Service quality is a key element in business success. Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to improve service quality and retain customers. One bad experience can keep a customer from leaving your business for years. But don't despair! There are many methods to improve the service quality of your business, from clearly defined and measurable service goals and motivating employees, to leveraging customer feedback and upgrading your business tools to better serve customers. Whatever approach you choose, now you don't have to struggle anymore to improve the quality of business services.
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Part 1 of 4: Motivating Employees
Step 1. Invest in service training, and not just have a quality control department
Depending on how big or small your business is, you may already have a quality control department. This department tracks and records quality and work issues. However, relying on the quality control department can put your business underperforming, as this department can show your employees that quality is not a major consideration in your business. Don't rely on this department anymore, but invest in training that trains all employees at all levels, which will make your employees understand that they have a responsibility to provide good quality service, whatever their role in the company.
- Find “gaps” in service training in your current business or company. Do employees attend online or face-to-face customer service seminars as part of a performance improvement requirement? Arrange training sessions that target specific problems or “gaps” of needs, such as how to interact with a customer at the checkout or give a presentation to a customer at a meeting or meeting.
- For example, if you are trying to improve service at the cashier, hold a training that specifically addresses improving cashier service. You can discuss ways to greet customers at the checkout, contact customers quickly and appropriately, and give customers cash back or credit cards at the end of the transaction. You can also instruct your employees to re-enact transactions, with one employee acting as a cashier and another employee acting as a customer.
- Don't stop training employees even after the first few days or weeks on the job. Teach employees that there is always more they can do and learn about their job, your business, and how to serve customers.
Step 2. Create a new employee initiation program
This program will train new employees in terms of service quality when they start working. This program should provide your new hires with a clear explanation of your company's products, services, and core business strategy. The program should also emphasize your company's approach to customers and a commitment to providing superior quality customer service.
- The program should include an overview of your company's approach and services. Give examples of customer service problems that have occurred in the past and/or are still being faced, as well as solutions for dealing with these problems. This will help new hires understand your approach to service delivery and ways to address these issues.
- Pair an experienced employee with a new employee. Experienced employees will share their first experience operating your company and teach you how to do well in a particular position or role. Experienced employees can also provide some advice to new employees regarding providing good quality service to customers.
- If possible, do part of this orientation program for new employees yourself. Lead one of the training sessions yourself to show the new employee that you are fully committed to this new recruiting program. It will also give you the opportunity to directly instill company values in new employees and “launch” them to their success.
Step 3. Teach the 30/30 rule
This is a simple rule that states that employees must greet each customer before passing 30 steps or 30 seconds from the first time the customer enters the store. This attention will ensure that your customers feel welcome and wanted, resulting in a positive view of your business.
- Be sure to train your employees to communicate that greeting with their body language, in addition to their words. The word “welcome” doesn't mean much if an employee doesn't make eye contact, smile, or stand up straight with friendly body language.
- If your business is an online business, set up an automated response system to let your customers know that their message has been received and that you are processing their issue.
Step 4. Relate your employees' actions to overall business performance
This means showing your employees that the things they do every day at work have a huge impact on customer satisfaction and the ultimate achievement of the company. Linking individual behavior to the larger system will give your employees a sense of how important it is that they provide good service every day.
One way to do this is to challenge your employees to commit to providing the best possible service to customers for one month. At the end of the month, show your employees evidence of increased sales and decreased number of customer complaints
Step 5. Encourage your employees to think of customer service as the “true story” of your business
Your employees are the main door for customers to get in touch with your business. In most cases, employee behavior towards customers even shapes the “culture” of the entire business or brand. Understanding that their interactions with customers are not limited to cashier transactions, but that they can actually get information about the customer's “feelings” and opinions of the business as a whole, will help motivate your employees to provide good quality service at all times.
For example, Trader Joe's department store in the US often ranks high in its business category in terms of quality customer service, because its employees are trained to provide friendly service and maintain a relaxed store atmosphere and provide customers with personalized recommendations on products. This approach makes shopping fun, thus attracting a large number of customers to come back, even though Trader Joe's may not often provide as wide a variety of products as other convenience stores
Step 6. Tell your employees the purpose of quality service
This goal should be quite challenging, but achievable. Do research on these goals, to show that specific settings and challenging goals bring employee performance to a higher level of quality. Avoid goals that are too easy and unclear, such as “do your best”.
- Focus on specific actions and attitudes, such as greeting customers with a smile, assisting customers in the fitting room, and ensuring transactions at the cash register are fast and pleasant.
- For example, at Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas (USA), the employee must achieve predetermined goals based on his or her job position at the casino as well as goals set by the entire Harrah's hotel group in the Las Vegas area. Harrah's managers work closely with employees to ensure that their goals are both challenging and achievable. Harrah's uses a combination of goal setting and future rewards to motivate individual employees and work teams.
