customer service as element to shape customer ...

CUSTOMER SERVICE AS ELEMENT TO SHAPE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Mariusz GIEMZA Quality Management Department, Cracow University of Economics ul. Rakowicka 27, 31-510 Krakow, Poland e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Organizations wanting to properly function in the contemporary marketplaces shall establish and develop correct relationships with their customers. The properly prepared and correctly pursued customer service policy is a tool helping organizations achieve this objective. The correctly shaped relationships bet\veen the organization and their customers make it possible for both the organization and its customers to achieve unquestionably fair benefits. For the customer, such a benefit is the adequate level of his satisfaction. A further benefit consists in the fact that the organization meets mandatory requirements under the quality management system pursuant to the standard PN-EN ISO 9001:2001 (Eng. ISO 9001:2000). The appropriate customer satisfaction level results in building long-lasting bonds between the customer and the organization.

INTRODUCTION

Globalization, liberalization of marketplaces, fast developing information technology, and a quicker and less expensive access to information are factors that cause the differences existing among organizations within the same trade domain to decrease. Companies seek new fields where they could surpass their competitors. Customer Service is becoming a source of advantages over competitors and a tool to surpass them provided, however, this service is capably and properly organized, and focused on building individual, long-term customer-organization relationships, as well as on offering products meeting individual needs of the clientele. This issue constitutes a basis for organizations to implement and develop a quality management system pursuant to the standard PN-EN ISO 9001:2001 (Eng. ISO 9001:2000). Customers' requirements, which are the input data, and customer satisfaction that is the output data, they all.constitute the core of a process-oriented approach recommended by the above cited standard. All the proceedings within

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organizations should be deemed as a number of inter-related processes; all of them are focused on one key objective: to make the customer satisfied and contented [1]. This assumption allowed for determining a basis for developing a 'customer-oriented' approach. The most contemporary stage in the development of this concept includes strategies of customer relationship management. Inter-related relationships between the organization and its clientele represent the main issue of the customer management system that constitutes a separate area of the organization's activities and operations. Customer Management does not lie only in presenting organization's offers to customers; it consists in establishing, retaining and developing a co-operation with customers. This is what customers expect from their organizations; satisfying this customers' need is an important stimulus for organizations to implement and carry on a customer management strategy, and, while pursuing this strategy, to put emphasis on managing the organizations' key customers.

SHAPING CUSTOMER SERVICE QUALITY

Customer Service constitutes a main subject of many correlated activities run within the organization, the whole of those correlated activities are defined a 'policy'. Customer Service policy comprises the whole of the organization's actions connected with the organization's aspiration to achieve and retain a proper Customer Service level in pursuance of the organization's targets. This policy should be built and developed under the active participation of the organization's customers. In fact, customers are the only reliable source of information on what they expect from the customer service, i.e. in what way they want to be served. A very important factor in the Customer Service policy is to flexibly react to any changes and additional demands made by customers. Whenever possible, the organization should make every effort to meet demands of all the customers, although it is often simply unfeasible. This is why the organization has to choose its strategic clientele and must do its best to meet their demands and requirements to the fullest degree. Quality is a fundamental factor of the long-lasting relationship with customers. Thus, when planning to build a system of customer relationship management, the term 'quality' must be correctly construed, and its true value in the eyes of customers must be properly identified. The understanding of what the needs and demands/wants of customers are is a starting point from which to develop the quality of Consumer Service. Customer Service Quality means that customers are offered what they want, at the time when they want, and for a price possible for them to be accepted without reservation.

