Manage Quality Customer Service
PART A
Provide answers to all of the questions below:
1. Explain the purpose of the Australian Consumer Law and how it protects consumers’ rights.
2. Outline the consumer guarantees that apply for both products and services under the Australian Consumer Law.
3. List the types of products and services covered by the consumer guarantee.
4. Explain why it is unlawful for a retailer to display a sign to say that no refunds are provided.
5. Discuss whether consumers are legally entitled to a refund or replacement if they change their mind when buying a product or service.
6. Discuss the statement below in relation to guidelines about consumer guarantees. Provide an example to illustrate your answer.
“Some suppliers or manufacturers tell the consumer an extended warranty provides extra protection, which the consumer would not have unless they buy it.”
7. Explain what information is commonly found in an organisation’s complaints policy and procedure.
8. List at least two benefits of an effective complaint handling system for businesses and consumers and the standard steps that you would use to effectively deal with a customer complaint.
9. A retailer wishes to establish a consistent welcome procedure for sales staff to follow when a potential client enters the sales room. Document, using bullet points, a standard procedure that the salespeople could follow.
10. Explain the concept of service standards and their importance. Identify two examples of services standards.
11. Explain why a company committed to best practice customer services may choose to measure its service standards.
12. Explain the concept of public relations as a method of marketing communication. In your answer, explain how it can be used as a form of product and/or service promotion.
13. Describe five methods through which a company can promote its products.
14. Explain how customer service can impact on the public relations image of a company.
15. Explain how verbal communication barriers with customers can be handled effectively.
16. Explain how you can overcome barriers to communication with customers who are hearing impaired.
17. Explain how you can overcome barriers to communication with customers who are sight impaired.
18. Outline four key ways of providing excellent customer service.
19. Explain why an unhappy customer is not good for business.
20. Explain the importance of understanding customer behaviour and two techniques that can be used to analyse customer behaviour.21. Explain three research methods that a business could use to find out about customer needs. .
22. Explain the importance of monitoring complaints, including how keeping records of complaints can help the organisation better its customer service approach.
23. Explain the purpose of a CRM and how it can help organisations manage and improve their customer service information and relationships.
24. Identify two strategies that an organisation can use to gather feedback from its customers.
25. Social media is a powerful tool. Explain how an organisation can use it to monitor and manage customer service relationships.
26. Explain two further strategies that can be used to monitor, manage and introduce ways to improve customer service relationships.
PART B
Task summary
For this assessment task you are required, in the role of Operations Manager of Ozhouse Clean, to research and develop a customer service strategy for the company. Your strategy will need to be discussed with, and agreed on by, senior management.
Ozhouse Clean is a cleaning services company based in Melbourne. The company offers professional, residential cleaning services, including regular home cleans, as well as spring cleans. The company’s mission, vision, values and objectives are as follows:
Mission
Ozhouse Clean is committed to providing the highest quality residential and commercial cleaning services available by exceeding the expectations of our clients.
Vision
We are constantly working to establish ourselves as the most respected and sought-after contract cleaning and facilities support service in Melbourne.
Values
Respect: taking time to understand and value each of our customers and respecting their choices. Responsibility: acting with integrity towards our staff, our customers, the community and the environment.
Caring: a duty of care for our staff, customers and the environment.
Excellence: to always look to provide the best quality experience with regards to our cleaning and our customer service.
Integrity: to act with honesty, openness and do what we say we will do.
Innovation: to be industry leaders.
Objectives
Our key objectives and that are fundamental to our business in delivering world-class cleaning and customer service, are as follows:
• Provide our customers with a professional and friendly service.
• To increase the number of clients by 10% each year.
• Meet or exceed the expectations of customers.
• Implement best practice in cleaning operations, including environmentally sustainable practices.
Currently 70% of the company’s customers are residential customers. Most of these customers are fulltime workers, needing cleaning services because of their busy lifestyle. Most customers use regular cleaning services (either once a week or twice a week for 3 – 4 hours).