Step 7. Recognize and reward your employees' performance improvements
Motivate employees by acknowledging their accomplishments and abilities while achieving or even exceeding customer service goals. There are two main ways to reward employees:
- Financial rewards: One of the easiest ways to implement financial rewards is to increase wages and provide bonuses to your employees. But if you're not in a position where it's possible to give all your employees more money at once, you can provide financial rewards in other ways. Give them the extra hours they want, offer more affordable medical expenses, or be more flexible in the area of the health needs of their children or their parents.
- Non-financial rewards: Create a rewards program that shows employees how much you appreciate their hard work and concern for customer service. Focus on programs that recognize fast service times, positive customer feedback, or achievement of customer service goals. Use other forms of appreciation such as placards, certificates, company logo products, gift coupons, or free products. Although these awards do not directly provide financial benefits to employees, they will feel proud of their achievements, and this is important to maintain their level of motivation.
Step 8. Let your employees know that there is room for growth
Another way to motivate and equip your employees is to provide opportunities to move up to higher positions within your company or business. Create leadership positions for long-time employees or employees who can demonstrate a high level of performance. Encourage new employees to move forward to a higher position or role and give them a chance to prove themselves.
You may decide to conduct an annual performance analysis of employees, to let them know where they are performing and ways they can improve their performance in the following year. Performance analysis is also a great way to emphasize the positive behavior of employees and indicate their potential career position within the company in the future
Step 9. Emphasize problem solving
It's important to emphasize to your employees that they must be willing to help solve problems, in addition to being friendly. A seller who is polite and friendly but doesn't know anything about the products he sells will not give satisfaction to customers. Similarly, an employee who can acknowledge the existence of a problem in a pleasant manner without having the ability to resolve it will not leave a favorable impression on the customer.
If the employee cannot provide an immediate solution, train your employee to provide an “action plan” for ways to resolve the problem immediately. For example, if a customer calls with a problem with a lawnmower he bought, but your shop is closing in 5 minutes, you can promise to send someone to his house the next morning to fix the lawnmower
Step 10. Teach your employees to address any concerns or complaints
This is the way to achieve outstanding customer service satisfaction and exceed standards. Every customer should leave your store or business location happy. Even if you or an employee made a mistake, the customer is still satisfied. Don't act defensively or blame the customer for making a mistake. Listen patiently to your customer's complaints and offer a sincere apology. Then explain how you will solve the problem to your customer. Even the most courteous employees in the world would not be able to survive without the ability and competence to solve customer problems.
- For example, a customer came in with a shirt that was torn in a machine wash. He brings a receipt to prove that he bought the shirt from your store two days in advance. The customer asked for a refund for the shirt he bought, because the shirt was not cheap, but it turned out to be quickly damaged when washed.
- The employee who met the customer contacted you as the business owner, to discuss the best form of service that could be provided to this customer. Start by apologizing to the customer for the poor quality of your product. Then explain that even if you can't refund the money (as stated on the purchase receipt), you can offer him a purchase coupon from the store for the full amount at the price of the item he purchased, plus an additional discount on his next purchase. This way, the customer knows that you're really trying to solve the problem and that you're not letting him down because of the problem. You need to make sure the customer knows that you will be conducting further investigations into the production of these perishable shirts and removing any remaining stock from your shelves.
- Disgruntled customers should have incentives to keep them coming back or buying products from your business. It also shows your good faith in addition to solving the problem.
Step 11. Listen to feedback from your employees
Your employees can provide valuable thoughts on improving the quality service approach you have adopted. Paying attention to their input also shows that you care and take their opinion seriously.
- Conduct a quality survey among your employees at least once a year. Email the survey questions and set a time limit for them to fill out the survey. You can also add incentives or rewards to motivate your employees to submit their input.
- Maintain an open flow of communication with employees at the beginning of work hours with a short talk before the store opens or the work hour begins. State your expectations for the quality of service your employees provide to customers who enter the store.
- Demonstrate specific behaviors that tell customers the value of quality employee service to your business, such as how to greet customers at the entrance, talk to them when paying at the checkout, and ask if they need help finding the right size, or want to try on clothes at the counter. fitting room. Use real-world examples to demonstrate these specifics to your employees, and don't just tell them how to provide outstanding service.
Part 2 of 4: Measuring Customer Service Performance
Step 1. Determine how quickly you can resolve the problem
According to one survey, 69% of customers define “good” customer service if their problem is addressed promptly and efficiently. 72% of those interviewed said that they were passed from one employee to another or given the same explanation many times so that they felt frustrated. Work to establish how quickly you can resolve your customer's problems. You can ask about this in the survey. In the case of a telephone service or online service that requires email or discussion, you can use a timer to determine how long it will take for the issue to be resolved.
