Customer Relationship Management

Introduction

Athithi devo bhava –which means guest is treated as God in our

country. Blessed are we Indians with natural warmth and inbuilt care,

traditions and hospitality .Through this assignment I am trying to get a good picture on our hospitality and

service that we provide to our guests or the customers…

Acknowledgement

For doing this assignment I was asked to visit 3 shopping outlets and for giving me an experience study on this subject I want to

Thank Frankfinn for introducing such a module in the course. I would also like to mention the

support and assistance given by my trainer Mr.Sarun k Simon.

Places I visited as part of the task

• As part of the task I was supposed to visit 3 outlets to know more about customer relation management. For the purpose I visited …

• Hotel• Maheswari Textiles• Archie's Gallery

Prince Hotel

• It is a 3 star rated hotel.• I went there for dinner with my

family.

Hotel

• The service here was comparatively good.

• The restaurant is clean and hygiene standards are maintained well.

• It also didn’t take them much long to serve the food we ordered.

• But the number of staffs or waiters were less.

+ve aspects

-ve aspects

Textiles

• This is a good textile shop in our area compared to the others in town.

• I am a regular customer here and because of that I get comparatively good service .

• I went to buy shirt for my Father.• But I went there on a Sunday so

the number of staffs were less and so it affected in our service too.

Textiles

• There are staffs to greet us and enquire our needs.

• Sales person was very helpful and has good product knowledge.

• The floor supervisor came in between and enquired whether everything is going on well.

• The sales persons who know us came and talked with us in between

• But I went there on Sunday so only a few people were there to help.

• It took them some time to prepare the bill and deliver the clothes which I bought.

• The cashier itself was doing the cloth delivery

• There wasn’t any person on escalator and it wasn’t working so we had to take the steps to reach the top floor.

• No one was there to serve us the refreshment drinks.

gift shop

• It’s a gift shop here.• I went there to buy some

Friendship Day cards and Bands.• I am an occasional visitor here.

Positive aspects

• It has a huge collection of cards and gift articles according to the occassions.

• Everything is perfectly arranged so that it is easy to find what we need.

• They have varieties of fancy jewellery items on store.

• The atmosphere is really good with cooling and a smooth music on air.

Negative Aspects• It is a costly shop in town.• The sales person on this shop was a girl who

doesn’t know anything on that shop.• I asked her for a friendship day card and she

showed me the section of birthday cards.• Then I started searching alone and after all the

purchase I asked her to pack everything.• At that time I saw a bracelet, I took that and asked

her to exchange it with another bracelet that I took with this new one.

• But when she gave the bill I saw that she billed the 2 bracelets. I asked the cashier that I don’t want the two. He told that the girl went out and she said that I ordered that.

• It took me some time to change it again make a new bill.

Task

Customer

• “A customer is the most important visitor in our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him”.

• “He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business, he is a part of it”.

• “We are not doing a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so”.

Mahatma GandhiP

Most people think they are paid by their company- that’s wrong.

We all are paid by our customers.

Customer- The customer is Queen/King

• Customer is the user of a service provided.

• A customer pays for using a service.• In case of a shop the customer will

be the buyer of the products on sale.• But in case of a hotel, the person

who avails the facilities of the hotel by paying a definite amount can be termed as a customer.

Customer Care

• Customer – is the user of a service which you provide.

• Care – Assistance, Concern, Interest or Emotion

Customer Service

• Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

• “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation."

Maslow’s Hierarchy of customer service

• Level 1: Companies can meet expectations with current customer service model.  Simply optimizing transactions, having the answers to customer queries, and providing a decent level of service is where the bar is set right now.  Amazingly, many organizations are still struggling to meet these simple customer needs.

• Level 2: To fulfill desires, companies have to figure out exactly what those desires are.  Usually they are articulated, but buried in call data and interactions with company employees.  Analytic tools and predictive modeling software now exist to help companies make sense of customer data, measure emotional responses, quantify customer wants, and respond accordingly.  It can be complex, but it’s not rocket science.  You’re front line employees probably have a good idea of what the customer is asking for; just ask them.

