CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE

Customer Service Excellence



Customer Service Excellence

Introduction

The fundamental goal of any business is revenue generation and profit maximization. How do organisations generate revenues? Through customers, who purchase the products sold. However, in today's highly competitive markets where businesses fight head to head for market share, customer retention is extremely important for survival. The key to not only retaining your customer base but also expanding is to provide them unparalleled service in terms of quality.

Ultimately, it all trickles down to customers' satisfaction, as they have the power to make or break your company. Thus, achieving excellent customer service is imperative to success. Providing outstanding customer service helps your organization gain a competitive advantage in the cut-throat competition out there (Strydom, 2005, p. 114). All successful organizations regardless of the industry they are operating in, are those which have excellent customer service, which not only satisfies their customers but delights them.

Therefore, all businesses recognize the need of excellent quality customer service for remaining in business. Intrinsically, all industries are services providers; the only difference between them is the size of their service segment. Excellent customer service has become one of the Key Success Factors (KSF) for businesses. A lot of the new organization has beaten the established on the basis of their outstanding customer service provision (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2004, p. 40).

Now businesses are all about customer services because they have realized that in the longer run those organizations that are customer-oriented and have excellent Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Hence, service marketing management has become an integral part of every company's strategic marketing plans. Service marketing is how you cater to your customers; it falls under the umbrella of customer care (Kasper, et al., 2006, p. 79). Customer services involve people, processes, tangible evidences, and (Zeithaml, et al., 2006, p. 114).

The major factor influencing the most crucial aspect of an organization's success i.e. customer service is internal marketing. Communicating with the employee and treating them like your customers is called internal marketing. Through internal marketing, you educate, stimulate, guide, and lead your workforce to deliver a high level of performance. All of this is done to motivate employees to perform better and better and prompt them to deliver excellent customer services (Mishra, 2010, p. 2).

Employees are an organization's representatives in the eyes of its customers. A happy employee works to create and promote a positive organizational image, and is motivated to perform better. Thence, the quality of your customer service depends upon your employees' performance, which in turn is dependent upon their job satisfaction. The purpose of internal marketing is to ensure and increase job satisfaction so as to enhance the quality of customer service provision delivered by the employees.

Any organization's employees play a crucial role in customer retention and customer base expansion. The concept of internal customer has become extremely important for organizations in order to successfully market their products to their target markets. Internal marketing focuses on the significance of employees in ...