, stronger brands and reputation, and happier
staff. However, there is a price to pay for these improvements. Costs will be incurred in the
market research survey. Time will be spent working out an action plan. Training may well be
required to improve the customer service. The implications of customer satisfaction studies
go far beyond the survey itself and will only be successful if fully supported by the echelons
of senior management.
A Six-Stage Process For Customer Satisfaction Studies

There are six parts to any customer satisfaction programme:

1. Who should be interviewed?

2. What should be measured?
3. How should the interview be carried out?
4. How should satisfaction be measured?
5. What do the measurements mean?
6. How to use a customer satisfaction study to greatest effect?

Who Should Be Interviewed?

Some products and services are chosen and consumed by individuals with little influence
from others. The choice of a brand of cigarettes is very personal and it is clear who should be
interviewed to find out satisfaction with those cigarettes. But who should we interview to
determine the satisfaction with breakfast cereal? Is it the person that buys the cereal (usually
a parent) or the person that consumes it (often a child)? And what of a complicated buying
decision in a business to business situation. Who should be interviewed in a customer
satisfaction survey for a truck manufacturer – the driver, the transport manager, the general
management of the company? In other b2b markets there may well be influences on the
buying decision from engineering, production, purchasing, quality assurance, plus research
and development. Because each department evaluates suppliers differently, the customer
satisfaction programme will need to cover the multiple views.

The adage in market research that we turn to again and again is the need to ask the right
question of the right person. Finding that person in customer loyalty research may require a
compromise with a focus on one person – the key decision maker; perhaps the transport
manager in the example of the trucks. If money and time permit, different people could be
interviewed and this may involve different interviewing methods and different questions.
The traditional first in line customer is an obvious candidate for measuring customer
satisfaction. But what about other people in the channel to market? If the products are sold
through intermediaries, we are even further from our customers. A good customer satisfaction
program will include at least the most important of these types of channel customers, perhaps
the wholesalers as well as the final consumers.

One of the greatest headaches in the organisation of a b2b customer satisfaction survey is the
compilation of the sample frame – the list from which the sample of respondents is selected.

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Building an accurate, up-to-date list of customers, with telephone numbers and contact details
is nearly always a challenge. The list held by the accounts department may not have the
contact details of the people making the purchasing decision. Large businesses may have
regionally autonomous units and there may be some fiefdom that says it doesn’t want its
customers pestered by market researchers. The sales teams’ Christmas card lists may well be
the best lists of all but they are kept close to the chest of each sales person and not held on a
central server. Building a good sample frame nearly always takes longer than was planned
but it is the foundation of a good customer satisfaction project.

Customer satisfaction surveys are often just that – surveys of customers without consideration
of the views of lost or potential customers. Lapsed customers may have stories to tell about
service issues while potential customers are a good source of benchmark data on the
competition. If a customer survey is to embrace non-customers, the compilation of the sample
frame is even more difficult. The quality of these sample frames influences the results more
than any other factor since they are usually outside the researchers’ control. The questionnaire
design and interpretation are within the control of the researchers and these are subjects where
they will have considerable experience.

What Should Be Measured?

In customer satisfaction research we seek the views of respondents on a variety of issues that
will show how the company is performing and how it can improve. This understanding is
obtained at a high level (“how satisfied are you the ABC Ltd overall?”) and at a very specific
level (“how satisfied are you with the clarity of invoices?”).

High level issues are included in most customer satisfaction surveys and they could be
captured by questions such as:

• What is your overall satisfaction with ABC Ltd?

• How likely or unlikely are you to buy from ABC Ltd again?
• How likely or unlikely would you be to recommend ABC Ltd to a friend or colleague?

