Regaining Customer Confidence Through Customer Service and Service Recovery

Regaining Customer Confidence Through

Customer Service and Service

Recovery

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Customer Service

• Refers to all customer-provider interactions, other than proactive selling and the core product delivery, that facilitate the organization’s relationship with its customers.


Customer Service asa Strategic Function

• A marketing function applicable to services and goods.

• Traditionally for complaint handling and refund/exchange.

• Market and marketing research source.

• Provides valuable input for service design improvements.

• Proactive customer service better than reactive.


Customer Service asa Strategic Function (cont’d)

• Prioritizes attention - most valuable (customers) relationships.

• Elevates status of customer service function within firm.

• Makes it everyone’s responsibility.


Developing a Customer Service Culture

• When the customer service function is elevated to a strategic level, the service organization signals its importance to all employees. • As a former CEO of American Express

(http://www.americanexpress.com) noted, "A dissatisfied customer is an opportunity."


Developing a Customer Service Culture (cont’d)

• Service organizations and manufacturing organizations are realizing that customer service is a major corporate asset.

• One significant function of customer service is to enable the organization to recover from failures that caused customer dissatisfaction and customer complaints.



Service Recovery

• The effort an organization expends to win back customers’ goodwill once it has been lost due to service failure.


The Need for Service Recovery

• The High Cost of Lost Customers

• When Is Service Recovery Needed?

• Other Means of Identifying Recovery Needs


Moment of Truth

• Any contact point with a service organization that the customer uses to evaluate the service delivery.


The Steps to Service Recovery

A.Apology

B.Urgent Reinstatement

C.Empathy

D.Symbolic Atonement

E. Follow-Up


The Hidden Benefits ofService Recovery

• There are several ways systematic service recovery programs benefit an organization:• The process can help improve the

overall quality of service delivery as the service occurs.


The Hidden Benefits ofService Recovery

• Keeping track of the sources of dissatisfaction that create a need for recovery can help the organization.

• Service recovery can reduce the incidence of bungled moments of truth if information regarding customers’ dissatisfaction is put to good use.

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Regaining Customer Confidence Through Customer Service and Service Recovery