Discussion about the reasons of using customer service policies
Purposes of evaluating a customer service policy, indicating how this can assist future staff training and development
Task 3
Assessing the sources of information on customer requirements and satisfaction levels
Research on customer requirements and satisfaction levels, with the suggestion of potential improvements
Introduction:
Customer service is a performance of giving customer priority by providing them with service when the purchase products day to day. Giving customer what they need in terms of after purchase or before purchase has become a major driving force for the organizations to be successful. Here we tried to discuss about the customer service policy in a renewed hospitality organization named HILTON Hotel & Resorts. Hilton hotel and resorts started their journey in the year 1919 and founded by Conard Hilton. They operate in more than550 locations across 6 continents. But nowadays they are facing some complaints from their customers. That’s why they are trying to improve it. In this discussion, I will try to disclose about how to improve customer service in Hilton Hotel & Resorts.
Task 1
Discussion about the reasons of using customer service policies
Customer service refers to the ability of a company to meet customers’ expectations from that company and to provide customer satisfaction. Hilton Hotel & Resorts serves its customer at their best level to get high customer satisfaction. But in present time it is facing some problems regarding customer service. According to Gronroos (1990), there are 4 policies for serving customers. These are:
Stable competition advantage.
Good Working environment.
Cost Leadership.
Increasing trust.
Stable competition advantage: Hilton hotel & Resorts developed competitive advantage in the market place by providing customers with what they need. But as competitors arises, traditional services become old fashioned. An important policy to serve customers is to make a stable competitive advantage so that competitors cannot duplicate and perform the same service.
Good working environment: A good working environment is an important stepping stone towards serving creativity and innovation to the customers. And a positive work environment will help Hilton Hotel & Resorts to build a strong customer base as it will have the foundation of organization oriented employees.
Cost Leadership: According to Dessler (2015), firms that sell or provide service at the lowest cost than other competitors in the marketplace are known as Cost Leadership. Hilton Hotel & Resorts need to identify what they incur when they provide service to customers and properly set up the price for those service and possibly at low cost.
Increasing Trust: When a company meet all the expectations of the customers, value their words and comments and understand the value of customer lifetime value can be successful (Garbarino & Johnson, 1999). Hilton Hotel & Resorts can create customer equity, value their opinion and try their best to follow those complaints when improving their service and in this way, they can achieve mass customer’s trust which will increase its goodwill.
Others include
Building an attitude of listening to the customers.
Thanking customers after each purchase.
Responding to the phone calls and emails.
Purposes of evaluating a customer service policy, indicating how this can assist future staff training and development
A major component in serving customers is to evaluate the purposes of different types of customer service policy. A company should evaluate it in such a way so that it can assist future stuff training and develop them to contribute to the company’s effort towards achieving competitive advantages. According to the Bruch & Winchester(2004), evaluating customer policy helps to determine the following things that can assist future stuff training and development:
Identifying customer’s needs, wants and expectations from a particular company.
Checking whether the existing customer service policies requires any modifications or redesign.
Requirements of special training to the employees to implement new customer service policy.
Requirements of motivation to the employees to implement new customer service policy.
Several methods can be used to evaluate customer service policy that guide as a reference point to the stuff training process (Shemwell, Yavas & Bilgin, 1998). These can be:
Developing a feedback channels so that employees can communicate their problems that they face when they implement new customer service policy.
Continuously observe employees to assist in what they need and whether they are meeting the expectation of the company.
Invite customers to express their opinion through short survey.
Continuously review customer’s feedbacks.
Task 3
Assessing the sources of information on customer requirements and satisfaction levels
Customer’s satisfactions and requirements is determined by the experiences that customers have with the company at every time they purchase products. Hilton Hotel & Resorts can use the following methods as a sources of collecting information about customer’s requirements and satisfaction levels and also assess it:
Oral and written customer feedback: Oral communication is the exchange of information from a person to another person via verbal or visual aids. Presentation, meetings, personal interviews etc. are the examples of oral Communication. Hilton Hotel & Resorts can assess oral customer feedback in the following ways(Boyatzis & Ratti, 2009)
Asking people routine questions to obtain information.
