» Customer Service

How many times have you got frustrated waiting for the salesman to answer your query? This is a situation that is faced by many customers on their visit to their favorite shops. The salesman may be busy, not available, reluctant or simply not cooperative or courteous. What happens in most of the case is that you decrease your frequency of visits to the place. The establishment loses its customer, and maybe one by one it stands to lose many customers. Customer service needs attention at the moment. This is a major problem faced by many establishments, where customers complain of poor service and decline visiting the place after some initial visits.

This is due to these factors that major companies are hiring the services of specialized shoppers, who visit shops and report on the customer service of the establishment. They take into account several factors such as

1. Whether the staff is greeting the customer who is entering or leaving the shop.
2. To check if the staff puts in extra efforts to help the customer.
3. If phone calls related to query or problem are responded well and quickly.
4. If the staff is listening attentively to all queries of the shopper and providing a solution effectively.

The hired shopper reports to the company about the nature of customer service found at the shop. If the service rendered by the staff is satisfactory, the company starts thinking about other areas that need improvement. The officer tries to identify the problem areas, so that measures can be taken to retain customers. It is a well known fact that finding new customers is much difficult than retaining old customers. Hence all companies, whether big or small give extreme importance to client service so that no customers are lost for poor service. If the company finds that client service needs to improve then it takes measures so that the quality of service rendered can be improved.

Any company that has the problem of poor customer service tries to find out ways so that the quality of service can be improved. There are many ways in which the service rendered by a company can be improved. The staff of the establishment should be given a specialized training so that they know what is expected from them. There are many establishments in which the staff were not aware about their responsibilities and often avoided doing many things. They should have updated knowledge about all the products that is available in the store, so that they can solve all the queries of the customers. If they are not aware about the products themselves they will not be able to perform their duties themselves.

If you are the owner of any restaurant, then you should take special care of your customer service . People usually visit restaurants to spend some leisure time with their family and friends and if under these circumstances the person has to keep waiting for the attention of the staff, and then nothing can be more depressing than this. People usually ask about food, ingredients and spend some time thinking over the perfect menu. At these times, they need full cooperation from the existing staff so that their visit is pleasant and enjoyable. Nothing makes a customer happy than attention and courteousness of the staff. What more do you ask for?

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A secret shopping service may be of many types. It usually involves finding out the consumer satisfaction measures taken by a given firm. Agents may be employed for conducting market surveys, internal auditing, employee performance appraisals, and office cleanliness inspection programs. They work under different profiles and use different media for communication. The primary mode of communication is through personal contact with the people concerned. The other modes are telephonic and electronic mail communication. Whatever the mode of communication, the feedback that is obtained is of utmost importance for the firm to improve the quality of its performance.

When a firm hires a secret shopping service to get information about the level of consumer satisfaction it is able to give to its consumers, it asks its agents to pose as consumers and interact with other consumers and the staff members to extract information. By interacting with other consumers an agent gets the general impression that people have about the products and the consumer satisfaction levels of a given firm. The agents interact with the store staff members to assess their attitude towards their clients. The agents collect the information and make reports. They submit these reports to their employers who work on these reports to understand whatever is happening in their front offices and take the necessary steps accordingly.

A secret shopping service can be used by the top managers of the firm to assess the general performance of their employees. The agent can observe the knowledge of an employee regarding the products that he sells and about any competing products available in the market. The employees should be able to convince the consumers about the superiority of their products over all other similar products available in the market. The employee should be able to retain an existing consumer and attract more and more new ones with his consumer relationship prowess. He should not indulge in any unfair practices, such as keeping some products aside for personal use, without paying for them or taking the permission of seniors. He should be reliable in terms of financial matters of the firm and he should not try to make any personal profit from while doing his job.

A firm can use a secret shopping service to find out about its major competitors in the market. It can send agents to the stores of its competitors to understand their marketing strategy, the grade of their products and the consumer satisfaction techniques employed by them. With this information, a firm can understand its own strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly to improve its position in the market in comparison to its competitors. Sometimes agents are sent by organizations to different departments for conducting internal audits. These agents interview the personnel from different departments about their style of working, and inspect their files and other office documents for the standard of maintenance.

A secret shopping service can be used to assess the efficiency of maintenance of the premises of a retail outlet. Outlets that are shabbily kept or in a dilapidated condition do not attract consumers even though the products that they sell may be of very good condition. The outlets that are maintained in top condition are the ones that attract a lot of consumers and retain them for a long time. A store that is well maintained and that has a friendly ambience about it leaves a lasting impression on the visitor.

