Measuring Customer Service

Measuring Customer Service

Providing a customer-base with excellent service is no easy task for any sized company. This most important aspect of business operations has a considerable amount of authority, which can either make or break the bottom line. Being this, “it’s somewhat astonishing that customer service is rarely mentioned in an organization’s mission-statement nor is it the top of the discussion list for staff meetings or training sessions” (Kim, Eom, & Ahn, 2005, p.1). For a company to provide the type of service expected by customers requires a lot of thought, flexibility, and resources on the part of management and staff members alike. Too often,

it’s the small details that are overlooked when dealing with customers that can make all the difference between a satisfied consumer and one lost to the competition. Acts such as leaving a calling customer on hold for extended amounts of time and not making them feel as if they are welcome in your business are things that should be avoided” (Burns, 2008, p.1).

Principles of Customer Service

In today’s demanding business environment excellent customer service is needed in organizations, hospitals, restaurants, and businesses, just about everywhere there is service-interaction between business and customer. A lesson that successful service managers have learned in assisting customers is that the ‘customer is always right’, even if the customer is dead-wrong. A business has to satisfy the customer in order to continue its good name and reputation. Most customers will tell someone about a bad experience or poor service given to them which will negatively affect the vast majority of businesses.

“Customers are important to an organization and business, because they provide the profit” (Kim, Eom, & Ahn, 2005, p.1). Customer service practices take many shapes and should be offered to all parties needing assistance in whatever they are trying to accomplish, even if it’s just a stock-clerk grabbing an item off the top shelf for a customer shopping at their local food store.

Treat each customer as if he or she is your favorite customer. Even if a customer’s issue seems trivial to you, put enthusiasm in your voice and a smile on your face even when your favorite customers call for your assistance every hour on the hour (Burns, 2008, p.2).

Showing respect to others who seem to be annoying can benefit the organization and the customer alike after all; bad customer service can, and will ruin a business’s reputation.

Improving Customer Service

Outstanding customer service cannot simply be bought by a company nor will it just be written in the organizational mission-statement but rather it’s an attribute that must be imbedded into the cultural fabric of an organization and religiously enforced by said