CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

Change Management and Customer Service

Change Management and Customer Service

Introduction

Organizational change management refers to the practice of properly managing large, organizational changes in business. Change management is a quickly evolving practice designed to help support both managers and employers through the change process. As large changes can be very disruptive to an organization, change management seeks to minimize these impacts, while improving the efficiency of the change, and allowing the company to focus on continued growth.

Managing change means making required changes in a planned and systematic fashion. As such, change management requires a variety of skills to be effective. These include managing employees and expectations, handling office or corporate politics, analyzing situations and reacting quickly to solve problems, basic business skills and understanding, and importantly, strong people skills.

Change Management and Customer Service

Change should not be made for the sake of making change - it is a strategy for accomplishing some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force. Examples of these driving forces include: the need to make substantial cuts in funding, the need to address new, major markets/clients, and the need for dramatic increases in productivity/services. Typically, SWC organization must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle--for example, going from a highly reactive, entrepreneurial organization to a more stable and planned development. Similarly, transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when the executive's new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

Typically there are strong resistances to change. People are afraid of the unknown. Often employees think things are fine the way they are and do not understand the need for change. Usually, individuals are inherently cynical about change. Many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change. Often there are conflicting goals in the organization, e.g., to increase resources to accomplish the change yet concurrently cut costs to remain viable. Organization-wide change often goes against the very values held dear by members in the organization, that is, the change may go against how members believe things should be done. This is why most organizational-change literature discusses needed changes in the culture of the organization, including changes in members' values and beliefs and in the way they enact these values and beliefs.

Work groups are the basic building blocks of an organization, and contribute to organizational effectiveness when group goals are aligned with organizational goals, and a team is a specific type of group. In most SWC organization today formal groups may consist of employees who are responsible for an identifiable work process, a specific project, or a problem that needs solving, and are often referred to as a "team", and has the potential to dramatically affect an organization's performance.

In recent years, teams have emerged as the most important group phenomenon in SWC organization. The term "team" is not new to SWC organization, and teamwork has been stressed throughout the ...