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Customer service is of prime importance for the success of any business. Today, a lot of industries and business houses are competing with each other for satisfying their consumers to the best of their abilities. There are some basic ingredients to satisfying consumers. The degree and type of consumer satisfaction given by an organization depends on five factors. They are namely, the culture of the organization, the temperament of the consumer relationships executive, the type of consumer behavior exhibited by the leadership of the organization, the expected level of consumer satisfaction conveyed to the consumer relationships executives and the training that is provided by the management in this regards.

The culture of the organization plays a vital role in determining the attitude the employees develop towards consumers. Generally those firms that lay a high emphasis on office etiquette offer customer service of high standards. This is usually seen in the organizations belonging to the hospitality industry. The staffs of hotels and airline industries are, for example, very courteous with their guests because these organizations lay a lot of stress on organizational etiquette. They are polite and helpful not only to the consumers, who are outsiders, but also they interact with each other in a polite and professional manner.

The personality of the consumer relationships executive matters a lot when it comes to maintaining cordial relationships with the consumers and winning their loyalty. Some customer service executives have a natural flair for interacting with consumers. They are always in a good mood, socialize with the clients, creatively describe about the products that the firm offers and patiently listen to the consumers and address their queries. Naturally consumers feel that they are being given importance and remain loyal to the firm. Of course, it is not that only those who have a good temperament only make successful consumer relationship executives. There are a number of people who have learned these skills during their course of work and have become some of the best consumer relationships executives over the years.

Consumer satisfaction is not the responsibility of the public relationships executive only. It is the responsibility of each and every employee of the firm. It starts with the topmost level. The subordinates learn from the leaders. If the leader behaves well with his visitors and strives to satisfy them then the subordinates will automatically strive to provide customer service to the best of their abilities. The subordinates cannot be expected to provide a consumer satisfaction of higher level than his superiors.

Many times the expected levels of consumer satisfaction to be offered is not conducted by the top management to the consumer relationship executives. It is always better to convey the meaning and the criteria of satisfying consumers clearly to the concerned executives. There is no point in conveying the expectations vaguely. The management should also provide customer service and communication skills training to all those individuals who are lacking in these, so that consumer satisfaction of the desired level can be achieved. It is seen that when all these five elements are taken care of by any organization, the levels of consumer satisfaction that they provide automatically improves. Employees can also be given some attractive incentives for satisfying their clients well. On the whole, these measures are known to ensure high business success.

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Companies can improve their standard quality of customer service by using the secret customers. A secret customer is supposed to act as an ordinary customer to find out detailed information for the management to evaluate the service and technical expertise of employees. The success of any company is very much dependent on their service to the customer. The reports from the secret customer will help the company to improve their status by increasing sales, lowering employee attrition and decreasing losses due to employee error. Secret customer can help the organization by their quick, friendly, personal service with 100 per cent satisfaction.

Customer service is mostly the pillar of success for any industry. Each and every year the companies have a distinctive budget to satisfy their customer. In case a customer drops in to your shop or business facility, it means either the customer wants to check out the product or service line up or he wants to buy the product or service. In such an occasion the customers must feel happy and content, by the staff. They should be treated properly so that they take the decision to buy. If they receive a healthy and friendly service from the staff, they will come back to your facility again and again. They will also recommend your company to their family and friends, which will ultimately increase sales.

If the customers are not satisfied with the customer service at your business outlet, they will not buy the product or service and they are not going to come back either. On top of this they are going to narrate their bitter experience to their acquaintances, eventually this will lead to fall of sales. So, this is a very important factor which controls the revenue of the company. You can not ignore this fact at all. That is why a regular evaluation of the service provided to the customers is very much required. This will give you a chance to improvise on the attitude of the employees to the customer and the general service received by the customers.

A yearly customer service audit is going to help your company in a great way. This audit is going to identify the weakness of the service provided. It will also suggest you a recommendation to solve this issue, to increase the customer satisfaction by improving the performance of the employees. Secret customer will check with the department of customer assistance in person and by telephone. They will act as a real customer enquiring on a certain product or service. They will try to acquire as much information as possible and then note it down to the evaluation form. Finally they will produce the report using all their findings.

This will be the perfect way to identify the negative sides of the customer service section. Once you identify your faults, it becomes easy to rectify. Your employees might require training, or they might be looking for any reward, whatever is the scenario, you are going to have better quality service for your customers, if you follow the recommendation. These audit programs can be customized just to fit into your specific requirement. If you search internet, you will find many specialized auditor firms working on this. They will be able to provide you with the right solution for your business growth by improving customer satisfaction.