It is at the more specific level of questioning that things become more difficult. Some issues
are of obvious importance and every supplier is expected to perform to a minimum acceptable
level on them. These are the hygiene factors. If a company fails on any of these issues they
would quickly lose market share or go out of business. An airline must offer safety but the
level of in-flight service is a variable. These variables such as in-flight service are often the
issues that differentiate companies and create the satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Working out what questions to ask at a detailed level means seeing the world from the
customers’ points of view. What do they consider important? These factors or attributes will
differ from company to company and there could be a long list. They could include the
following:
Questionnaire Section B2B customer satisfaction survey questions

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 The product • Quality of the product
• Length of life of the product
• Design of the product
• Consistency of quality
• Range of products
• Processibility of the product

Delivery • Delivery on time

• Speed of delivery

Staff and service • Courtesy from sales staff

• Representative’s availability
Representative’s knowledge
• Reliability of returning calls
• Friendliness of the sales staff
• Complaint resolution
• Responsiveness to enquiries
• After sales service
• Technical service

The company • Reputation of the company

• Ease of doing business
• Invoice clarity
• Invoices on time

Price • Market price

• Total cost of use
• Value for money

The list is not exhaustive by any means. There is no mention above of environmental issues,
sales literature, frequency of representatives’ calls or packaging. Even though the attributes
are deemed specific, it is not entirely clear what is meant by “product quality” or “ease of
doing business”. Cryptic labels that summarise specific issues have to be carefully chosen for
otherwise it will be impossible to interpret the results.

Customer facing staff in the research-sponsoring organisation will be able to help at the early
stage of working out which attributes to measure. They understand the issues, they know the
terminology and they will welcome being consulted. Internal focus groups with the sales staff
will prove highly instructive. This internally generated information may be biased, but it will
raise most of the general customer issues and is readily available at little cost.

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Activity

Task 1 – Theory: Coordinating the Initiative

This assessment requires you to demonstrate your ability to identify the needs and
priorities of an organisation in delivering services to customers, responding to and
reporting on customer feedback, designing strategies to improve delivery of products and
services, and to have knowledge of the principles of customer service. To achieve this you
must complete the following Tasks using the Bounce Fitness Corporate Marketing Plan
or your organisation (if approved by your Assessor) as the product or service you are
selling.

You are answering as the Manager of one of the Centres or the Manager in your unit.
Task 1 requires you to address the following on your own paper:
1a How will you discover the customer needs? In the case of the Bounce Fitness Corporate
Marketing Plan, what do you think those needs might include?
1b What options do you have for change in the Bounce Fitness Corporate
Marketing Plan or your organisational marketing plan? Can you make these adjustments
yourself or must you get approval?
1c Other than changing your product or service, what information could you provide to
potential purchasers that would improve your customer service delivery?
1d How could you incorporate the use of business technology and/or online services into
your presentation of information to the customer?

Include copies of all documents to which you refer and reference any other information.

Customer Service – My Top Three

From a Customer Service Perspective, write down your top three positive and negative
customer service experiences.
Explain why each experience was good or bad. What were your expectations?

You are required to answer all the following questions. Type your answers in the appropriate
spaces below or answer them orally during the assessment.
Question 1: In a short paragraph, explain the basic principles of customer service.

Question 2: In what ways might you collect feedback from customers and why is this
feedback necessary?

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Question 3: How would the process of obtaining feedback from internal customers differ from
the process of obtaining feedback from external customers and why is feedback from internal
customers necessary?

Question 4: Explain how you think technology contributes to improved customer service.
Give at least four specific workplace examples?

Question 5: How does an organisational structure contribute to the marketability and the
market success of products/ services? Explain your answer

Question 6: Is it possible for an organisation to provide excellent customer service without

every employee having a job they feel makes a real contribution? Explain your answer.

Question 7: Explain what is meant by product/ service standards and best practice models.

Project 1

The ABC Manufacturing Company is a large, Australian company, based in Sydney. It has
been operating for approximately 17 years. It manufactures good quality products which are
exported to all states. It has a regular line of supply to a well-established group of customers.
However, the CEO is concerned and has called a meeting of department heads and on-line
managers. Business has been dropping and budgetary targets will not be met if something is
not done quickly. Operations and production levels are fine. Product quality is good and
meeting specifications. Yet sales have dropped. You have been called together to identify
and solve the problem/s. How will you go about it?
There are two obvious problems here. You will need to address the possibility of both and
indicate possible root causes for each.
In finding a solution to the problems, you will need to consider:
• markets and market segments
• customers – their needs, wants and expectations and your methods of determining
them
• customer focus and what that means
• competition
• promotion and advertising – promising and delivering
• in-house attitudes toward customers – training in customer service
• service levels and styles

