CUSTOMER SERVICE MATTERS

     Every company needs to provide an excellent customer service to their clients in order to be successful. It is defined as the set of activities and programs that retailers apply to make the shopping experience more rewarding for their customers (McGraw-Hill, 2007). By having a good customer service, it is easy to retain and gain new customers. Retaining customers instead of letting them go to your competitors could increase your profits by 25% to 40%. Companies need to understand what customers expect from them so they can at least meet their customers’ expectations or exceed them.

     Customers evaluate the service quality based on their expectations and experiences. What they expect depend from their prior experiences and the quantity of knowledge that they have about it. It varies by store type, for example; customers assume that a specialty store such as Liz Claiborne will have a better customer service than a discount store such as Target because specialty stores are more expensive.
Also, they measure the quality of a store based on their experiences. They would like to receive unexpected services and this could exceed their expectations. Examples of extra services that a company could offer are to put their telephone number at the top of every webpage, to offer free shipping and free return, to provide guarantees in their products. An example of a company that cares about their customers is Zappos.com, they listen to their customers and if they do not have a product that a customer wants, they will recommend a place where they could find it.

     For companies, it is really hard to measure the customer satisfaction and the customer service that they are offering. One measure that they use is the “Mystery Shopping”. What this means is that companies pay someone to evaluate retailers while masquerading as regular shoppers (McGraw-Hill, 2007). It is an objective way to analyze the customer service because you are finding out how your employees treat your customers by pretending to be one. This study provides information about where the firm is performing well and what areas they need to improve.

     If the customer service of a company is failing, it is important to do a service recovery effort. The steps that companies could follow to solve this are to listen to their customer, then provide a fair solution, and finally they should resolve the problem quickly. People want a result quickly so they can make a difference with their customers. It is true that improving their customer service by providing training to their employees could be expensive but it is worst to lose their customers by having a bad service. Most of dissatisfied customers will never shop there again, and also they will tell other people about their experience at the store.
  What companies should learn about this is that customer service could differentiate their firms and this is a strategic advantage that they should have to be better than your competitors.