The company also has a small number of commercial contracts for cleaning. Generally, these involve cleaning staff going in each evening for 2 hours to clean the office.
Regular services are priced at $35 per hour and the market is very sensitive to price and quality of service delivered.
The company does not currently have a customer service strategy. As part of the current strategic planning process and overall drive to achieve excellence within the company you, as the Operations Manager (responsible for a team of staff including call centre operators and the cleaning team), have been tasked with the responsibility to develop a customer service strategy and a customer service charter that aligns with the company’s strategic plan mission, vision and objectives. All customer services strategies need to be implemented during upcoming year and a priority assigned. The management team has developed a key principle on which the customer service strategy is to be based:
We listen to our customers, understand their needs and deliver services to meet these needs.
The management team has advised that all strategies must come from that principle and that strategies must also address (but not be limited to) the following key areas:
• Staff training: currently staff are not trained in customer service
• Customer feedback mechanisms: there are no formal mechanisms in place for customers to provide feedback
• Quality and consistency of service provided: while the company does not receive many complaints, most of them relate to customers being unhappy with the level or detail of cleaning provided. A quality assurance mechanism needs to be in place to be able to check that the cleaning completed will be satisfactory to the customer. This is currently not in place.
• Development of a customer service charter: the company wants to tell customers about what they can expect, how they can provide feedback and the complaints process.Complete the following activities:
1. Write a regulations report.
Use the Internet to find out about legislation and regulations that the company needs to abide by in its delivery of services and ensure that this information is incorporated into the development of customer service strategies.
In step 4 you will need to provide an overview of the legislative and regulatory context at the meeting with staff so ensure you make notes to guide your delivery of the information to staff.
Use the Internet to find examples of customer service strategies developed by other companies. Make notes on your findings.
Using secondary sources of information, research, identify, investigate and assess likely key customer needs in relation to cleaning services, including as a minimum quality of service, cost of service and response times from booking of service to completion.
Your report should be between half a page and one page in length2. Develop a customer service strategy
Research options for customer service strategies and customer needs The customer service strategy must clearly reflect the customer needs you have identified and show how these needs will be satisfied through the service provided.
The strategy should also document specific actions, priority and performance indicators. Make sure you consider the organisation’s mission, vision, values and objectives when developing the strategy. Use the Customer Service Strategy Template to guide your work.
You will modify this document following a meeting with the Management Team, so save this version as Draft Customer Service Strategy.
3. Send an email to the management team (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style. It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachments. The email text should advise the management team that you would like to set up a meeting to discuss the documents.
It should include a brief statement of the purpose of the meeting and the date and time and duration for the meeting (the meeting will be approximately 30 minutes). Attach your regulations report and your customer service strategy to the email.
4. Meet with management.
At the meeting you will discuss and confirm the customer service strategy with the General Manager (your assessor). At the meeting, you will be required to:
• Explain the importance of customer service, as well as legislation and regulations key to customer service
• Explain each of the strategies and actions in the new customer service strategy
• Explain how strategies and actions will assist in achieving the key customer service principles, as well as strategic mission, vision and objectives.
• Explain how your plans achieve the quality, time and cost specifications that the company has agreed to uphold for customers.
During the meeting, demonstrate effective communication skills including:
• Speaking clearly and concisely
• Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
• Asking questions to identify required information
• Responding to questions as required
• Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
Your assessor (in the role of the General Manager) will provide you with feedback on your strategy, which you will incorporate into the document.
5. Revise your customer service strategy.
Following the meeting, incorporate your General Manager’s feedback into your customer service strategy.
Save this draft of the document as Revised Customer Service Strategy.
6. Take a screen shot of your folder and files.
Ensure that you have an overall folder for your work for this unit, as well as sub folders if necessary.
All of the documents that you have submitted for this assessment task should be correctly named and filed. Folders must be logical and well-organised, and you will be assessed on this.
The screen shot should show all the folders and documents using the naming conventions shown below.
