Customer Service Management

Introduction

Customer’s service management refers to the practices of strategizing the organisational operations through creativity and technological innovation in order to manage and analyse the customer’s interactions and data throughout the customer’s lifecycle (Bavik, 2020). Through customers service management, it is possible or the organisational management team to acknowledge the actual needs and preferences of the client as well as develop creative planning to serve the customers with quality products and efficient services of the firms, so that it would be possible to meet the expectations of the customers (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola, 2018). Through this study, it is possible to analyse the tactics of customer service management in the in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries, where the sectors are service oriented and customers service department is the most important organisational activity to retain the customers and strengthen their customers base strategically in long run. The study provides a scope to analyse the market demand and customers preferences in the in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries and review the organisational activities to manage their customers. The customer’s service encounters and the examples of hospitality firms are effective to review the strategic planning for customer’s service management.

Role of customer service within a diverse business management sector

The role of the customer service management is crucial in the events, hospitality, and sport and tourism service industries where the customer service team at the organisations try to manage the clients by fulfilling their personal requirements. It is the basic role of the customer’s service team to meet the customer’s expectations by providing best solutions to them so that they can fulfil their needs and preferences (Myo, Khalifa and Aye, 2019). The role of the customer’s service management in the events, hospitality, and sport and tourism service industries is to help the customers for resolving their queries and providing suitable answers for meeting their preferences. It is also playing a crucial role to maximise customer’s satisfaction and improve the quality standard of the organisational services to lead the brand strategically towards achieving the organisational aim. The customer’s service management is also beneficial to attend all the phone calls and emails at the organisation in order to acknowledge their requirements and personal needs, so that the service providers can strategies the whole operations activities to meet their preferences (Rosete et al., 2020). Moreover, the organisations in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries try to develop strong customer service management team by hiring the experienced customer service management and other staff members to attend each client efficiently and cooperate with them for delivering better quality services. Moreover, communication is playing an important role to satisfy the customers where customer’s relationship management can be ensured, as continuous interaction is helpful for building trust and loyalty among the staff members and customers. This further provides a scope to the customer’s service management team to handle the clients and strengthen their customer’s base in long run.

On the other hand, there is crucial role of customer’s service management in the events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries across the globe, where the service providers try to utilise social media and AI driven frequently asked questions (FAQ) in order to renovate the whole system and meet the client expectations successfully. Robotics is also important in this regard to support the customer’s service management and it has crucial impacts on the organisation to handle their clients and retain them for long run. Customer service fits well with the Pareto principle, or 20/80 rule, where 20% contribution through working progress and telecommunication services ensures that there would be 80% results in the firm (King and Zhang, 2017). Hence, it is crucial to create values for the customers and also develop one to one communication, where the customers can interact with the organisational representatives and meet their expectations to choose the best quality services in the events, hospitality, and sport and tourism service industries. Tracking customer behaviour and reviewing their feedback are other activities under the customer’s service management which further help to maximise organisational revenue and profitability in long run through customer’s retention across the globe. Customer outreach is another positive impact where the organisational staff can find the clients and analyse the market trend through acknowledging key performance indicators of the brand (Afshar, Polas, Imtiaz and Saboor, 2019). Customer raise and feedback are handled well and the organisational representative tries to review the feedback for satisfying the customers, analysing their demand and improving the organisational service quality through technological innovation.

Customers in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries

Customer segmentation is mandatory to identify the clients in the events; hospitality, sport and tourism service industries and retain them for long run through strategizing the hospitality services. The major customers as per the income status are middle and high income class, where the organisations in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries aim to target the customers who can afford the travel packages and choose the best one as per their needs and preferences (Juanamasta et al., 2019). Moreover, as per the geographical areas, the target customers are the people living in the urban areas and metropolitan cities. Demographic segmentation is effective where the organisations target the age group between 18 years and 55 years, where the willingness to travel the world is high among the people. The organisations target the backpackers and solos travellers, where in the recent years, the numbers of solo travellers and backpackers are increasing at a rapid rate.

They spend their time in exploring new places and enjoy adventurous traveling across the new international markets. The customer’s service management in this regard is necessary to be maintained well to communicate with them and create bonding and trust for retaining them towards having good travel packaging and adventurous travelling (Hashem, Freihat and Homsi, 2020). The number of couple is also increasing in the hospitality and tourism sector, where they love to choose extensive travel packages and also select good locations for their holidays. Moreover, the business travellers are other customers who prefer to travel in international markets for their business purposes and the demand for the event management and hospitality is high across the globe, where the organisations try to provide the best quality services for arranging events and accommodations for them (Bacile, 2020). Moreover, the families are also interested in events, travel and other hospitality services for family trip and enjoy their leisure time. Hence, the customer’s segmentation is effective to acknowledge the customers in the events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries, where the organisational representatives try to target the clients and retain them to enjoy the events and hospitality services.