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Nowadays almost all firms belonging to any particular industry are offering more or less the same products and facilities. Hence their customer service and the satisfaction of the clients become determining factors in drawing clients. The clients are no longer at the receiving end. They have a wide range of choice. Hence it is up to the firms to try their best to retain their old client base and attract new ones. Hence maintaining a happy clientele is imperative to succeed in any business. Any business is done to serve its clients who play a major role in deciding its fate.

In order to improve client satisfaction, many firms are nowadays employing agents to visit their retail sites and give them a feedback as to how the clients out there are being treated by their appointed staff. These agents pose as buyers and do not disclose their identities to the staff of the firm. They observe the quality of customer service being rendered, evaluate it against the factors specified by the firms and write reports. These reports are provided to the managers and decision making bodies of the firm who bring in the necessary reforms and strengthen the already present plus points. This method of evaluating the end user satisfaction enables the firm to understand how effective it is in delivering its products and facilities to the end user.

Any firm that wants to make it big in its business should bear in mind that the onus of satisfying the end users does not lie with the staff directly interacting with the end user alone. The attitude for satisfying the end users should be imbibed right from the top level of the firm. The top management should realize that customer service should be aimed at exceeding that expected by the end user rather than just meeting the requirements. This is because each and every firm will try to satisfy its clients and hence client satisfaction itself is a competitive affair and the firm that satisfies its clients the best wins at the end of the day. Training regarding developing healthy and long lasting client relationships should be provided to not only the client serving and marketing personnel but also to all the employees even if they are not directly involved in interaction with the clients.

The first thing that a firm should do to train its employees to provide excellent customer service is to learn to analyze the client and accurately assess what he wants. The agents who visit the retail outlets of a firm observe the staff that provides customer service . They see the disposition of the staff towards the end users. The employee who presents himself in an amicable manner to the end users is given credit. Those employees who are impatient or aggressive with their clients are evaluated negatively. The time duration for a client to get the attention of the staff and that taken for a transaction to finalize is also noted. The lesser the time spent, the greater is the ranking of the staff being evaluated. Sometimes these agents present the staff with hypothetical situations and see how well they respond to them. The staff members are evaluated on their demeanor, presentation and communication skills, accuracy of information that they provide to the clients and how well they carry out the tasks entrusted to them to their best of their capabilities.

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It is the customer service that is thoroughly dissected by the special or anonymous shopping method. The dissection is necessary for any business that deals with the customers first hand. The importance of surveillance of the service quality of these businesses is felt when the growth of the business becomes stagnant of the business declines. The companies need constant monitoring of the quality to stay in the competition and the agencies providing special shopping services are considered the best friends to such businesses.

We all talk about customer service but do we know what do we mean when we mention the words? Literally it means serving the customers or providing service to the customers. it is true as per definition but the service so given is no ordinary service. When we speak of the words we expect something which is more than just plain service. Customers are there to be served and the company is there to do that only. So there is nothing new to it. But what is new is the level of service on offer. When we talk of service we mean service that exceeds the expectations of the customers. It also means maintaining the level of service so that it never falls short or behind. This means that there must be a consistency. The best service is that which the customers never dreamed of.

Maintaining the level of customer service in the very large businesses is a real problem. The problem is aggravated when the company is a chain of outlets or a franchise chain. The stores and establishments spread all across the country and the globe covers such a huge geographical area that monitoring the quality of customer satisfaction seems to go out of hand. It is very difficult to build up a reputation but a simple slip can bring it down in a matter of few days or even hours. Building up the lost reputation is even tougher than starting afresh. To maintain the level of expectation the business should remember that the responsibility does not lie only with the front end but also the support the back end provides.

Customer service starts right from the point where a product is designed and manufactured. The thinking that goes into the manufacturing itself is a form of serving the customer. The product needs to be customer friendly to gain popularity and this is what the company wants. The next stage is the stage where the product is brought to the customers and for a popular product the availability when the demand is at its zenith is the best occasion. So there needs to be a constant supply of the popular objects to ensure good flow of business. Finally, comes the front end, the showcase and window for the customers to see through. It is the most important part of any business serving customers though it is the final stage of the whole process that goes behind the service.

A very popular way to monitor the customer service is through the special shopping programs. Though the shoppers deal and interact with the front end, the observations that these shoppers make and send in for analysis tells much more. An analysis of the front end result often indicates what is going wrong in the back end. The results provide a valuable insight into the state of affairs and the company can take measures to ensure that they are providing the best to its customers and not compromising as far as the level of satisfaction goes.