• Level 3: To meet unrecognized needs you have to learn more about the customer and develop a certain intuition about what would make them happy.  The only way to do this is to interact with them – build on what you learned from Level 2, engage them in conversations, and take the time to get to know them at an individual level.  Unrecognized needs are often not articulated, so you have to read between the lines to figure out what is missing from the customer experience.

External customers

• External customers are said to be those people that actually buy your company's products or services.

• In case of the project I’ve done am the external customer, who went to buy the product or service that they offer in exchange of monetary benefits.

Internal customers

• Internal 'customers' are said to be the people in your company or perhaps a partner that you provide your services too in order to deliver your company's products or services. 

• The sales person or the staffs in the shop who deliver the products or services in each of the outlets I visited can be termed as internal customers.

Needs of a customer

• In the new rapidly changing economy, however, customer predictability is dead.

• "Whatever a customer wants today may not be what he or she wants tomorrow. Or he or she may want more of it.

• Problems that customers intend to solve with the purchase of a good or service.

• In meeting ever-increasing customer demands for lower, faster, better, and newer, companies are driving themselves and their competitors to the brink."

M1

Customer Needs

• Product availability• Product knowledge• Choice of alternatives• Good service• Respect and consideration• Empathetic behavior• Neat and hygienic conditions• Affordable rates and discounts

My Ratings

05

1015202530354045

Hotel Prin

ce

mah

eswar

i

Arch

ies

productknowledgeProduct choice

Facilities

Staff Placed

infrastructure

service

M3

How my expectations were met…

• In Hotel my expectations as a customer was met by the staff of the entire hotel. They delivered the food on time and they were with us for assistance. In Textiles also the staff were good with me and their service was also good although I was not offered certain facilities which they usually provide me when I went there. In gift shop all my customer expectations were ruined by the staff who was placed there. She was unaware of the products there and she didn’t provide me what I wanted. Instead she wasted my time due to her irresponsibility.

M2

Customer satisfaction

• Customer satisfaction, a business term, is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and is part of the four perspectives of a Balanced Scorecard.

• In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy.

• There is a substantial body of empirical literature that establishes the benefits of customer satisfaction for firms.

M3

Customer satisfaction solutions

Customer Satisfaction

• Organizations are increasingly interested in retaining existing customers while targeting non-customers.

• Measuring customer satisfaction provides an indication of how successful the organization is at providing products and/or services to the marketplace.

Customer expectation

• Expectations are something that the customers need from. And how satisfied (or dissatisfied) your customers are is determined by these expectations and your performance in meeting them.

• If expressed as a calculation, customer satisfaction might look something like this:

Customer Satisfaction =    Your Performance      Customer Expectations

Customer delight

• Delighted customers are those where you anticipate their needs, provide solutions to them before they ask and where you are observing to see if new and/or additional expectations are about ready to be required.

• Customer delight brings customers coming back for more. It causes new customers to come. 

• Customer Delight may be the difference between success or failure!

Customer perception

• It is the view point of a customer…• Reliability: Get things right first time.• Responsiveness : Ever willing• Competence: Necessary skills and

capability• Communication :Patient listening• Courtesy : Considerate and respectful• Tangible : Facilitates inspiring confidence

Customer service skills

• Pleasing attitude • Courteous and responsible• Communication skills• Quick service• Hygiene standards• Well mannered• Good service• Suitable atmosphere• Facilities offered• Choice of selection• Product knowledge of staff• Consideration and respect

D1

Customers will usually come back if:

• Your keep your promises• You are willing to help• You inspire confidence• Your treat customers as individuals• You make it easy for customers to

do business with you• All the physical aspects of your

product or service give a favorable impression

Benefits of retaining a customer ?

• Acquiring new customers can cost five times more than satisfying and retaining current customers

• A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10%

• The average company loses 10% of its customers each year

• A 5% reduction in customer defection rate can increase profits by 25-125%, depending on the industry

• The customer profitability rate tends to increase over the life of a retained customer

Me as a service provider

• I will ensure proper supply of products and alternatives at affordable rates.

• Provide good training and development for the staff placed.

• Supervising their activities in order to make sure the customers are not regretted.

• Helping the customers in a pleasant way.• Ensure clean and good surroundings.• Being patient with the customers.

Conclusion

• By doing this assignment my own I got a clear idea of how to manage and retain a customer and what

actually are the different customer service skills that are essential.

References

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