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The character of Customer Service Quality is subjective. Its subjectivism consists in the fact that each customer perceives and valuates quality in a different way since he applies his own scale of values to valuate quality, and engages his own unique feelings as a basis of his valuation. Therefore, Customer Service Quality is sort of a value judgement expressed by a customer [2]. There are two aspects included in the definition of Customer Service Quality: customer needs and customer preferences. The effective Quality of Customer Service should not consist in the organization striving exclusively to match the demands and expectations of its customers; the organization should precisely and fittingly predict those demands and expectations and go beyond them. Surprise is the best stimulant. It triggers much more reactions than just passive contentment; consequently, its commercial impact is higher [3]. Offering the customers more than they expect can be effective only when and if the general requirements as indicated below are met [4]: - customers must receive added value for the same money; - Customer Service, actually its individual elements, must be adjusted to a given consumer; - Customer Service must be offered at the right time; - any errors in Customer Service are absolutely excluded. A Customer Relationship Management strategy, its abbreviation being CRM, is applied to correctly shape relationships between an organization and its customers. In literature, there are numerous definitions of CRM depending on whether they represent economic sciences or information sciences. CRM has many interpretations depending on the domain of its applications: computer software, information technology, methodology of managing customers including key customers, and, finally, business philosophy [5]. The term "relationship" deserves special consideration. This term corresponds with the type of an enduring association/bond established between a customer and an organization, and it is not limited to single, sporadic contacts. Such an interpretation suggests a much more extensive approach to this issue than the idea 'contact data management' could imply, and it includes the complexity of relationships between an organization and its customer [6]. Customer Relationship Management comprises the whole of activities referring to establishing and maintaining lasting relationships with customers, and supported by the tools from the information technology domain, with the purpose of building a loyal group of regular, steady customers. In particular, managing the relationship with customers is nothing but harmonizing the work of all organizational units within the company. The scope of impact exerted by CRM comprises activities connected with establishing and maintaining relationships with customers. Therefore, universal management functions are modified and individually adapted/shaped with regard to the object under management, and they include planning, organizing, and controlling/supervising relations with the customers.

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SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY OF CUSTOMERS

Organizations of various types and sizes are aware of the importance of making customers satisfied and content. It is significantly less expensive to keep the already existing customers than to win a new clientele. In addition, a statement that there is a direct dependence among three factors: customer satisfaction, keeping the customer, and profitability of a company, is becoming more and more common. For many organizations, customer satisfaction itself is a measure of the company's success; thus, customer satisfaction has become a target for them to attain. Organizations have invested a great deal in increasing productivity in the domains highly influencing the customer satisfaction, for example in Product Quality or/and Customer Service Quality. Now, it is a routine activity to compile loyalty charts in retail sales sectors; also, loyalty charts are more and more frequently encountered in industrial sectors. The majority of organizations do not deal with lost customers since their operating strategies are directed toward winning a new clientele. Dissatisfaction is a major cause of loosing customers. This phenomenon is rooted in the ,,gaps in Customer Service". Generally speaking, a gap resulting in customer dissatisfaction is a discrepancy between what the customer is expecting and what he is experiencing. However, usually, one of the five previously created gaps constitute a fundamental source of customer dissatisfaction. The following gaps have been identified in Customer Service: promotional gap, gap in identifying and comprehending customer needs, procedural gap, behaviour gap, and perception gap. Each of those five gaps is able to generate a further gap in Customer Service Quality, and this latter gap will result in a drastic decline in the customer satisfaction level. No organization provides bad service on purpose; gaps usually occur owing to differences between what the company, in its belief, provides and guarantees, and what customers, in their opinion, receive from the company. There is only one method to identify and fill in those gaps: measuring customer's satisfaction level at regular intervals [7].

METHODS OF SURVEYING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

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Results of the measured customer's satisfaction level provide answers to the following questions: - how do customers react to the products of the company? * - to what degree are customers satisfied and content with the products offered by the company? - what are factors influencing customer satisfaction?; what is the degree of this influence?