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Satisfying the consumer is of prime importance of any business today. The sales staff member at a retail outlet might be thinking that she is extending excellent quality assurance services to consumer of the products of her firm, but the consumer might not be satisfied at all. Hence it is better to know what a consumer actually means by consumer satisfaction. Many people look out for professional demeanor from the sales staff members. They expect them to patiently provide them with whatever they wish for. Client satisfaction is a highly individualistic affair and hence it is very important for the sales staff to be educated on consumer psychology to deal smoothly with the consumers.

Quality assurance services include different types of jobs. They are not about simple interaction with clients in a polite manner and making them happy. Many firms train their frontline executives in dealing with consumers. It is quite a vast but interesting subject. At the end of the program the frontline executives are well groomed and ready to interact in a professional manner with the consumers. These days, consumer satisfaction has become a powerful competitive factor. Business houses are spending huge amounts of money in satisfying their consumers. It is very important for a business house to provide ace consumer service to excel and survive in business, however good the standard of the products that it manufactures may be.

There are certain factors that a frontline executive needs to keep in mind while providing quality assurance services to the consumers. Consumers might be of different personality types. But the executive should behave in a professional manner with the toughest of consumers. Consumers look upon these executives for expert advice. This is where the executive should be clever enough to provide a convincing suggestion to the consumer when he is struggling to get one. The executive should understand the personality type and requirement of the client and conform his style of interaction to match to that of the consumer.

One of the most vital quality assurance services attributes is to be a good listener. It is agreed that a frontline executive should definitely have tremendous verbal skills, but he should be a good listener too. The consumer might be dying to put forward his point and he will definitely get irritated if people do not listen to him. A prudent executive will follow the three golden principles of communication. i.e. what to speak, when to speak and how to speak. He will be a good listener and will get a good understanding of the needs of the consumer in the first few seconds of speaking to him.

The quality assurance services might look easy but they are quite difficult to follow when it comes to the practical situation in a marketplace. The consumers might be very irritating and illogical. They might express anger and insult an executive. Tackling all these situations requires one to control his emotions, think wisely and take quick action. A sales executive is a human being after all and it is really difficult for her to maintain her cool all the time. It is not an inborn trait. She has to practice a lot to extend hundred percent services to the consumers who visit her stores. However, some people possess a natural flair for good consumer interactions and they are the ones who satisfy the consumers the most.

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Many business houses engage agents for quality assurance jobs. They send the agents to their retail outlets and ask them to give them a feedback of the performance of their sales staff out there to evaluate the level of consumer satisfaction that they are providing at present. It is not only that they send agents to retail outlets. They send them to their production houses also to see if the product is being manufactured in strict accordance to the criteria set by the production experts. Any discrepancy is supposed to be reported immediately to the concerned authorities.

Quality assurance is the prime motivational factor for any business house and it does everything to give itself that. A business house always strives to produce excellent products to the best of its ability. A good client feedback gives it the confidence to proceed forward and make progress. But manufacturing a product of superior grade is not an easy job and selling it is also equally tough. Hence, a business house spends huge amounts of money in locating talented people, employing them and rewarding them for their appreciable output. After all, it is these people who play a vital role in making the business a grand success.

The large business houses usually have a quality assurance department. The professionals out there strictly check if the manufacturing units are strictly following the procedural instructions set and conveyed to them. These professionals evaluate each and every piece of the final product before allowing it to go into the market. But sadly enough it is seen that many products available in the market today are of inferior standard. They are defective or do not deliver what is promised by their producers. Then, it is but natural for anyone to wonder how the product passed the stringent evaluation that it is subject to, just before being released into the market.

These days the buyers also seem to do not want quality assurance very much. They are buying whatever is available without any qualms as they do not have the time to make an issue of the inferior standard of the products. This is the reason the manufacturers have started taking the buyers for granted and are producing goods that are not up to the mark. It has become common with the buyers to accept products with minor defects. The salesmen use their tricks to convince a buyer into buying these defective items. The clients notice the defects only after they take the product home. Many times they think they can overlook a defect but they release that their decision to buy the product was wrong when it starts delivering less than what it is supposed to.

The buyers think expecting quality assurance is a bit too much on their part, as an ideal product never seems to exist in reality these days. They do not take the trouble to complain about any dissatisfaction that they experience on account of the product. In this, it is not the buyer only who is to blame. The process of making complaints is too cumbersome, expensive and time taking. The officer in charge of considering the complaint and taking action are too lazy. They do not respond in time and most often they are inefficient. The consumer is made to visit the complaint office a large number of times and the process is unnecessarily complicated. The consumer gets tired of all this and wishes he had not complained in the first place at all.