- Your employees may not always have the knowledge or authority to solve customer problems. However, they can be trained to quickly identify problems and find someone to address them.
- For example, imagine that you own a beauty shop and a customer calls because they want to buy a certain brand of nail polish, which you don't have. Instead of you telling the customer “we don't sell that brand”, your employee should find out how your store got the brand for that customer and let him know when this problem can be resolved. This service is not only friendly, but also helpful and fast, and this will add loyal customers to your business.
Step 2. Ask for personal feedback from customers
Most customers like to give their feedback. This shows them that you care about their experience and want to improve or improve your approach.
Ask for feedback from your customers in person, face-to-face or online. Respond to customer responses by providing prompt replies. Ask in detail about the customer's last purchase at your store or a product from your company that he used, or if he had any problems with the product. Encourage your customers to describe their experiences at your store or place of business and what they think so that you can enrich their experience
Step 3. Create a customer survey
Customer satisfaction has several key aspects, such as emotional satisfaction, loyalty, satisfaction with some aspects of their experience, and the desire to return to use your business services/products. Creating surveys that customers can fill out after gaining experience with your business services will help you determine how effective your services are.
- Find out the customer's level of emotional satisfaction by asking questions that explore “overall quality” or how happy the customer was with the experience.
- Identify potential customer loyalty by asking questions that explore whether the customer would recommend your business to others. People will trust word of mouth more than advertising.
- Find out the level of customer satisfaction with each specific part of the experience by asking targeted questions, such as “How satisfied are you with the speed of our service today?” or “How would you rate how long you have to wait?”
- Find out what customers want to come back for by asking things like “Based on today's experience, would you come back?” or “Do you think visiting our store is a good decision?”
- Incentivizing these surveys is a good way to get customers to complete the survey. Often times, dissatisfied customers will not return because they are not satisfied. However, if you offer them an incentive for completing a survey, such as a free snack with every main meal purchase or a discount on every purchase, they will be happy to provide feedback and return to business with you.
Step 4. Find out if there are problems or complaints from customers
One way to find out the quality of your business service is to find out customer problems or complaints. Create a database for all customer feedback and use a scale to rank the customer experience (for example, 5 for very satisfied, 1 for very dissatisfied). Be sure to also record other comments about customer service experiences in the database.
- You can also use promotional network scores. The promotion network score will generate data on the number of customers who would recommend your business to their network of relationships. A customer who answers with a score of 9 or 10 is rated as a promoter, who answers with a score of 7 or 8 is considered a passive customer, and one who scores 6 and below is considered a customer who will give a negative/bad recommendation.
- The number of promoter subscribers minus the number of customers who gave bad recommendations is your business promotion network score. The higher this promotional network score, the better your business has been at retaining customers and their satisfaction.
Step 5. Take advantage of each troubleshooting process to prevent similar problems in the future
You and your employees have handled a customer complaint well, and are working hard to resolve the issue. But happy customers are not your ultimate goal. Take this experience as an opportunity to avoid similar problems in the future. Ask your employees, “What caused this problem and what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again?”
- Keep a record of events that gave rise to customer complaints or problems, as well as solutions your employees have taken to keep customers happy. For example, maybe a customer needs a certain outfit that night, but none of the clothes in stock for sale match her size. Instead of letting the customer be disappointed and leaving empty-handed, the employee should contact several other store locations in the area to find clothing that fits the customer's size and ask the customer to wait a bit. Those customers will leave the store happy because they received great customer service and will most likely return to your store to shop again.
- A possible solution to prevent this customer problem from happening again is to increase the supply of clothing by a certain size and always check the stock list at the beginning of the working day to avoid running out of stock.
Step 6. Speak to customers face-to-face and face-to-face
Avoid the temptation to hide behind your employees. Customers are happy if they can communicate with management easily when they have questions, complaints, and specific interests. Come to your place of business at least once a week to show your dedication to employees and customers. When interacting face-to-face and directly with employees, you can also demonstrate how to provide superior quality customer service.
Involve yourself in the daily operations of your business. If you are rarely present at your own place of business, you will seem distant and never come into contact with your business
Part 3 of 4: Defining the Purpose of Service
Step 1. Learn what type of business you are
Small businesses are often expected to provide customer service that is very different from the services of other very large businesses. By understanding why people choose your store or business, it will help you to serve your customers in getting products that truly meet their needs when interacting with you.
- If you have a large company, customers will probably expect your business to provide a large selection of goods or services at low prices, and get a fast service experience.
- If you have a small business, personal interaction, product knowledge, and problem solving are very important aspects for you to focus on. You may not be able to offer prices as low as those offered by giant businesses, but your hospitality skills will help you run this business. One study found that 70% of customers are willing to pay a higher price if they get superior and personalized service, and 81% of customers believe that small businesses can provide better customer service than large businesses.
