Module Title:-Implementing Customer Service

Standards
LO1: Contribute to quality customer service standards
LO2: Implement customer service systems
LO3: Implement team customer service standards
1.1 Customer service standards
A customer is the buyer or user of purchased products or services from an individual or
organization. Customers may be new, existing or previous clients of your organization.
Customers are kings.
All businesses, regardless of type, have one primary and common goal – to serve and satisfy
their customers. The key to exceptional services lies in building relationships, and in the quality
of relationships, with customers and with employees.
Identify customers
Here is a list of customer types that organizations may encounter.
 Internal customers; are those from within the organization who depend on you and your team
to provide customer service, such as other managers and colleagues from other teams.
 External customers; are people who purchase and consume the products and services of the
organization. This is most commonly consumers, although other businesses can also
represent your external customers.
Customer service
Is the assistance and guidance a company provides to people before, during, and after they buy a
product or service. ‘A series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction.’
Meeting and or exceeding customer expectations. The provision of service to customers before,
during and after a purchase.
Three important qualities of customer service
Three important qualities of customer service are promptness, professionalism, and empathy.
Types of customer service
Here are some of the types of customer service:
Social media: Responding to questions, requests, and complaints on social media channels like
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Social media provides an immediate way for customers to
contact a brand at any time.
 I. Chat bots: These online tools allow customers to get very quick answers to frequently
asked questions or be directed to a customer service rep for assistance. They use AI to
automate conversations, providing 24×7, cost-effective service.
II. Self-service: Users get questions answered on their own without a service representative.
Examples include chat bots, online, FAQs and product tutorials.
III. SMS/mobile: People love texting, especially younger generations, so service via SMS has
become commonplace. Brands text order, shipping, and delivery confirmations, and can
also answer questions via text.
IV. Phone: It may no longer be the dominate type of service, but some customers prefer the
option. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and AI help answer common questions and
route customers to the right rep.
V. Email support: Responding to customers via email has its downsides (slower), but gives
customers a way to clearly explain what they need.
VI. In-person (traditional, in-store): And of course, there’s still on-site service: Talking to
live a human being, in-person. This type of service can make it easy for customers to
learn about a product or service, and for service reps to build customer relationships.
Key elements of great customer service
 Easy access: be easily available to customers, and become accessible through various
channels.
 Empathy: prioritize customer needs ahead of the those for the business, i.e. profit.
 Clarity in communication: first, understand the customer’s goals and roadblocks, then
be clear and concise in communicating with customers to resolve issues.
 Professionalism: adhere to high ethical and professional standards by displaying a
courteous and helpful attitude at all times when interacting with customers.
 Personalized attention: deliver personalized customer service experience by ensuring
the business prioritizes quality over quantity.
 Adaptability: be flexible and responsive by willing to accommodate changing customer
needs
 Speed & efficiency: find solutions to customer issues quickly and efficiently with
genuine interest and enthusiasm.
  Technical competence: the quality of information received and whether questions were
answered correctly with sufficient details and in a satisfactory manner.
 Continuous improvement: commit to continuously improving customer service delivery
and customer experience through product, service, or process improvements based on
customer feedback.
Benefits of customer service
 Customer loyalty. When customers have a good service experience, they’re more likely to
stick with a brand. Get it right, customers will keep coming back for more. But there’s little
margin for error. A global study by PwC found that 32% of consumers will leave a brand
after just one bad experience.
 Brand ambassadors. Loyal customers are likely to tell others about their good experiences
