Enhancing Customer Service Management

Introduction

Customer service management is the way to interact with the customers and improve the experience of the consumers in long run, where all the corporate companies try to develop effective strategic planning for customer’s relationship management, so that they can strengthen their customer’s base and run the organisation for long run (Anderson, Evans and Gilliland, 2018). The aim of the report is to discuss the theories and concept of customer’s service management as well as managing service quality as well as in the second part of the report there will be proper identification of the key issues in the Benson Hotel in managing customer’s service quality. The study also provides a scope to recommend some suitable suggestions for the hotel to improve customer service quality so that it is possible to retain new and old customers with high quality hospitality services. Benson hotel is a 287 room historic hotel building, situated in USA. The hotel is efficient to serve the customer efficiently with high quality service, hotel environment, quality room and their facilities at the hotel. The report is helpful to identify the key issues in the hotel to manage customer’s service quality and suggest suitable strategy to improve customer’s service quality at Benson Hotel.

Theories of customer service quality management

The organisations in the recent era of globalisation try to manage customer’s service quality in order to retain the new as well as old customers in the organisation for running the operational activities strategically. The customer’s service management is essential for the organisations to strengthen the customer’s base and expand the business strategically. As per the human resource strategy wheel of managing customer’s service quality, the human resource is the major resource of the organisation to handle the organisational operations and service quality to satisfy the customers. The employees are the major stakeholders of the business to manage the customer’s ad understand their needs and preferences and according to the perspectives of the customers, it is possible for the employees to manage the quality of the customer service.

The employees try to develop customer oriented service delivery to satisfy the customers and strengthen the customer’s base in the organisation. In this regard, it is the role of the leaders to manage the employees at the workplace in order to improve their efficiencies so that the staff members are able to maximise the quality of customer service. The leaders try to hire the right people and support them with proper information and strategy for lead them towards achieving future success. Arranging the training program and technical course for the employees is necessary to i8mprove learning activities at the workplace and maximise their skill and abilities to perform better and it in turn helps to maximise the organisational performance (Afshar et al., 2019). Additionally, it is necessary to empower the employees for understanding the customer’s preferences and developing effective strategic planning as per the customer’s requirements. In this regard, proper empowerment of the employees and promote teamwork are effective to manage the employees and retain them for long run, where the staff become efficient and technically experienced to serve the customers efficiently. In addition to this, providing supportive technology and equipment, managing transparency and accountability, developing service oriented process and improving trust are effective to manage the employees and share organisational vision where they feel motivated and valued in the workplace and they try to contribute positively in improving the customer’s service.

In order to improve the service quality of the organisation, it is necessary to improve customer loyalty and as per the loyalty ladder, there are different phases such as prospect, customers, client, supporter, advocate and partner. The customers are essential stakeholder of the business to establish the brand successfully and in this regard, all the organisations recently try to focus on customer relationship management where the entrepreneurs try to improve trust and loyalty among the customers. The leader and managers are looking for the prospect, for targeting and segmenting the customers for conducting business. Through developing proper marketing strategy for successful promotion of the products and services, the organisations try to retain the customers and improve trust and loyalty by continuous business process. As per the wheel of loyalty, the customer’s loyalty must be improved where all the corporate firms try to develop strong bonding and corporate relationship with the customers by creating values for them (Swaminathan et al., 2018).

As per the customer’s loyalty wheel, it is necessary to build foundation of loyalty by segmenting the market according to the customer’s needs and organisational capabilities, acquiring the customers for value proposition, managing customer’s base and delivering high quality service. Additionally, it is necessary for the organisations to create loyalty bonds where loyalty rewards, program, high service level and recognition and incentives are effective to develop bonding with the customers, where customer’s values are maximised well. Hereby, it is necessary for the organisations to improve loyalty and trust among the customers and to will further provide a scope to the business to run their operations efficiently and maximise their service quality, where the employees are efficient to build corporate relationship with the customers and provide quality service according to the needs and personal preferences.

Additionally, in the recent era of globalisation, all the organisations try to develop effective strategic planning of customer relationship management, where the entrepreneurs and the leaders try to strengthen their customer’s base for running the business efficiently. As per the integrated customer relationship, strategic development and customer strategic planning through targeting and segmenting, tiring service and churn management are necessary to restructure the organisational operations (Piccoli, Lui and Grün, 2017). Value creation process must be handle properly and per the theory of integrated customer relationship management, where the customisation of the service, loyalty rewards and high tier service are mandatory to be managed in the workplace and additionally, it is the responsibility of the managers and staff to create values for all the customers acknowledging their personal needs and preferences as well as delivering quality service to satisfy the consumers.

the organisational resources, employees capabilities and IT infrastructure are playing crucial role in maximising the quality of the service, where the staff are capable in managing the quality customers service by supporting the consumers and fulfilling their personal requirements. The back office manager and front desk staff are also efficient to handle the activities to manage customer’s relationship where the activities are direct marketing, sale force management, outlet management, managing e-commerce and m-commerce services and telephony, which are important to handle the customers efficiently (Grønholdt and Martensen, 2019). The performance assessment program and continuous improvement of the service are also effective to create values for the customers and also for the employees where the reward program are effective o retain them And motivate them to perform better to meet the customer’s expectations.

In order to improve service quality, there are different dimensions which are reliability, assurance tangible, empathy and responsiveness, through which it is possible for the organisations to handle their customers and maximise their satisfaction level by delivering high quality service.