7. Send an email to the management team (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style. It should summarise the meeting’s outcomes and introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment.
Attach your revised customer service strategy and screen shot to the email.PART C
Task summary
As the Operations Manager responsible for ensuring delivery of quality services, students will review a sample of quotes provided by customer service staff to customers.
Once they have completed their analysis, they will meet with the customer service team to discuss any issues that they identified through their review, and actions to be taken to ensure quality customer service. They will also be required to demonstrate their ability to problem-solve through the provision unexpected information provided by their customer service team and to update and implemented customer service policy and procedures accordingly.
Complete the following activities:
1. Write a customer service analysis
Review all of the following documents:
• Customer Emails and Responses sent by the customer service staff.
• Customer Service Policy and Procedure.
• Ozhouse Clean List of services
Review the information given on delivery of company services according to quality and delivery standards. Check whether the response times for the delivery of quotes is in accordance with timelines specified in the Customer Service Policy and Procedures.
Check whether the information provided within the quote is correct as per the Ozhouse Clean List of Services.
Make notes on variances in response times or correctness of information. This information will need to be shared at the meeting with staff.Identify and make notes on actions to address identified issues with response time or correctness of information to discuss with the staff member at a meeting. This should be both immediate action/s or actions to be completed over a period of time.
This review will help you determine whether the information contained in the quotes is correct and has been sent to customers according to the required timelines.
Your analysis should be about one page.
2. Conduct service delivery analysis meeting
Meet with your customer service team (your assessor and two classmates) to share what you learned when developing your customer analysis:
• Outline response timelines and information requirements as included in the Customer Service Policy and Procedures and List of Services.
• Explain any variances identified through your review of the email correspondence.
• Outline your proposed actions.
• Open the meeting to discuss your proposed actions.
At the meeting, your team will give you some unexpected information and ask you some questions, which you will need to discuss. Work with the team to identify additional or revised actions and suggestions to their challenges. These should be discussed in the meeting and then confirmed in the email you will write in the
following activity.
During the meeting, demonstrate effective communication skills including:
• Speaking clearly and concisely
• Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
• Asking questions to identify required information
• Responding to questions as required
• Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
3. Research team training
Based on the information you received at the meeting, it is clear there is an area of training required for the customer service team.
Use the Internet to look for some suitable short courses that you could send the team to. Write down the names and contact information for two courses/sessions. These may be in-person training in your local area or city, or they may be online webinars or courses/sessions.
Also research some communication strategies on reputable Internet websites that you can provide to the team in the meantime. These might be fact sheets, websites, videos and so on. Locate at least three good sources of information.4. Revise Customer Service Policy and Procedures
Make some changes to the Customer Service Policy and Procedures that reflect the concerns of the team. Add some information about the communication techniques you researched, summarising (not copying) the information you found. The customer service team should be able to use the policy and procedure as they are working with
customers to ensure best practice in customer service.
5. Send an email to the customer service team (your assessor). You are required to send an email to the customer service team, summarising the meeting outcomes, as well as all agreed actions.
It must summarise the adjustments you made to the Customer Service Policy and Procedure in light of the information given by the team during the meeting and the answers to questions you provided to their challenges. Attach the revised document and make sure the team understand that the revised policy will be implemented
immediately.
Your email must include the information you researched on the Internet. Depending on how the information is presented online, you may need to attach files or copy and paste links to specific web pages.
Also choose one training course/session you identified at step 3 and tell the team they will be receiving training. Explain the training they will attend and how it will help them and the organisation. Pick a date of your choice for when they will receive the training.
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment. Attach your customer service analysis to the email.
6. Take a screen shot of your folder and files.
Ensure that you have an overall folder for your work for this unit, as well as sub folders if necessary.
All of the documents that you have submitted for this assessment task should be correctly named and filed.
Folders must be logical and well-organised, and you will be assessed on this.
The screen shot should show all the folders and documents using the naming conventions as provided in Assessment Task 2.