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There are many organizations who are bothered about the reducing number of clienteles who are visiting their stores. They have got the latest products and give discounts during peak seasons yet they are not able to draw in even 50 per cent of the crowd that the small store opposite them is able to. While the shop across the street is run by an elderly couple, their shop has got quite a good number of qualified personnel. Even the standard of display in their shop is quite modern. What could be the problem? They should ask themselves if they are providing proper customer service .

Many business organizations who have set up shops believe that all it needs to attract customers is having the latest products, keeping them priced reasonable and advertise heavily in the local media. While this approach will help to bring in the initial flow of clients, it is not sufficient to make them stick with their store for ever. First of all, if the client is fully satisfied with the treatment they are getting from their current supplier, they will never switch over loyalty to a new store. Yes, they might visit the new store, but it will just be to check out the same. For them, visiting a new shop is asking for a fun visit. They might spend some money in the new store too, but their loyalty will remain with the other shop. However, if the new shop can offer lower prices than the other shop and offer customer service equivalent or better than their competitor, then they might expect the casual customer to become a permanent one.

The client is the king and should be treated as one. They are not dependant on your shop, but your shop is dependant on them. Since they are spending their hard earned money, they are fully entitled to demand and get proper customer service . Check out the shop across the street, the one run by the elderly couple. Have you observed how much time they are devoting to each and every client? It seems that they are not talking with clients but talking with old friends. That is exactly how the relationship between a supplier and a customer should be. The friendly approach ensures that the client remains with them forever and for ever.

Nowadays, many stores are conducting special courses for their employees. These lessons teach the salespersons how to behave with clients. Just greeting a client with a friendly smile is not enough, more so if that smile is an artificial one. A smile that emanates from within the heart shows on the face and discerning people can always differentiate between a genuine and false smile. The customer service course teaches the salesperson how to greet the client and the follow up action that they need to take to satisfy them. It is not very tough.

Generally the purchaser will be able to select the goods he requires by himself. However, there are small things that make a world of difference. If the vendor knows that the client is particular about a specific brand, and shows him the latest arrivals from that brand which might be stocked on a different shelf, that is customer service . This action of the vendor will ensure that the client re-visits that store.

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Working in the customer satisfaction industry requires you to make use of your people skills, being courteous and friendly no matter the situation, and extending the quality of helpfulness and a desire to meet the needs of your clients and patrons, in addition to the specific responsibilities that your particular job entails. It is a juggling act. On the one hand, you have to insure that your duties and obligations to your employer are fulfilled. On the other hand, the needs of the customer must come first. It requires patience, as well as proper training and a good work ethic, to perform well in all of these areas. 
 
This is why businesses that provide secret shopping services have become so prevalent in the workplace in recent years. Company owners and managers understand that in order for them to succeed in business, and in turn be able to offer you a job, that the customer should be the one and only focus when they are interacting with employees.  
 
Now, no one likes to be working under pressure. If you know that you are under review, some people take it with a grain of salt, but others can become intimidated by the fact that they are being judged on their performance, and nervousness makes them second guess, doubt and even make mistakes that they ordinarily would not have made. Secret shopping services eliminate the nervousness, primarily because their aim is to slip in undetected, and review the quality of the service that they receive as an ordinary, everyday patron. This is what makes secret shopping services so valuable to the companies that use them. 
 
Using this incognito approach allows the reviewer to accurately rate and measure employee acknowledgment, greeting, helpfulness and intention, without the employee ever being the wiser for it. For all they know they are just doing their job. Of course, companies that pay for secret shopping services to be performed within the rank of their employees love to get positive, generous feedback. There is nothing more satisfying to see that the people that you have chosen to hire are performing up to the standards that they agreed upon on upon being hired to work for them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. 
 
We all have bad days, but in the customer satisfaction industry, even if the employee is having a bad day it is still their job to cater to the needs of other people. If their negative attitude spills over into their dealings with clients and customers, that is not only bad for business, but often it is bad for company morale as well. We have all met people who have a generally bleak outlook on life, for whatever reason. Employees who have problems keeping their negative comments to themselves, or who flat out ignore the needs of the customer,  are more likely to drive business away than to add to it.  
 
By utilizing secret shopping services within the ranks of their employees, many companies have been able to nip this negativity in the bud before it becomes a problem. Perhaps all it takes is a one-on-one discussion with a negatively reviewed employee. It is also possible that a new, more powerful company wide training program can be established, to insure that all of your employees are on the same page, the page titled The customer always comes first.

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