Monitoring, Adjusting and Reviewing Customer Service

In the previous section of this module we outlined numerous strategies for monitoring the customer service delivery of individuals and the work team. However, it is also vital to monitor customer service delivery of the organisation as a whole. This can then allow the organisation to identify areas of organisational underperformance and make changes as necessary. Strategies for monitoring customer service should be embedded into every organisation’s customer service plans. It is vital to monitor your organisation’s progress in order to maintain quality customer service over the long-term.

In an ideal world, organisations would monitor every aspect of customer interactions and service delivery. Unfortunately, in practice, most organisations simply do not that the resources for that kind of monitoring. Deciding what needs to be monitored will vary depending on the organisation and its service strategies. It is important for managers to consider what the most important areas to monitor are for their specific organisation. Some common areas are:

• Customer satisfaction
• Customer complaints
• Customer retention
• Sales conversion
• Efficiency in delivery of services 
• Efficient use of resources
• Product quality

How an organisation choses to monitor service delivery will obviously depend upon which areas of service delivery they chose to focus on. While there are countless strategies that an organisation can use in order to monitor service levels, three of the most commonly used strategies are:

1. The use of customer relationship management systems. A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a system used to collect, store and manage information on all customer interactions (this includes marketing, leads, sales, and feedback). Many organisations will use a CRM system to monitor overall organisational performance (Baran and Galka 2013). Depending upon the system and the information recorded within it, CRM systems can typically run reports on multiple critical customer service measures such as KPI’s, sales, customer retention, enquiries, and customer satisfaction results.
   
   An effective CRM system is only as reliable as the information being recorded within it. Therefore, it is important that all staff are made aware of the importance of accurate record keeping and how this develops a strong database. Effective CRM systems can also be used to communicate organisational goals and strategies to staff members and assist in decision-making processes. 
2. Encouraging ongoing customer feedback. Organisations must have processes in place to ensure regular customer feedback is obtained. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure that it is easy for customers to submit feedback at every point of interaction. Some strategies for this include:
   • Establishing a system for your employees to be able to record any feedback that customers supply during their interactions. 
   • Ensuring that “Comment Cards” are prominently displayed. 
   • Having and easy-to-find “Contact Us” or “Feedback Form” on your website.
   • Including a reference to your feedback systems in all customer interactions. 
   Ongoing customer feedback must be encouraged and acknowledged. Additionally, organisations must regularly review such feedback in order to identify key trends and then utilise this data to adapt service delivery to meet customer needs.
3. Customer interviews and surveys. While regular customer feedback is a great source of information, organisations will usually have specific questions that they want answered. Organisations can use a number of strategies to gather such data, including customer interviews, focus groups and surveys.
   
   The benefits of focus groups and customer interviews is that they are a great way of obtaining qualitative data or feedback from customers. This is because a person can explain, in detail, their particular issue during an interview. Their complaints or opinions can be explained  and the interviewer can ask questions to clarify details. Quantitative data can also be collected during interviews by asking ‘closed’ questions which contain a weighted or numerical response.
   
   One of the lower-cost strategies utilised by most organisations are customer questionnaires or surveys. These can conducted online and can be used to provide the organisation with accurate and targeted information on its customer service delivery. Surveys can also collect qualitative or quantitative data. Qualitative data is obtained by asking ‘open’ or long answer questions. Quantitative data is obtained by asking ‘closed’ questions which contain a weighted or numerical response.
   
   An example of a basic quantitative Customer Satisfaction Survey is included below. This survey is purely quantitative because all the questions are ‘closed’ and ask for a weighted or numeric response:

There is little point gathering customer service data unless you plan on using it. Organisations must review the data they have gathered and compare it to their organisational plans for customer service. If there is a large variance between the established benchmarks and the customer feedback then it is important to work to understand why.

As you can see from the previous case study, if an organisation is not meeting their customer service delivery standards they must first conduct review processes to find out why and then make the necessary changes in order to get customer service delivery back on track. Essentially, the organisation may need to reassess how it is doing things in order to reach its goals.

Taking action to meet customer service needs can take on many forms depending on what needs to change. For example, an organisation may decide to:

• Review specific policies and/or procedures that are causing problems or establish specific policies and/or procedures from specific problematic situations. For example, if a lack of a specific policy is leading to customer service problems, it would be appropriate to establish and implement a strategy to alleviate these problems. 
• Deliver further employee training. If customer feedback revealed issues with the customer service or product knowledge then this would indicate a need for further staff training. Additionally, training could assist with other issues such as poor sales conversion rates.
• Review service standards. If and organisation is failing to deliver quality customer service because the current standards are not what customers actually want, then it is time to review of the service standards. For example, if the organisation is providing a basic level of service when their customers want an excellent level of service then standards must be amended.
• Change a service offering to better accommodate the needs of their customers. For example, customers may prefer to purchase an organisation’s products in bundles rather than individually.
• Purchase additional resources to effectively deliver on a higher standard of service. Perhaps the organisation would benefit from better equipment or newer technology to deliver on their standards. As in the case scenario of Fit for Mums, there are times when a business cannot deliver on a customer service standard unless invests in further resources such as new equipment or technology. Monitoring whether there are sufficient or adequate resources to meet service standards will come down to seeking feedback from customers, as well as open communication channels between team members and managers.
  
  It is important for an organisation to review all of its resources and how these impact upon customer service standards. For example:
  • Buildings/facilities. Is the physical environment of the organisation sufficient to deliver service standards? Is it clean and professional? Are there any work health and safety issues to consider?
  • Equipment. Is the equipment capable of producing the required quality? Does the organisation need to update technology, tools, furniture or equipment?
  • Technology. Is additional investment in computer systems or other technology required to meet customer service needs?
  • People. Are current staffing levels sufficient to deliver customer service standards.
  • Finances. Are additional financial resources required to make required changes?

When making any adjustments, it is vital to consider:

• What is the most effective method of change?
• What needs to be done, by who, and by when?
• How will it be done? What specific tasks are involved, what are the milestones and who is responsible for the changes? 
• What resources are required?
• Have changes been sufficiently documented?
• How will future performance be monitored?

It is vital to document any changes made, effectively communicate these changes, and ensure that these changes are reflected in updated organisational strategy documents and customer service standards.

Finally, it is important to remember that monitoring customer service delivery is a continual process – it is never finished! We live in an ever-changing world and the needs and expectations of customers will continue to evolve. Organisations must ensure that they continually plan for, deliver and monitor quality customer service.

This section of the module we focused on monitoring and adjusting customer service delivery. You learned how to monitor organisational performance, how to reviewing the resultant data and how to adjust organisational policies and processes to better meet customer service needs.