Customer demands and needs in events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries

For analysing the customer’s needs and personal demands in the events, hospitality, sport and tourism service industries, it is essential to analyse the Maslow's hierarchy of needs 1943, where there are several needs to able analysed in order to strategies the hospitality services for meeting the expectations of the customers. As per the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 1943, there are five needs such as physiological, safety and security, love and belongingness, self-esteem and self-actualisation (Hinson et al., 2020). The physiological needs are mandatory to manage customer’s services and analysing their personal needs and preferences. As per the physiological needs, the factors water, food and other basic needs must be considered in order to provide the basic requirements of the clients. The hospitality managers are concerned to arrange food, water and shelter for the customers through managing accommodations, food and lodging system, where the demand of the customers are to have good accommodation with cleanliness and air, safe water to drink and food where hygiene is the major factor that is mandatory to be managed well in the restaurant, event places and hotels (Marsico et al., 2018).

On the other hand, safety and security is also important needs of the clients, where the customers are concerned about having safe place to stay, security system with CCTV camera at the hotel premises and event places, as well as safety measures at the location in case of any accidental incidents. Love and belongingness are also crucial, where the customers prefer to have good corporate bonding with the organisational representatives and get continuous assistance and support from them in order to meet personal expectations by having efficient hospitality services. Self-esteem and self-actualisation needs are also essential to create values for the customers, where the organisational customer service team are also concerned about meeting their expectations, create good environment, and make them comfortable to enjoy their holidays and leisure time.

Management process of customer service within business organisations

The organisations in events, hospitality, and sport and tourism service industries are efficient to handle their customers through business creativity and technological innovation. For example, Marriott International is the famous hotel business which operations across international markets and the team members are experienced to manage their customers through communication and continuous cooperation. The staff members mainly focus on telephonic conversation to engage with the clients across the markets and manage their bookings as per their personal needs and preferences (Žilinskienė and Norkus, 2021). It is the role of the customer service manager to handle all the activities in the hotel, from arranging tables for the customers, providing good food, customer’s services at the hotels, room service facilities and others, where the team members are working cooperatively to meet the expectations of the clients. The major challenges in providing the customers the best quality services are lack of involvement of the clients in the system, where the staff members are not experienced enough to interact directly with the clients and create comfortable situation for having collaboration so that the staff members can acknowledge their requirements and deign the services accordingly (Afshar et al., 2019). Through technological innovation and business creativity, the Marriott International hotel manages their customer’s services quality, in which the managers and front line staff are able to communicate with email services, telephonic conversation and also through the organisational website, where the clients can share review and upload any queries for bookings and available services at the hotel.

On the other hand, Thomas Cook is the famous travel agency providing the quality hospitality services the clients. The company is operating across the international markets and arrange travel packages as per the client requirements. Hence, the organisation Thomas Cook mainly focuses on service encounter through communication with the client, so that it would be possible for them to acknowledge the actual needs and personal preferences of the clients. The organisational representatives develop robotics system and FAQ to interact with the customers and analyse their requirements and on the basis of that the expert team is able to arrange the tour packages and hospitality services with safety and security for the clients (Nwulu and Nwokah, 2018). Due to technical faults and presence of inexperienced staff at the organisation, the team sometimes face issues to handle the customers, but the organisation is efficient to maintain business ethics, creativity and technical innovation, where the senior customers service managers try to handle their clients through service encounter (Zhang et al., 2021). The telegenic conversation as well as email services are there to support the clients, as well as the FAQ services of Thomas Cook are also beneficial to support the customers and retain them for long run. Discover additional insights on Hospitality Consumer Behaviour and Insight by navigating to our other resources hub.

Conclusion

Customer’s service management is hereby important for the organisations under events, hospitality, and sport and tourism service industries in order to create values for the clients by delivering the best quality services. The major strategies of the organisations are to arranging accommodation, maintains safety and security, provide good food and lodging system, designing best tourism planning as per the client requirements as well as services the client with communication and continuous cooperation. Through technological innovation and robotics system, the companies try to enhance communication for acknowledging the requirement and expectations of the client. Moreover, the feedback analysis, email services and Information and Communication Technology or ICT are also developing well to handle the clients and deliver the best quality hospitality services for meeting their preferences.

Reference list

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