with a brand. This word-of-mouth advertising is priceless, especially in today’s world of
social media, which can quickly amplify that goodwill. Of course, consumers also are quick
to take to a social platform to share a bad experience, ramping up the pressure on brands to
get service right.
 Seal more deals. According to the PwC study, 73% of consumers say the experience that
companies provide – including customer service – is a decisive factor in making a purchase.
And many are willing to pay a higher price for a better experience.
 Upsell, cross-sell. When reps have a holistic view of the customer, they can spot
opportunities to offer customers new products or services. The White House Office of
Consumer Affairs estimates that the lifetime value of loyal customers, on average, is worth
10 times more than their first purchase.
 Competitive edge. Brands that deliver exceptional customer service differentiate themselves
to gain market share against the competition.
 Boost the bottom line. Companies can learn a lot about how to improve their products or
services from the issues raised by customers, and make improvements to drive more sales.
Altogether, researchers have found that a business that delivers great service can have sales
increases of 20% or more of total revenue.
Ways to provide excellent customer service.
 Work as a team
 Listen and share
 Friendly, empathetic support
 Be honest
 Improve empathy
 Deep product knowledge
 Timeliness
 Identify ways to improve processes
The need of customer service:
 Building a business on relationships to products gives no sustainable competitive edge; other
stores can offer the same products.
 Very few stores can sustain a price advantage against larger competitors.
 Therefore, we must create relationships with our customers.
 Relationships with people build loyalty.
Customer service = Customer retention + Loyalty
Improving customer service
Customer service is about managing customer expectations to give them what they want, when
they want it, in the best possible way to meet those expectations. If a business provides good
customer service, then it has a greater chance of keeping and increasing its customer base.
4 Steps to Better Customer Service
Step 1: Have Clear goals
Step 2: The Customer Goes First
Step 3: Look for the best
Step 4: Quality Control
Customer service strategy
A customer service strategy is a plan for delivering effective and relevant service that meets and
exceeds customer expectations.
 Leverages competitor differences and vulnerabilities.
 Identifies resource capabilities: leverage or expand.
 Integrates with organization values and goals.
Customer service standards
Customer service standards represent the quality of service that an organization strives for in all
customer interactions, based on its values, mission, and vision. They can also be defined as an
organization’s service expectations or objectives, or as guidelines for how to deliver customer
service.
A customer service standard is a minimum level of service to be provided to a customer during
an interaction. It is an individual action or behavior that ensures customer satisfaction during and
after an interaction with the business.
Top customer service standards
The top five standards, ranked in order of importance, were responsiveness, accountability, over-
delivery, availability, and friendliness or a positive attitude.
 Responsiveness: Responsiveness is also about being efficient and genuinely helpful: “A
quick response is great, but you’ll want to follow that up with a speedy and thorough
resolution to their request,” she wrote.
 Accountability: Accountability involves acknowledging problems and taking responsibility
for solving them.
 Over-delivery: Over delivering means exceeding expectations. In customer service or
support, that might look like this: Giving customers more than just short-term, immediate
solutions; anticipating their future needs. Doing everything to solve customers’ problems and
sometimes compensating them for their trouble.
 Availability: Availability is being there for customers when they need help. Setting clear
expectations is essential here: customers need to know what companies’ operating hours are
and when customer service teams are available.
 Friendliness or a positive attitude: Customers expect to have positive interactions with
customer service representatives and support agents. Empathy, kindness, and politeness
matter, especially in situations where the customer is stressed. Because of this, it’s important
to hire customer service professionals who embody those traits.
Meeting top customer service standards
Customer service professionals need strategies and tools to meet customer service excellence
standards. Here are tips for raising the bar for quality service:
 Responsiveness
 Accountability
 Friendliness

