6.4 Improving customer service quality
In all matters dealing with quality, including customer services, the desire to improve must be supported by commitment by senior management. The reasons for this are obvious: the decision to do so and the resources to make it possible have to be committed by senior management. In other words, senior management has to develop a culture for good customer service as a part of their business strategy. Unfortunately, it is true to say that in many organisations, top management is focused on control and return on investment rather than a holistic approach to the quality of their product.
Very often, customer service is seen as the area for contact personnel to work upon and feedback from customers may be used in appraisal practices of employees. Customer service then becomes one of the tools an employee may use to try and keep his job. Often, senior management's contribution may be to send them on a course on how to serve customers cheerfully - the "smile before you answer the phone" type of band-aid. Only when the critical relationship between internal and external customers is recognised and fully addressed, within the parameters of overall quality, can customer service be improved.
Working against the improvement of (investment in) customer service is usually the belief that customers are only driven by cost - if it is cheap enough, they will buy it. On the other hand, there are various examples from our daily experience that we can use to illustrate that this is not the case (do you always buy the cheapest shirt, toothpaste, or car?).
Once a decision has been made to focus on improving customer service, Zeithaml et al (1990) portray the steps as shown in figure 6.2.
Figure 6.2: Getting quality service improvement off the ground
Source : Zeithaml, V., Parasuraman, A. and Berry , L. (1990, p. 156)
This diagram is self explanatory but it might of value to point out some of the ingredients in each step.
- Starting at the bottom, the first and perhaps the most important step is to prepare for what lies ahead. Senior managers must expect to be directly involved and must get the commitment of the staff who are responsible, all the way down to sales or contact people. Finding out what is required and making that happen will be hard work for all those involved.
- The second step is to collect data on which decisions are to be based. For this to be possible, research methodologies have to be discussed and put in place. The data have to be suitable for the purpose for which it is sought. The information obtained from it should be then used for developing any changes in operations that are required. This information should also be shared with all employees so that the ground is prepared for getting their commitment.
- The next step is to organise for change - identify the right personnel in the various levels of management who will have responsibility to effect the change. The direction for change is also to be decided at this stage. Most importantly, the commitment of staff, who are busy enough with the work anyway, should be obtained.
- The next step is to let employees do what they should be doing and remove the restrictions of guidelines from their work. Employees need guidance from senior management in their work, not control. In this context, the element of education may be brought in to let all levels of management understand what is expected and what their role is ion making it happen.
- The next step (symbolise service quality) is management's commitment to quality. These symbols are aimed at showing that the shift in management thinking is real and they should also form a part of the change in culture towards improving the quality of what they do.
- The next step (promote the right people) is crucial to the success of any initiative. Promoting managers to leadership roles is often a decision that does not lead to desired outcomes because managing and leading are different roles. One can lead to control (and restriction) while the other must lead to a clear understanding of the direction that must be taken as well as developing a team spirit that develops opportunities into outcomes.
Following these basic steps allows the development of quality in customer services. Like any quality initiative, it has continuous improvement at its heart.
So far, we have based our discussion on SERVQUAL. The following reading gives you the details of what this instrument is and how it can be used in your organisation for improving service quality.
Reading 6.3
Zeithaml et al 1990, "SERVQUAL and its applications".
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