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- how do customers evaluate the company's individual products with regard to the product's various functional features? - in the eyes of the customers: what are the most valuable products and services in a given trade branch? - what should be changed in order to improve the customers' satisfaction level? Usually, Customer Satisfaction Surveys are multi-modular, and each module comprises a specific part of a general issue. Most frequently, this fact is to be attributed to the essence of the customer satisfaction measurement itself. Surveys of this type usually comprise very many various facets of the entire customer satisfaction concept. Thus, they require much more information and knowledge than just one answer to the question whether or not a customer is satisfied/content. For example, they require a detailed knowledge of a given line/trade/domain, of its range and extent, of the links to and connections with other lines/trades/domains, of the amount and profile of customers. One of the simplest methods to survey customer's satisfaction level is monitoring of sales levels. However, this indicator (sales level) does not give an unequivocal answer to the question whether or not customers are satisfied with the company's products. Some other independent factors can cause a decline in sales, for example: slump in a given industrial field or a downturn in the economy of a given trade. A cross-sectional analysis of products and customers provides information on several symptoms and trends occurring for some customers, or for some traders, or within specific regions. Sales levels should also be regarded as a possible symptom of decline in purchaser satisfaction. Complaint Analysis is another method of surveying customer satisfaction. More and more frequently, customers do not file complaints nor come forward with comments, nor complain about service. A lot of competitive businesses in the market causes the customers to leave quietly and go to competitors without saying a word. Undoubtedly, it is a bad scenario to think of. Complaint Analysis cannot be the only tool to measure customer satisfaction as cannot be Sales Level Analysis; especially that the system organization in the enterprise influences the quantity of complaints filed or comments registered. The organization that does not receive complaints should of course be satisfied with its success/results, and its customers should deem it as the best one. Unfortunately, the situation may often be different. Managers of the organization where a complaint indicator is low should regard this fact as a signal that their system of filing complaints fails and, thus, needs checking. A further indirect method of analysing customer satisfaction is Lost Customer Analysis. When a customer leaves a company, it can also mean that he is dissatisfied with company's services or products. However, this is not always a true motivation of his leaving. For that reason, it is of utmost importance, weight, and benefit-generating consequence for the company not to ignore the fact that its customer, even a single one, walks out the door. Any situation of that type can be a signal that the same phenomenon may return, but, then, its scale will be larger.

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CONCLUSIONS

The objective of any modern business (organization) management system should be to strive to increase operational efficiency with the purpose of making customers satisfied and content. It is not only the mass production helping achieve good economic results, but also, and first of all, the personalization and individu-alization of a business offer, which satisfies diverse customers' needs and wants. The objective of every organization is to satisfy customers' needs; what is more, this target is also an indirect way to meet mandatory requirements as pointed out in the standard PN-EN ISO 9001:2001 (Eng. ISO 9001:2000). Nowadays, the strategy of Customer Relationship Management is becoming a trial approach aiming at gaining competitive advantage in the markets. This strategy helps organizations comprehensively understand and construe customers, and, first of all, properly segment customers and elaborate portfolios of products and services that are appropriate for each individual segment of customers. All those actions focus on one important aim: strengthening customer loyalty and, following on from this, on strengthening customer satisfaction. In the present age of competition, countless businesses offer products of comparable quality and similar prices and, also, they promote their products in a similar way. Under such conditions, only a properly, competently organized and capably pursued customer service is in position to make a particular offer clearly discernible and permanently distinguishable from other offers in the markets. Customer service can become a strategy able to draw customers' attention, to attract them, and to draw them to a given company.

REFERENCES [1] PN-EN ISO9001:2001:Systemy zarządzania jakoscia,PKN,September, 2001. [2] Dembińska-Cyran I., Hołub-Iwan J., Perenc J.: Zarządzanie relacjami z klientem. Diffin, Warszawa, 2004. [3 ] Shaw R.: Nowe spojrzenie na marketing. Wydawnictwo Studio Emka, Warszawa 2001. [4] Ansell T.: Zarzadzanie jakoscią w sektorze usług finansowych. Związek Banków Polskich, Warszawa 1997. [5] Banasik A, Beliczyński J.: Zarządzanie relacjami z klientami. Wydawnictwo Akademii Ekonomicznej w Krakowie, Kraków, 2003. [6] Lotko A.: Zarządzanie relacjami z klientem. Wydawnictwo Politechniki Radomskiej, Radom 2002. [7] Hill N., Alexander J.: Pomiar satysfakcji i lojalności klientow. Oficyna Ekonomiczna, Krakow, 2003.