Benefits of having customer service standard

There are many important benefits to creating customer service standards, but here are just two:
 It manages your customer’s expectations
 It sets your employee’s expectations
Creating customer service standards
It takes four steps to create and deliver the most effective customer service possible to your
customers:
 Identify your customer and their customer experience.
 Review any existing customer service standards, systems, strategies, reports etc.
 Identify a customer service model to use.
 Create or develop the customer service standards in line with the organization’s values
and resources.
Customer service models
A customer service model is a set of plans or policies a company uses to provide customer
service. Models vary for each business based on its services, values and goals, but the overall
goal of a customer service model is to increase customer satisfaction. Many companies
continually update their customer service models based on feedback so they can meet their
customers' needs.
A customer service model provides a structure of behaviors and actions on which to base a
company’s relationships and interactions with customers.
Common components of this model include strategies to:
 Handle customer complaints
 Retain unhappy customers
 Seek customer feedback
 Use customer feedback
Developing a customer service model
Follow these steps to develop a customer service model for your team or department:
1. Define customer service
Before developing this model, determine a universal definition of customer service. This
definition may include various elements of customer service, such as greeting customers,
providing assistance and seeking feedback.
2. Brainstorm customer complaints
Invite all of your customer service representatives to participate in a brainstorming session.
Create a comprehensive list of common customer complaints and problems that you receive on a
consistent basis. After brainstorming this list, ask the representatives about rare or unusual
3. Develop strategies for each problem
After creating the list of problems, create a strategy for how to handle and resolve each issue.
These strategies can serve as the standard practices for your customer service team.
4. Delegate each strategy
Once you have a list of strategies, delegate each one to a specific person or role within the
organization. Determine who's responsible for handling each type of issue. For example,
5. Train your staff
After developing your model, train all staff members on the strategies you've identified. Ensure
each person understands how to handle specific customer complaints.
6. Offer multiple support channels
Ensure your customers have multiple channels through which to contact the organization for
support. Common channels include email, live chats, social media and phone calls. Then make
sure customers know where to find those channels.
7. Monitor its success
Once you implement your customer service model, monitor its success. Track the performance
of your customer service representatives, and gather feedback from customers through surveys or
by reading company reviews online. Use this feedback to update and modify your customer
service model and strategies as needed.
The RATER model is used to identify and assess customer expectations, to plan and improve
services, and to measure customer satisfaction.
Table 1.1 The RATER model
Customer service models include:
 The attention to detail model
 The comprehensive service model
 The positive employee model
 The social media model
The close the gap model

UNIT TWO: CUSTOMER SERVICE SYSTEMS

 Concept of customer service systems
 Customer feedback
 Customer service problems
 Product and service delivery

Concept of customer service systems

A customer service system is a system used by companies to manage, track, and deploy their
services to their customers. These systems track the entire process of customer service right from
the start. These systems also use an IT ticketing system. This is used to track the inflow of
customer service requests and the number of requests successfully addressed. This helps in
assessing the efficiency of the customer servicing team.
A customer service process is a system of rules and standard operating procedures.
It is a system that provides support and services to customers. It can include various components
such as location information obtaining means, customer service support means, microphone,
speaker, camera, proxy server, telephone outbound device, incoming call answering device, and
telephone customer service platform. The system aims to match user preferences, provide data
encryption, and offer personalized customer service based on user reactions and situations.
A few considerations may include:
 Create a positive work environment.
 Create incentives for employees who adhere to customer service standards.
 Ensure you provide sufficient support and resources.
 Ensuring there are systems and structures in place that are clear and easy to interpret.
 Provide staff with relevant training.
Different types of customer service
 Live chat support
 Email support
 Self-service support
 Interactive voice support
 Social media support
 Web commerce support
 On-site support
 Telephone support

