OMGT

The 5 steps of a customer service

Why is customer service?

Failures in customer service are inevitable. Whether you’re just starting out as a business or a well-oiled
machine, you’re bound to slip up and disappoint a customer at some point; your reservations desk forgets to
accommodate a special request, your airline has to cancel a flight to a popular holiday destination, or a waiter in
your restaurant is having a bad day and is impatient with an elderly couple. We are a part of an industry which
is high touch and driven by human interaction, 100% error free service is almost impossible, which is why how
an organization recovers from those service breakdowns is what sets them apart from the rest

How to build a successful customer service?

1. Apologize to the customer.
The first step to service recovery is offering a sincere and heartfelt apology to the customer. It must not feel
mechanical and you must ensure that the customer feels like you mean it. Show that you appreciate and regret
what the customer has gone through in the situation. Think about what the customer wants to hear from an
apology and offer it to them. What is driving their frustration? How are they feeling at the moment? Take a
moment to step into their shoes.

2. Anticipate & Understand the needs of the customer

Most problems result from a misalignment between customer
expectations and the products or services actually provided. Do some research to deeply understand your
customers and what services they expect along the experience pathway, so you can anticipate their demands
before you make a mistake.

3. Making amends
Making amends is a means for righting a wrong. It can be as simple as a sincere apology, sending a follow-up
letter, or may include a small gift or token of appreciation. The knee jerk reaction to a service breakdown is
more often than not either waiving of a bill or giving something complimentary to the
customer. Whilst these strategies do work – but only to an extent. The customer is more often than not, looking
to be
treated fairly.

4. Empowerment & Ownership

Build mechanisms in place that encourage frontline staff and management to take ownership of the situation. “I
will solve this problem for you”. When things do go wrong, a customer wants someone who will take charge of
the situation,
rather than pass the responsibility around or blame others for the service breakdown. The breakdown in itself
could have happened owing to a host of reasons or people for that matter. However, when it comes to
recovering the
situation, the buck stops at the person carrying out the recovery, so owning the situation and inspiring trust and
confidence in the customer that you will solve the problem for them becomes a critical component.

5. Respond in a timely manner & Follow-up

When it comes to service recovery, timing is key. Be prompt and efficient in responding and resolving issues, to
make sure that frustrations don’t fester for too long. The quicker you respond, the
more likely you’ll be to resolve the issue before it turns sour, and turn a disgruntled customer into an loyal
brand ambassador.
6. Keep an open line of communication
Encourage your customers to provide feedback by sending questionnaires and providing an direct line of
communication for where they can share their feedback, experiences and concerns. Research shows that for
every
customer complaint, there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent. So go in search of those
customers who might be too reserved to share their experiences, as you’ll find it’s often the silent ones who can
do the most damage.

Feedback and Service

Importance Of Guest Feedback

The best way of taking customer feedback is by asking your customers. And, this can easily be achieved
through surveys. With an effective survey, organisations can obtain insights into the following.
1. Service
2. Quality
3. Improvements
4. Immediate Damage Control

A happy and satisfied customer is bound to come back and stay loyal to the brand

Methods of collecting customer feedback

 Direct communication from customer to staff
 Observations
 Customer comment cards
 Online feedback
 Meetings.

Once customer feedback is collected, it must:

 Be documented accurately
 Identify further opportunities for workplace improvement
 Used as the framework for customer service improvement strategies.

Compare information to identify changes in customer satisfaction

 Once information has been collected, it should be compared against benchmarks to determine if the
changes are positive or negative
 So what is current information compared against?

Budgets
 Sales budgets
 Labour budgets
 Material budgets
 Inventory budget
 Overhead budgets.
 Capital Expenditure budgets
 Budgeted Financial Performance Statement
 Cash budgets
 Budgeted Statement of Financial Position.

Operational reports
 Sales reports
 Occupancy reports
 Financial reports
 Complimentary reports.
 These are detailed instruction of how tasks should be performed and the standard which must be achieved.

Job Descriptions
 These are a detailed explanation of what each staff member should be doing in the
workplace. It identifies responsibilities and tasks for completion.

Common service problems

 Inadequate products or services
 Difficulties in contacting service staff
 Lack of information about the products and services offered by the establishment
 Unclear or incomplete price information
 Unclear or incomplete deals
 Handling of complaints.

Once customer feedback has been collected and compared against organisational benchmarks and
standards, a report detailing reasons for changes in customer service must be evaluated and reported.

This report should contain:

 Description of actual performance
 Identify problems
 Provide solutions for improvement.

You should address the following points:

 Resources to achieve the change are identified and costed
 Potential barriers or problems
 Timelines for action
 Responsibilities for action to nominated individuals
 Description of ideal service standard.

