The Future of Customer Service
According to (2006), as the world of technology becomes more and more sophisticated, businesses find themselves with an overabundance of customer service management software. While this software continues to invade the marketplace, some companies use it to effectively cut themselves off from their customers. Many companies rely to technology to render customer service. Customers are being instructed to jump through voice-activated hoops or press buttons through phone-activated menus while their frustration grows. Many companies focus more on expansion and have too many business strategies to employ and sometimes, these companies rely on technology alone to monitor customer satisfaction. The lack of human contact is a major reason why customers are dissatisfied. Companies nowadays are struggling to regain customers they should have taken for of in the first place. Competitive advantage cannot be sustained unless it can be protected from competitor matching. Any aspect of the product can be matched by the competition. What is most difficult for the competitor to match is how the firm approaches and treats the customer. Customer loyalty can be retained even if the product is flawed if companies assign good front-line employees to handle customers. The firm serves the customer by providing product enhancements in the form of service. Technology cannot replace humans. Technology should only enhance the human element of customer management. Customers look for convenience, cost, and quality of the total experience (2003). Technology alone will not provide a competitive advantage. The combination of superior technology and superior employees with a service orientation will contribute to achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The future of customer service for me is not a customer service that is not technology dominated but rather technology enhanced. The key to the future of customer service is the integration of technology with quality management techniques in order to rebridge the gap in customer service. In order to improve the quality of customer service, innovative marketing research methods must be used. The goal is to systematically generate actionable information that will enhance the ability to swiftly attend to customer satisfaction issues by making managers responsible for bringing human contact back into the realm of Customer Relationships Management.
Market research has always been a powerful tool enabling companies to gauge customers’ needs, wants, desires, and satisfaction. However, with regard to customer satisfaction, if the data are not usable, reliable, relevant, and timely, a company wastes its energy and resources. Furthermore, a business must react immediately to the information or the whole venture is an exercise in futility. An effective customer information system ensures that the appropriate knowledge of the customer is available for customer-focused decisions and actions. Without customer information it would be impossible to customize customer experiences, let alone manage customer relationships. Knowledge of the customer is about being intimate with the customer. Customer intimacy is not just a cliché. Customer intimacy is a value discipline for firms that value and use an intimate knowledge of their customers to determine precisely which types of customers to serve and then align all their value-creation processes to create and deliver solutions to their specific type of customer (2003). Many firms use their knowledge of the customer to tailor their products and messages, or to promote new services to their customers. But good customer information management goes beyond targeting messages and promotions. Customer-focused firms must have good customer information to support the decisions and activities of the firm. Good customer information is an asset of the firm. Logically, anything that contributes to sustainable competitive advantage is an asset to the firm. Since information on customers is useful in better matching a firm's products as solutions to customer needs, customer information is an asset that contributes to sustainable competitive advantage. The focus will be on what the customer feels rather than hoe the company is doing. The ultimate goal of customer satisfaction is increased revenue and customer retention.
Six Sigma
Organizations are constantly on the alert to gain a competitive edge, using the many tools that have long been touted as a way to beat the competition. Yet, despite the focus on innovative ways of making products and providing services, there remains one constant: Organizations that produce better quality products and services than their rivals beat the competition time and again. Six Sigma Improvement is a tried-and-tested method that has been effective in helping businesses dominate their competition (2001). Six Sigma, at its basic level, is attempting to improve both effectiveness and efficiency at the same time. Six Sigma is a measure of customer satisfaction that is near perfection (2003). Six Sigma is a process that will help a company to render effective customer service. The company must be aware of the customers’ needs, wants and requirements. The best way to improve the service is to ask the customers. By asking the customers, and working hand in hand with them on improving the service the company will encourage customer loyalty and will maximize customer satisfaction. Six Sigma focuses directly on the customer. Online research will be focus on getting fast, accurate, and inexpensive data. Online research will target customer satisfaction. While online research is still in its infancy, the future is unlimited if a company can harness its own customer database. Furthermore, online research delivers superior results over traditional methods because it leverages the unique strengths of the Internet by:
1. Eliminating group bias and dominant personalities
2. Getting unrushed and thoughtful answers from each respondent
3. Gaining instant responses from the entire sample
4. Having the ability to test, change, and retest on the fly ( 2003).
Real-time collection methods can be used to produce important information about the customers quickly. Six Sigma elements can make the data gathered from the customers more understandable and easily measured. The company will have a clear understanding of what the customers need and want. They can also improve their product and service by asking the customers. Customer satisfaction information will be readily available and the company will see the areas that need improvements in terms of customer service.
The future of customer service is more fact-based. The decisions of the company will be based on data gathered from the customers. The people inside the organization will become familiar with the concept of process. Companies will truly become customer focused by measuring, managing, and improving the processes in order to meet the customers’ needs and wants. Companies will be able to be aware of the key measures of effectiveness and efficiency for every process. The goal of Six Sigma is to improve both effectiveness and efficiency.
Six Sigma, unlike other quality initiatives that have come before it, is a management philosophy. As such, management must become actively involved in its application. The vehicle for this involvement is creating the strategy of Six Sigma called Business Process Management. The steps involved in creating this strategy include identifying the key processes that affect the strategic business objectives of the organization. Once those processes have been identified, measures of effectiveness and efficiency need to be collected and validated. Once measures of effectiveness and efficiency are collected, the worst performing, highest impact processes are then targeted for improvement.
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