What is Customer Service?

For many people it is as simple as running your business well – do that and you automatically provide good customer service!

For the Institute of Customer Service "Customer service is the sum total of what an organisation does to meet customer expectations and produce customer satisfaction".

At the very least, your organisation should have systems in place to find out what customers expect of you and what would make them happy with the service you are providing.

There are many models of customer service but all agree that organisations should have clear answers to the following basic questions:

• Do customers have a clear idea of the service they can expect from you?
• Do you gather high quality information about your customers and what they want on a regular basis?
• Can you be contacted easily?
• Do you have competent and well trained staff?
• Do you respond quickly to queries and requests?
• Have you made it easy for customers to complain and make suggestions about the quality of your services?
• Do you involve your customers in the development of products and services?

The next question is always - How can I do all of these things better?

Customer service can be used as a framework to look at all aspects of your business:

• Image and presentation
• Promotion of services
• Contact and communication with customers
• Service delivery
• Monitoring and improving services
• Resolving customer problems
• Customer relationship management

Are you happy that all of these aspects of your business are as effective as they could be?

Key to customer service is getting all members of your organisation to embrace it through training and development, at individual and team level. Creating a culture of customer satisfaction starts with effective management and leadership and having clear measures for customer satisfaction in all aspects of the business.

This can be encouraged through:

• Creating your own Customer Charter or Code of Practice
• Benchmarking your activities against other organisations
• Creating and monitoring specific measures of customer satisfaction

The Institute of Customer Service provides useful Fact sheets on these process Click here to go to their site