2.1 Customer feedback

Customer feedback is the verbal or written communication from your customers expressing how
they feel about your brand, your products, and/or the service they received from your team.
Importance of Customer Feedback
1. It points out aspects of your product that need improvement
2. Listening to customer feedback makes customers feel involved and important
Nothing proves your customers that they are important better than asking questions and acting on
it accordingly.
3. Good customer feedback generates positive reviews
Word of mouth advertising is still the most successful acquisition channel, especially for inbound
marketing where the customer comes to you, not the other way around.
4. Customer feedback helps to convince them to come back for more
Every online store can sell a lousy product to a given person once. But it's not the way to scale
businesses.
5. Negative customer feedback is good for you!
When the competition is just two clicks away, it is vital to tackle any issues reported by your
customers immediately.
Negative customer feedback should be valued even more than any other because it gives you the
winning growth strategy on a silver plate!
For this reason, create an action plan to tackle the unsatisfied customers’ feedback first. It should
look like this:
1. Contact the customer
2. Address the issue
3. Provide the ETA (estimated time of arrival) when the issue can be fixed
4. Inform when you will contact them again
5. if the issue is more complex, then make sure that you compensate them for the poor
experience.
6. Customer feedback helps you acquire new customers
What is the first thing you do when you look up a company whose product you’d like to buy?
Likely you check the company reviews.
7. Listening to customer feedback helps you build loyalty for the brand
Actively asking for feedback from clients using customer feedback software and responding to
their opinions create a sort of relationship that makes the purchase process more personal.
7 Most Effective Customer Feedback Methods
There have never been more options available for how to collect customer feedback. Companies
can collect customer feedback proactively or passively, and both methods provide insights that
take your product offerings to the next level.
1. Surveys
Tips for writing a customer feedback survey:
 Ask questions that help you understand your customers.
 Write thoughtful open-ended questions.
 Create consistent rating scales.
 Avoid leading or loaded questions.
2. Contact forms
Contact forms are one of the easiest ways to gather candid customer feedback. Because it’s a
support channel for most companies, you can use each interaction as an opportunity to gather
feedback. To maximize the likelihood of hearing back from a customer, be sure to set clear
expectations, organize the form appropriately, and send personalized responses.
Tips for creating contact forms:
 Add context to the contact
 Optimize for mobile
 Make mandatory fields clear
3. Usability tests
For usability testing to bring valuable insights to your company, it requires more upfront
planning. With a clear strategy, you can uncover challenges that customers don’t realize they’re
facing and actionable insights that make their experiences better.
Tips for conducting usability tests:
 Create solid testing scenarios
 Identify success criteria
 Test early and often
4. Customer interviews
Reaching out to customers directly opens up conversations that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
Qualitative stories from customers bring color and nuance to quantitative feedback (data). These
personal experiences help a team understand the feelings behind customer decisions and the
community response to a company’s brand or decisions.
When you conduct customer interviews, you create the opportunity to challenge false
assumptions that developed over time.
Tips for conducting customer interviews:
 Start an open-ended dialogue
 Get more specific as you go
 Practice active listening
5. Social media
Social listening can give you access to a pool of candid feedback from customers. Direct
comments or mentions on social networks aren’t the only way to collect customer feedback.
There are many other networks including built-in polling tools.
Tips for managing social media feedback:
 Set up a dedicated handle for social media customer support
 Create social media guidelines
 Be proactive
6. In-app feedback
In-app feedback tools are used to provide a shortcut to submit feedback to app users. With the in-
app feedback process, users can rate or submit the feedback directly from the app screen.
What fix’s in-app feedback surveys make it easy to gather feedback and insights from users in
real-time.
Tips for gathering in-app feedback:
 Make the feedback widget discoverable
 Leave room for open-ended feedback
 Send push reminders
7. Onsite activity via analytics
Analytics reveal what customers don’t know about how they use your product. Especially if you
sell a digital product or service, you benefit from leveraging analytics to understand how users
interact with your company.
For example, if you offer self-service support content as a form of customer service, you could
see the number of people visiting each article. If one article has an 0:09 average time on page
and an awful bounce rate, you know something isn’t sticking about your messaging. Reporting
tools give you insights about failed searches, most frequently visited pages, and more you can
improve your customer’s self-service experience.
Tips for using onsite activity analytics:
 Automate reports
 Determine appropriate performance metrics
 Use campaign tracking codes
Common Causes of Bad Customer Service
 Lack of communication Poor training or lack thereof Dealing with rude customers and
bad attitudes The company's infrastructure, such as IT systems that cannot handle
demand from increased traffic on their website or customers are unable to complete their
transaction.
 Time constraints (not enough time for customer service reps) Working under unrealistic
expectations of what is possible with a limited amount of resources, such as not having
enough staff or funds available to provide the best customer service experience.
 Poor leadership and management from executives who don't understand that providing
good customer service is the key to a successful business.
A product or service that doesn't meet customer needs and expectations can create dissatisfaction
with how company representatives treat them.
 Poor training of employees (employees don't know enough about products).
 Lack of communication between departments within an organization, such as marketing
not communicating the value.
 The company's infrastructure, such as IT systems that cannot handle demand from
increased traffic on their website or a malfunctioning phone system).
 Poor website design. Poor user experience can lead to customer frustration.\
 Poor customer service due to staffing shortages, lack of training or insufficient
guidelines.
 Toxic people in leadership roles.
 Not using CRM to track engagements: CRM can help managers identify customer service
problems early on. CRM can be used to track customer engagements or model their
behaviours based on data.
2.2 Customer service problems
Customer service problems can harm your business, affecting customer satisfaction, trust, and
loyalty. Some of the most common issues in customer service are slow response time, rude
communication by the support staff, and lack of real-time engagement. Continue reading as we
discuss the reasons for these issues, give tips on how to solve customer service problems, and
share tools that can effectively support your teams.
  Service not aligned with customer journey

