Question

Customer service, social media, and innovation strategies are particularly important to managers today. We described specific ways companies can pursue these strategies. Your task is to pick customer service, e-business, or innovation and find one example for each of the specific approaches in that category. For instance, if you choose customer service, find an example of (a) giving customers what they want, (b) communicating effectively with them, and (c) providing employees with customer service training. Write a report describing your examples.

Answer 1

Customer Service :is the service provided by the selling company to its customers and users of their products. As the relationship between a customer and the seller does not end after a sale, it should be continued to include after-sales service that adds value to the consumer.

(a) giving customers what they want,

Most companies that focus on providing excellent customer service are retail firms. In the race to be the best customer service the top scorer is Chick-Fil-A, which is a limited service restaurant. Their customers rate it highly as they provide a focused menu, great in-store service, and a professional and courteous staff. (Elliot, 2018). Their chief claim to fame is that their employees were voted the most polite in the restaurant industry. Staff that says its 'Please's and 'Thank you's and smiles at customers has made this business a favourite. (Taylor, Oct 2016). This popularity translated to more revenue generation per restaurant than any other fast food chain in America. (Taylor, Aug 2016)

(b) communicating effectively with them, and

Firms like Amazon put a lot of effort into making customers happy and in collecting feedback from them with a view to continuously improving their service. Anyone who has ever bought anything online on Amazon can vouch for the fact that they communicate endlessly with their customers. Products are clearly displayed with as much information as can be collected, and multiple particulars are requested from vendors to ensure buyers have all the information they need to make a purchase. In addition, Amazon communicates with you even as you surf - showing you recommended products, daily discounts and lightning deals, free/prime delivery options. Once you buy a product, the transportation detail can make it super easy for anyone to keep track of their purchase. Emails, sms and in-app notifications all go to further communication with customers. Any questions can be answered with the extremely detailed help and faqs provided. In most cases you'll find that Amazon has already thought of a scenario and provided a solution for it, making it relatively painless for most customers to get information when needed, instead of having to sit through a long and unproductive automated response system before getting through to a customer service agent.

(c) providing employees with customer service training.

Apple trains its customer service personnel to execute some of the best customer service in the tech world. It was revealed that they train people in every aspect starting from the way they greet customers to the speech/language used to communicate with them. Their focus is on making the customer feel relaxed enough to ask any kind of questions, empowered to make decisions based on the quality and amount of information being presented, and happy with the outcome of the visit. The customer service team is skill and coached to know and understand technical details, but dealing with customers (good or bad) is more challenging and requires real training to be able to handle different demographics, empathise with angry or frustrated customers, and impart knowledge without overwhelming them. This training is key to ensuring firms can provide the best service possible to their customers.

(Gallo, 2012)

References :

Elliot, Christopher (2018) These Companies Have The Best Customer Service. Forbes.

Gallo, Carmine (2012) Apple's Secret Employee Training Manual Reinvents Customer Service in Seven Ways. Forbes.

Taylor, Kate (2016) 12 fast-food chains taking over America. Business Insider. August

Taylor, Kate (2016) Chick-fil-A is beating every competitor by training workers to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Business Insider. October