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 • customer feedback and complaints management – processes and procedures for
managing, recording and
• using customer complaints and suggestions as part of the continuous improvement
process
• the impact of internal and external change factors
• any other factors you consider to be relevant
Explain how and why you think these problems have arisen and write a proposal, to be
presented to the CEO outlining what the problems are and how you believe they can be
overcome.
Your proposal should include:
• a description of the problem/s
• a list of options or alternatives for solving them
• a description of the processes used to generate these alternatives
• a suggested course of action based on the best options outlined
• strategies for resolving the issues, and justification of those strategies
• any costs involved
• the personnel who should be involved, and their roles
• the expected outcomes of the interventions
• a statement of the likely outcomes if the interventions are not implemented any
relevant legislation

Project 2

We should encourage our customers to complain!

In a paragraph of at least 250 words, explain what this statement means, how it should be
applied, why it should be applied and why a policy of encouraging customer complaints
would benefit your organisation, or indeed, any other organisation.

Project 3

Design and document a customer service survey—a set of at least six questions—that might
be administered to your customers (either internal or external customers). Use a PC to set out
and format the questionnaire and submit the entire document to your assessor. You might
find it beneficial to consult with colleagues, employees and other stakeholders when

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constructing the survey sheet. If you do this, please record the consultation and submit your
notes along with the rest of the activity results. Explain who you will deliver the survey to.
Will you survey a whole population or a population sample? If you survey a large number of
people, how will you stratify your survey group? Remember, that if your survey group is too
small, your results will be meaningless. If it is too large, the survey will be unwieldy.
Your survey will be designed to determine customer needs, wants and expectations
(remembering the differences between needs, wants and expectations) and to determine
whether the product/ service or bundle you offer meets those specifications. Explain:
• How you would administer the survey and how you would encourage customers
to complete the survey sheet?
• How you think customer responses to the survey questions would aid in
diagnosing any problems your organisation might have in matching service
delivery to customer needs and expectations?
• How the survey results might be used to develop options for improved service and
to provide relevant and constructive advice promoting the improvement of
customer service delivery?
Once you have administered the survey, collect the results and collate them. Report on the
results using tables and graphs where appropriate.
Summarise the results:
• Were there any surprises and what were they?
• How will you communicate this information and to whom?
• Why is it important for these people to know the results of the survey?
• What is its importance to you, your division and your organisation?
• How can this information be used to increase your market share?
Submit to your assessor:
• a copy of the survey questions
• a description of how it was administered and who it was administered to
• a statement of the number of people who responded and the percentage response
• the collated and summarised results
• a copy of the report you generated and the answers to the questions relating to the
results and report

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 ASSIGNMENT COVER PAGE
(For manual submission)

Student Name :
____________________________________________________

Student No :
____________________________________________________
Course Name :
____________________________________________________
Batch :
____________________________________________________
Stage :
____________________________________________________
Unit Title :
____________________________________________________
Assignment No :
____________________________________________________
Assignment Title :
____________________________________________________
Facilitator :
____________________________________________________
Due Date :
____________________________________________________
Date Submitted :
____________________________________________________

Declaration (this must be signed):

I declare that this submission is my own work with respect to plagiarism and does not
violate copyright laws. This work has not been submitted for academic credit in any other
course or subject.

Signature: ..........................................
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 ASSIGNMENT COVER PAGE
For use with online submission of assignments
Please use this sheet as the first page of each file of your assignment – do not send it as a
separate document.
Your assignments must be submitted as either Word documents, text documents with .rtf
extension or as .pdf documents. If you wish to submit in any other file format please discuss
this with your lecturer well before the assignment submission date.
Course Title :

Unit Name :

Unit
Code:

Trainer’s Name:

Assignment No.:

Assignment
Title:

Due date: Date

submitted:

Declaration:
I have read and understand the Rules Relating to Awards as contained in the IBS College of
TVET Academic, Grading and Accreditation Policy. I understand the penalties that apply
for plagiarism and agree to be bound by these rules. The work I am submitting electronically
is entirely my own work. Signature with Date:
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name)

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