Once you have prepared your report it is important that it is given to the right people for feedback, agreement
and
implementation or action. The groups and individuals to whom such a report may be forwarded could include:
 Management
 The Board
 Certain subcommittees.
 The establishment’s focus group
 Trainers in the business
 The external organisation that conducts your training
 Organisation
 All staff members
 Specific staff members who are
Providing feedback
Tips on giving effective feedback which can be useful when making conclusions and giving recommendations
include:
 Be positive and constructive
 Respect the feelings of the speaker/person you are providing advice to
 Act on the fact that immediate feedback is more effective than delayed feedback
 Restrict your feedback to only those things that can be changed. Slide 16

Communicating conclusions and recommendations At the conclusion of any review it is often necessary to
communicate the results to designated groups and individuals, within appropriate timeframes.
Usually accepted means of communication are:
 In person
 By phone
 Via email.
 Improve products and services
 Give benefits to key customers
 Systematise customer complaints and learn from them
 Train staff in customer care
 Give staff the authority, discretion and

Courses of action to overcome service problems

 Stimulate employees to be creative in developing customer care activities
 Allow staff room to make mistakes
 Invest in meetings and regular contacts with customers via newsletters or customer magazines
 Make it easy for customers to complain.

Reaching agreement to changes in service

 As a group, you must put a plan in place, based on some of the suggestions mentioned above, and reach a
mutual agreement
 Only with the consensus of all parties involved, can a sense of ownership take place and people will be more
acceptable of the changes and the plan to implement them.

Communicating new approaches to service deliveryOnce all parties have reached agreement, any new
approaches to customer service decided upon must be communicated to all those involved within appropriate
timeframes.

Your approach should follow these guidelines:

 Hold a formal staff meeting to inform staff of the changes
 Explain why change is necessary
 Give staff a hard copy of the new service approaches
 Give staff demonstrations of the new service delivery protocols
 Tell staff about the dates for introducing the new service
 Reassure staff they are not required to implement the changes ‘tomorrow’

Communicating changes in service

 Inform staff of the training
 Encourage questions from staff about the changes
 Make yourself available outside this meeting for staff to talk to
 Post new checklists relating to the changes in appropriate parts of the venue
 Include new policies, procedures in operational manuals, induction programs and in-house training
 Schedule staff training
 Introduce the changes and monitor their implementation
 Provide feedback and additional training. Slide 23
 This activity is not a once off event. It must be a process that occurs on a regular basis
 There are always additional changes that can be made
to improve any aspect of customer service
 All staff regardless of position, must strive to ensuring the customer service provided is the best it can
possibly
be
 That is the true essence of maintaining quality customer service.

Roles of FRONTLINE STAFF

 deals directly with customers
 one of the most important representative of the business
 engages and handles customers is what creates the first impression about a company and impacts brand image
 Should excel in all the necessary customer service skills in order to offer better experience and create positive
brand
perception.

Four most essential skills every Frontline Employee should have

 Excellent Communication - sets the tone of the business
 Exhibiting Patience - deal with a number of different kinds of people, you have to be ready to face all kinds of
situations
 Showing Empathy - build an emotional connection and trust with the company.
 Being Proactive - one step ahead to assess what your customer’s next demand or query might be is always an
added advantage

The two commandments

 do unto your internal customers as you would have them do unto your external customers. In other words,
take
care of your employees ... be concerned for their well-being, and invest in them
 always treat customers as though they will remain customers, “never as though this is the last time you’ll see
them

Challenges
 Employee recruiting and selection is critical - good recruiting and selection programs are essential to a firm’s
ability to provide superior service at the frontline
 Data mining – detects useful and non-obvious trends in data, will have a distinct advantage over their
competitors
 Making the job easier for frontline staff - other ways to assist frontline staff
 Motivating employees - understanding how role ambiguity, role conflict, and lack of psychological
empowerment
 Staying one step ahead of competitors -offerings and develop service innovations that will delight customers
at the frontline and that competitors will find hard to beat

Types of objectives
 Targets, goals and objectives
 Reporting deadlines
 Meeting budgetary targets
 Team participation
 Team and individual learning goals
 Professional development

Role of teams and individuals

 Each team or group will have a purpose for its existence, with a set of objectives it is trying to achieve
 Naturally each group will have people who have been chosen for a reason
 Each of these people will have their own strengths and weaknesses

Organisational requirements
 Legal and organisational policy and procedures, including personnel practices and guidelines
 Organisational goals, objectives, plans, systems and processes
 legislation relevant to the operation, incident and/or response
 Employer and employee rights and responsibilities

Team responsibilities
Each work team, whether as a whole or as individual members, have responsibilities that must be adhered to.
 What are these responsibilities?
 Obeying lawful orders
 Confidentiality and privacy requirements
 Safety and care with respect to occupational health and safety requirements
 Terms and conditions of own employment
 Responsibility of providing a safe environment