Giving some instructions to the informants so that answers can be easily given.
Following some instructions sample to ask question about company’s service.
Transforming the collected information with others especially with employees to resolve conflicts, like customer complaints.
Written communication is the oldest form of collecting information from other persons. Hilton Hotel & Resorts can assess written customer feedback via letters, reports etc.
Social Media: Social media has become very popular source for collecting customer’s feedback nowadays. There are several ways by which a company can assess social media customer’s feedback (Marketing Donut, 2016).
Establishing connection with the customers via various types of social media like Facebook, Twitter or Google plus.
Develop and use Blogs to update the customers about company’s new products or service.
Encouraging customers to give their feedback by posting on the company’s social media page.
Developing and training employees to respond to the online feedbacks especially on the social sites.
Growing a tendency to make apology on the social sites immediately when customers give negative feedback.
Market Research: Market research refers to the conducting critical evaluation of the market to determine customer’s needs, wants and demands. There are many ways by which Hilton Hotel & Resorts can analyze their market and potential customers to serve. Among them, portfolio analysis can be helpful. Portfolio analysis is the process by which a company determines which product and business make up that company (Kotler & Armstrong, 2001). The main purpose of the portfolio analysis is to determine strength and weaknesses of a company and then overcoming those weaknesses and using those strength to achieve competitive advantages. Hilton Hotel & Resorts can use another techniques to analyze market. That is SWOT analysis.
Company records: Company records is an important source for measuring customer satisfaction. Company records can be various types. It includes-
Inventory Position: Inventory records helps a company to identify whether it has available products or services to serve to customers. It also helps to determine stock out and backorders which dissatisfy customers.
Return Records & Allowance Policy: Once a company analyze its return records and also allowance policy, it can identify whether customers are happy with the products or they are sending strong negative message that they did not like the products or services.
Research on customer requirements and satisfaction levels, with the suggestion of potential improvements
There are various ways to research on the customer satisfaction and requirements. There are six steps to be followed (Edward Lowe, 2016). These are:
Identify main objectives regarding customer satisfaction.
Selecting a person who should complete the survey
Develop the survey questionnaire
Properly administer the survey
Capture the results and analyze it
Make the result information available to everyone & communicate the results to the employees.
A research conducted on the Hilton Hotel & Resorts have found the information which can identify potential customer satisfaction and requirements and if there is any suggestion need to have potential improvements.
Report Rankings:
The followings are the report rankings for the Hilton Hotel & Resorts(J.D.Power, 2015)
Hilton Hotel & Resorts is at the highest among the other hotels in terms of Loyalty. Its average score is 727 based on 1000 point scale.
Hilton Hotel & Resorts perform better on the variety of benefits and reward programs.
It has highest score on the IHG Rewards club. It’s score is 721 based on 1000 point scale
Hilton Hotel & Resorts have taken the top position among the seven hotel Companies
It has highest score on the ACSI Customer satisfaction
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Key Findings and Suggestion for potential improvements:
Research on the customer satisfaction and requirement helped to identify some major key findings. Some of which can be used as a suggestion to improve the existing customer service or satisfaction system. These can be following:
There are some gap in overall satisfaction among the customers in case of service they purchase. The gap is 134 point (J.D.Power, 2015).
Satisfaction with the loyalty programs is at the top among the Generation Y compared to the other traditional generation for example generation X, baby boomers.
Members who are delighted are 86 percent with the loyalty and the rewards program of the Hilton Hotel & Resorts.
Suggestions:
Hilton Hotel & Resorts needs to improve their service provision by creating service segments.
They need to target their customers according to target based. Target can be based on generation wise.
Time to time customer survey needed to be conducted to identify whether customers are highly satisfied or dissatisfied.
Employee must be properly trained to convey proper customer service rendered to loyal customers.
Proper inventory management can help the Hilton Hotel & Resorts to eliminate stock out and back orders.
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