Case Study

A customer service plan is initiated at Olyn Gas Supplies after a customer survey identifies the following quality service gaps:

· Delivery time of new cylinders to consumers average 1.5 days over the benchmarked standards.

· An unknown number of phone injuries have been missed due to the single-line phone system.

· Repeat business represents 48 per cent of business. This is below the required standard of 75 percent.

· Olyn customers are very happy with the price of gas. On average it is 12 per cent lower than the competition.

The service plan includes a recommendation to install a better phone system that could handle up for four lines, and a review of the delivery schedule process.

1. Explain how the two measures recommended by Olyn show concern for customer needs.

2. Describe any further recommendations you would make to Olyn management to ensure the plans achieve the quality, time and cost specifications of the costumer.

Question 2

In a group, discuss the methods used to monitor team performance for customer service in your organisation, including knowing whether they are following standards, legislative requirements and service charters. What are the most effective and least effective methods, and why you believe so?

A customer may require a product or service just outside your organ

Question 4

What are the attributes of successful customer service staff?

What are some attributes of an effective customer service manager?

Question 5

1. An angry client calls your customer service team regarding a recent late delivery of one of his orders. The problem is escalated to your attention. 

· Describe the methods you could use when addressing abusive customer behaviour between a client and one of your staff members. Describe the techniques you could use to improve customer relations.

· Develop a plan that future staff members could refer to, to maintain a consistent approach to this behaviour. 

· What techniques might you use when dealing with a customer with special needs?

2. A costumer appears at your organization on morning demanding ‘better service from your staff.’ What actions would you take at this point to establish the real needs of the costumer? Consider different strategies for identifying and resolving the problem including ways of gaining feedback from the costumer. Refer to any legislation that you should consider. 

3. With references to the International Customers Service Institute model for customer service (TICSI, 2008), describe the ways your organization monitors its customers for ongoing customer service quality. Suggest methods your organization might use to improve its current systems and monitor and manage them in the future. 

4. Explain how effective records management contributes to the ongoing improvement of customer service. Consider and refer to the process currently used in your organization. 

5. What role do public relations and promotions play in a customer service strategy?

Question 5

When answering questions in the weekly Discussion forums, please remember to actively work on being both clear and specific in your writing. Actively working on your communication skill here, means writing your ideas out as fully as possible and not resorting to truncation, text-speak or casual tones in grammar. You can become clear and specific in your academic writing by not only planning and thinking carefully about how you are responding, but by also including considered reasons for selecting and discussing particular aspects of a question. Remember, 100-200 words is not much room to discuss your ideas, and you are not expected to grapple with everything, so be selective in what you choose to discuss. You will need to demonstrate and convince your Assessor of your understanding and explicit engagement with the online course materials. This is a question and answer forum. In order to see other responses to these questions, you must first post your answer.