Step 2. Develop a clear vision statement
Having a clear vision statement and setting out your customer service mission is very important. You will implement this vision statement in employee training and will likely share it with your customers as well. Your vision statement communicates the core values of your business, and becomes your business identity.
- Consider examples from very successful businesses. ACE Hardware, a hardware store chain business with different owners, has been awarded multiple awards for providing the best quality customer service. Their customer service vision is written in a very simple statement: “100% helpful”. This vision statement emphasizes the aspect of assistance, not just hospitality, which enables them to compete with major stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's.
- Another example is Amazon, with its customer service vision: “We think of every customer as an invited guest to a party, and we are the host. It's our job every day to take every aspect into account so that our customers have an ever-better experience.” Using the supposition of guests being invited to a party, this vision statement clearly expresses Amazon's business goals, which are to make customers feel welcome and valued, and to create a pleasant shopping experience.
Step 3. Know the “face” of your business in public
Your employees are one aspect of the public “face” of your business, interacting with customers on a daily basis. Other representations of your business mission include how you handle phone calls and interactions in terms of customer service, your business location (building and/or online), and your approach.
- In the next section, this article will discuss how to ensure that your employees are capable of customer service. In general, remember that they represent the face of your company, so make sure that they are trained to be respectful, friendly and fully knowledgeable or understand your business.
- How do customers interact with you? Can they talk directly to “the person in front of them” or do they have to go through an automated system? Research shows that most customers prefer talking to real people rather than being directed by an automated interactive system (Interactive Voice Response (IVR). If your business has social media accounts, how quickly can you respond to questions or comments on those social media?
- What is the shape of your business location? Does it have a good layout, easy to reach, and well organized? These aspects include the location of the building and your online presence.
- Do your employees and company structure give the impression that your customers are free and welcome to approach you if they have a problem? For example, is your contact information clearly listed on your website, and do customers at your physical location know who they can turn to if they have questions?
Step 4. Ensure that your employees understand what “good quality service” means to your business
New hires and experienced employees should understand what “good quality service” means to you and your business. This definition may be derived from larger ideas, such as “consistency, communication, and connection”, or more specific ideas that involve certain behaviors or attitudes.
- For example, if you own a retail business that sells clothing, your definition of “good quality service” might involve more specific things such as “always greet customers when they enter the store” or “offer use of the fitting room if the customer holds one. or more clothes in his hand.”
- The definition of “good” customer service really depends on your industry and the characteristics of your customers. For example, a friendly and talkative salesperson may be more needed in the retail area, but massage customers don't want to talk too much. Similarly, if your customers are older, they usually value personal service more, while younger customers may prefer a more straightforward response via social media.
Part 4 of 4: Updating Service Quality Support Tools
Step 1. Implement customer-friendly service technology
Many people today no longer use cash to pay for goods and services. Your business should respond to the needs and habits of your customers. Invest in debit and credit card machines to simplify and speed up your customer payment transactions.
- If you don't have a Point Of Sale (POS) system, consider a computer device that can track purchases from your customers and the types of products or services they purchased. A POS system allows you to track what your customers choose, what they want to buy, and how often they buy.
- A POS system not only increases sales and helps you market your goods or services better, but also makes customers feel cared for. POS systems help you manage inventory, provide special offers or promotions, and give customers the right price. You don't have to worry about suddenly receiving customer orders for products that are out of stock or giving the wrong price.
Step 2. Hire a website designer to create a professional website for your business
Your business website is the first impression your potential customers see. Invest in a website with an attractive design that showcases your business' products and services.
- Make sure that your website can be accessed on mobile devices, because many customers often access the internet with mobile phones.
- If you can't afford to hire a website designer, you can make your own website much simpler using WordPress. Make sure that your website displays your name, location, contact information and business hours.
Step 3. Don't ignore social media
The internet can be a very effective customer service tool for your business, especially if you can take advantage of social media. In today's era of intense competition, every business must demonstrate a strong presence on social media in order to connect with customers and keep customers connected to the business.
- Create a Facebook page and Instagram account for your business. Update your business social media accounts regularly and involve your employees in the process of updating and publishing the status (information, surveys or whatever) on the account. Encourage the use of hashtags for your business, such as “#TokoSepatuKeren”, to help promote your business.
- Be prepared to receive customer feedback from social media. Many customers will post a status containing their experience on your public page after receiving customer service. This should motivate you to take your business' customer service quality to a higher level, in order to gain positive status from customers!
- Connect your business website with its social media accounts, for example with a Facebook page, Instagram account, or Twitter account. This will direct your customers to your other social media accounts, and this is another way to keep them connected to your business.