In order to improve the service quality, it is necessary to maintain reliability of the services through dependability in handling the customers service problem, maintaining error free records through computerised database, providing services in promised time and performing the services within right time, through which the organisation can provide quality service to all the customers (Al-Ababneh et al., 2018). Additionally, it is also necessary for the organisation to assure the quality of services where the employees are knowledgeable and technically skilled to support the customers and provide proper solutions to resolve the customer’s queries and moreover, the employees assure that the customers will be safe under the support of the employee (Tefera and Govender, 2017). Making the service tangible is also necessary, through implementing modern infrastructure an upgrading the latest technology, visually appealing facilities and developing proper ambience. responsiveness is also necessary equipment, through which the organisations can improve the quality of customers service, where the employees keep all the customers informed, promote the services to the customers and other factors such as readiness to respond the customer’s request immediately on a urgent basis and willingness to help them are effective to maximise the quality of the services at the organisation. Additionally, showing empathy is another component, where the employees try to acknowledge and understand the needs and preferences of the customers and they try to deal the customer’s queries with care and attention.

Hereby, there are major factors, through which the service quality of the companies can be improved properly and the factors are customer relationship management, human resource strategy for improving service quality, customer loyalty program and the dimensions of service quality. These factors are contributing were the leaders and the managers try to manage the service quality properly in order to maximise customers satisfaction and retain them for long run. Through managing empathy, assurance, reliability and responsiveness, the employees can tackle the customers and guide them properly to manage their queries (Chen et al., 2017). Additionally, the loyalty program are effective to strengthen the customer’s base of the companies, where the employees try to create values for the consumers through delivering quality service and effective products according to their needs and preferences. Providing excellent service through the experienced and technically skilled workforce, developing customer oriented services and values based service are effective to manage the quality of the service, where the companies can improve the quality of service through continuous improvement and utilisation of latest Information Technology (Bharwani and Mathews, 2016).

Internal customer service delivery issues in Benson hotel

Leadership and managerial role are important in Benson hotel, where the leaders and managers are playing crucial role in reshaping the business strategy and developing the quality service efficiently for the benefits of the customers. The major issue in managing service quality is lack of technological advancement in the organisation, for which the back office managers and front desk officers fail to manage the customers in the organisation (Lyu et al., 2016). Secondly, there is another issue which is lack of communication which in turn raise the problem of poor collaboration. Hereby, due to lack of communication and poor collaboration, the employees fail to develop partnership working practice in Benson hotel and lack of team building activities further deteriorate the quality of the customers service. In addition to this, there is another issue, which is lack of understanding about the customer’s needs and preferences, where the employees are confused about the actual requirements of the customers for which they cannot maximise values for the customers. Moreover, the issue of lack of technical skill and poor knowledge about service delivery is another critical problem in the organisation Benson hotel, where the employees are not experienced well to manage the customers in the organisation. Lack of support from the leaders and the managers and proper organisational infrastructure in Benson hotel are also the other key issues, for which it becomes difficult of the employees to handle the customers and deliver high quality service to them.

Recommending suitable planning or effective internal customer service delivery

It is necessary for the Benson hotel to develop effective strategic planning in order to mitigate the issue of poor service quality and improve internal environment for delivering high tier service to all the customers. In this regard, the recommendations are such as,

The Benson hotel needs to arrange effective training and technical class for the employees, so that the staff can handle the technology and e-commerce and m-commerce service to respond the customers. It is necessary for the front desk staff to respond the customers immediately and the willingness to help the customers must be improved so that the customers can feel safe to discuss over their issues and resolve their queries with proper cooperation with the organisation representatives.

The leader of the Benson hotel needs to support and direct the employees and the back office management team to provide high tier service by managing online customer data base and security of the data as well as implementing the latest technology for developing e-commerce and m-commerce service, so that the customers can get 24*7 services from the staff.

Improving cooperation is mandatory strategy for delivering high quality service and in this regard the leader and managers in Benson hotel need to empower the staff in the decision making process where the staff are well acknowledged about the needs and preferences of the customers and they are able to develop effective way to serve the customers efficiently.

Improving communication is also necessary strategy, where the leader of Benson hotel needs to implement Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for enhancing the internal and external communication so that the staff can communicate with the internal staff and with the customers efficiently for understanding their preferences and expectations from Benson hotel, which in turn helps the staff to serve the customers innovatively as per their preferences.

Tangibility must be maintained well in the Benson hotel, where the managers must be concerned about the quality of rooms, arrangements, additional facilities at room such as television and Wi-Fi as well as catering service so that the customers feel valued and enjoy the services with safety and security.

Customer loyalty program must be developed in Benson hotel, so that the staff can let the customers feel valued at the hotel and the customers can get rewards and incentives in choosing the best services at Benson hotel according to their preferences.

Evaluating potential cost for customer service failure

There are potential costs for customers service failure, and poor customer base is one of the major cost where the organisation Benson hotel fail to retain the customers in long run due to poor service quality. The business cannot maximise profitability and sales volume due to poor service quality and this is also another cost, where profit volume and sales cannot not be maximised well, as the employees cannot deliver quality service to the customers in Benson hotel. The hotel may face difficulties in running their hospitality operations efficiently in the market where the hotel also will face problem in gaining high competitive advantage in the hospitality sector across the globe (Cheng et al., 2019). Another major cost of poor service delivery is poor brand image and adverse customer’s experience, where the company may face difficulties in establishing the brand with positive brand image.

Conclusion

it can b concluded that, the Benson hotel needs to resolve the internal issues of lack of cooperation, poor communication, lack of support and training program, as well as poor technological advancement so that it is possible to overcome the cost of the poor service delivery in the hotel. It is necessary for the hotel to empower the customers and develop effective strategic planning of the employees so that the staff can manage the customers and deliver high quality service for maximising the values for all the consumers.

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