Identifying individual responsibilities within a group

 Organisational hierarchies
 Contract
 Job Description
 Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
 Policies

Identifying individual responsibilities within a group

 Procedures
 Daily Task Sheets
 Direct requests
 Observation

There may be a need to consult with ‘relevant others’ when determining what needs to be done, either for:
 A team as a whole
 Individual team members

Clarify work allocation Considerations

 The urgency associated with the task
 Staff preferences
 Distribute workloads and opportunities equally
 Considering staffing availability, experience, skills and work habits

Whilst communication and information may primarily come from managers, it is important to remember that all
colleagues within a team will communicate and share information on a daily basis.
 What information do team members need?
 What is the best way to communicate this information?

On a day-by-day basis, you may be required to allocate tasks to staff as a result of matters brought to your
attention
by:
 Internal communications
 Workplace observations

Primary requirements
The communication of instructions regarding task assignments must address the following three elements:
 They must be clear, specific and unambiguous
 They must be directed to nominated individuals
 They must be explained

Supplementary requirements
 A statement of what the desired result
 A nominated deadline and timeline for completion
 Accountability
 Checklists

Types of information to be communicated

There are endless amounts of information that will be communicated between team members and to team
members
by management.
 Clarifying the organisation's preferred task completion methods
 Potential hazards or changing Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) requirements
 Discussing concerns

Conduct staff debriefing sessions

 General discussion
 Thank staff for their hard work
 Acknowledge areas that went well
 Acknowledge good performance by staff
 Acknowledge areas that did not go well

Holding regular team meetings

 Get people together
 Get alignment towards a specific range of topics
 Provide information
 Brainstorm ideas
 Exchange ideas and thoughts

Discussions
 Most communication of information is often done through informal discussions between management and
staff
members or between team members themselves. Before counselling an employee on poor performance or
inappropriate job behaviours it is worth considering the likely causes of work problems.
Poor performance normally results from:
 Employee qualities
 Organisational qualities
 External sources

Employee qualities
These sources stem from the employee themselves and can include:
 Problems of capacity, where the employee does not have the required aptitude or orientation for the tasks
 Family related problems
 Psychological problems, such as drug abuse gambling, irrational fears, depression, aggressive behaviour
stemming from self image problems
 Physical problems, such as lack of energy, restricted movement, pain or illness Slide 24

Sources of poor performance

Organisational sources
 Problems with higher decisions and policies
 Person placed in the wrong position
 Insufficient organisational action over a grievance
 Organisational over-permissiveness
 Impact of supervisors
 Leadership style

Organisational sources
 Bad communication or instruction
 Inappropriate managerial standards or criteria
 Discrimination
 Lack of managing diversity
 Harassment and bullying
 Problems with team cohesion and acceptance

Organisational sources
 Problems from the work context
 Geographic location
 Bad physical work environment
 Unsafe conditions and work processes
 Problems with the way the job is performed

These are problems an employee can have that stem from society and its values.
These include situations where:
 Society’s values clash with the job
 Clashes with moral or religious issues
 Working on certain days
 Assisting guests with certain unsavoury requests
 Changing economic conditions

Before counselling an employee for poor performance or conducting the performance appraisal, management
need to
consider:
 What are the symptoms and what are the likely causes
 If the causes are because of something that is internal to the organisation
 Identify whether you are dealing with a work performance problem or a work behaviour problem

Steps in handling performance related problems

Review facts surrounding performance concerns before addressing staff performance
 Obtain original, first-hand evidence
 Gather supplementary information
 Take immediate action if required?

Steps in handling performance related problems

 Arrange to discuss situation with employee in private
 Notifying employees about performance discussion sessions
 Obtain employee commitment to improvement
 Outline consequences of non-compliance
 Take disciplinary action if required
 record and document actions

Communicate requirements of work activities Need for communication

When working in the hospitality industry, there is a need for supervisors and managers to communicate with
both
staff and fellow colleagues on a constant basis.

Communicating with colleagues

 Clarity of purpose, including vision, mission, goals
 Operational performance
 Upcoming events
 Products and services information
 Promotional activities
 Specific customers

To help ensure your communication is polite, professional and friendly, the following tips will assist:
 Follow all establishment policies
 Use a person’s name where it is known
 Be honest
 Use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ a lot

Effective communication
 Don’t interrupt
 Speak at an appropriate pace and volume
 Make sure your non-verbal language matches the verbal communication

Ways to create and build trust

 Establish and maintain integrity
 Communicate vision, values, mission and goals
 Consider all employees as equal partners in the organisation
 Focus on team, rather than individual and personal goals
 Do what's right, regardless of personal risk