 Difficulty Maintaining Quick Response Times

 Rude Behavior of Support Agent

 Frequent Call Transfers

 Using the Wrong Tools & Software

 Inadequate Training for Service Reps

 Pushing the Wrong Product or Service

 Failure to Deliver Promised Solutions

Service delivery
Service delivery simply refers to the delivery of a service from a business to a customer. The
service a business provides is something that the customer is unable to perform themselves, so
there are a lot of elements to good service delivery. It encompasses all aspects of providing a
service to a customer, including the initial interaction, onboarding, set up, conclusion of the
service and follow-up provisions.
Areas of service delivery
 Top-down company culture
The senior management teams are responsible for shaping the culture of a company, deciding
what values the business has and providing the company's overall vision and mission statements.
The management team also establishes the management style formal or informal/flat structured
or hierarchical and the work ethic expected of its staff. With a clear vision in place and buy-in
from the employees and other managers, the company culture can add considerably to any aspect
of customer service, including service delivery.
 Internal engagement
For excellent customer service, a company requires that its staff buy into the company culture
and attitudes and the way that company provides the service delivery. It's important for staff to
feel involved and engaged in what they're doing. It's essential that they believe in the company's
values and the company itself to step up and provide excellence when delivering a service. With
employee buy-in and engagement, the service delivery process improves due to employees who
genuinely want to do a great job and provide value to customers.
 Quality and smoothness of delivery
The quality of service delivery depends on clean, clear processes that work smoothly and are
under continuous review. It is important that all systems work perfectly together and processes
flow, and this starts right at the beginning with the first contact from the customer. Even the
website is to lead the customer smoothly through the sales funnel or flywheel. Customers want
seamless and frictionless service without working for it. Getting the systems and processes right
is the basis for good service delivery.
 Customer service
Good customer service is vital to delivering a service. The customer service department is
responsible for ensuring that the customer understands everything they want to know about their
service. They're also responsible for taking care of the customer throughout their lifetime and
ensuring that they deal with any customer needs swiftly. The client and the business can work
together to tailor a service package, with the client providing helpful feedback that can improve
service delivery for them and for every other customer.
Importance of service delivery
The service company can provide a tailored package for each client, offering only the services
and options they need, which can reduce costs to the client. The service provider can enhance
their reputation and gain referrals by providing excellent skills and customer service. This can
boost their income, lower their marketing costs and increase profits.
Components of service delivery
There are four logically sequenced steps or areas that companies use to provide the best customer
experience through their service delivery. Focusing on these elements can give a broader
understanding of the scope of service delivery:
1. Service culture
Service culture relates to the leadership principles, vision, mission, work habits and values of a
service provider company. Management controls these items, which set a basis for operations
throughout the entire organization. Maintenance and development of these elements can develop
the social processes of an organization and help serve the long-term success of the company.
2. Employee engagement
Employee engagement focuses on those who work within an organization to provide service
delivery. Human resources and other leadership supervisors can use their influence to shape
employee attitudes, activities and purposes that align with the service culture of the organization.
This serves as the link between the service delivery design process and the excellence model that
the customer experiences.
3. Service quality
Service quality includes all strategies, performance management systems and processes involved
in service delivery. These items help define the management model that helps the client reach
their end goal within the service delivery process. This element is the foundation of the service
provider and client partnership.
4. Customer service
Customer service focuses on providing the client with both the resources and knowledge they
desire about their service delivery product. It includes items like account management, customer
intelligence and continuous improvement. This phase uses a continuous review and collaboration
process to understand how customers perceive the organization's service delivery and what you
can do to make it better. This can work most effectively when the customer is part of the creation
and delivery process.
Communication helps us to get the feedback from the customer regarding the services. It helps to
know regarding the things which need to be continued as they are good and the suggestions or
area of improvement which need to be worked upon to make it good or better to deliver an
excellent customer service.
UNIT THREE: TEAM CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS
 Team and work activities

 Resources to undertake team tasks

3.1 Team work activities

Teamwork is when a group of individuals works together toward a collective goal in an efficient
manner. In its simplest form, teamwork occurs when a group of people work together to
successfully complete a task. More broadly, it also relates to the cohesiveness of a team, their
ability to create a positive working atmosphere and how they recognise the strengths and skills
that each team member brings. Good teamwork enhances group outcomes and the measurable
effectiveness of organizations.
Here is more about routine and non-routine work tasks.
Routine work tasks include:
 Answering inbound telephone calls
 Handling customer complaints
 Assisting with placement of orders, refunds or exchanges
 Advising on organizational policies
 Taking payment information
 Offering solutions to product or service-related issues.
Non-routine work tasks include:
 Organizing rosters or schedules
 Generating sales leads
 Managing team resources
 Completing sales paperwork
 Compiling reports on overall customer satisfaction
 Participating in professional development activities.

Team communication
Information communicated to your team members must be in context, accurate, timely and
presented in a way that makes it easy to understand and act on, if action is needed.
Clearly articulate customer service systems and standards in a team environment, using language
suitable to diverse audiences, and use listening and questioning techniques to confirm your team
members’ understanding.
Resources to undertake team tasks
Resources include any items that a business requires to operate. Good resource planning will
eliminate shortages that hinder operations and restrict wastage that limits profits. A business’s
resources can be broken down into several different kinds. Some of the most commonly used
include:
 Labor: Almost every business requires human labor to get through a workday. Labor includes
all of the people who work for you, and the jobs that they do.
 Management: Without a guiding hand, many businesses would end up achieving very little.
This is why managerial skills and execution are an essential resource for many companies.
 Expertise: In order to really help a business excel, labor and management need to be executed
with expertise. Knowledge of your domain and the practices that help you succeed is crucial.
 Equipment: Most businesses require specialized tools to do their work, whether its special
hardware, a unique piece of software, or a machine designed to do a certain task.
 Finances: A company’s finances enable it to use many of its other resources. This can
include: the payment of wages, the purchase of equipment, or the renting of a workspace.
 Energy: In the 21st century, it’s difficult to run a business without tapping into energy,
whether it comes in the form of gasoline to power a fleet of trucks, or electricity to keep an
office full of computers up and running.
 Land: Land is exceptional as a resource insofar as it does not need to be produced. Instead, it
can be refined to suit a particular business’s needs.
 Time: Since no business can achieve its ends instantaneously, every business needs to treat
time as a resource. Since the cost of time is measured in terms of another resource, time often
needs to be considered alongside resources such as labor, energy, and land.