Service quality

One that is commonly us defines services quality as the extent to which a service meets customer’s needs or expectations. Today the most popular model of service quality in use is service quality gap model, perceived service quality as the difference between consumer expectations and their perceptions.

Service , being intangible, the quality model has to be subjective (rather than objective like specs, BOM etc) and hence is dependent on customer’s perception and evaluation.  A  legal service client will judge the quality of outcome, or how the court case was delivered, and also the quality of the process. Process quality also includes such things as lawyer’s timeliness, the responsiveness in returning phone calls, his empathy for the client, his courtesy and interviewing skills. Similarly, a restaurant customer will judge the service on customer’s perception of the meals (technical outcome quality) and on how the meal was served and on how the employees interacted with customers (process quality). Some researchers found that customers consider following five dimensions in their assessment of service quality:

1. Reliability: This dimension is shown to have the highest influence on the customer perception of quality. It is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. When service delivery fails the first time, a service provider may get a second chance to provide the same service in the phase called ‘Recovery’. The expectations of the customer are usually higher during the recovery phase than before because of the initial failure. Thus, the service provider is likely to come under greater scrutiny, thereby increasing the possibility of customer dissatisfaction. The reliability dimension, which ensures timely delivery time after time, helps the service provider to meet the customer expectations fully at the lowest level of service expectation.
2. Responsiveness: It is the willingness of the service firm’s staff to help customers and to provide them with prompt service. The customers may have queries, special requests, complaints, etc. In fact, each customer may have problems of his or her own. While the front-end employee may have been trained or equipped to deliver standardized services, the customers want them to go beyond this limit. It is the willingness to help the customer or willingness to go that extra distance that is responsiveness. The second aspect of responsiveness is speedy response to a customer request. When response is delayed customers usually loses interest. Many sales representatives respond on the phone, ‘I will call you back’. The call is never returned. The customer draws his or her own conclusion about the quality of service he is likely to receive in the future.
3. Assurance: It is defined as the ability of the company to inspire trust and confidence in the service delivery. It refers to knowledge and courtesy of the service firm’s employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence in the customer toward the company. This dimension is considered vital for services that involve high risk as customers may not be able to evaluate all the uncertainties involved in the process by them. There are property developers/builders who provide a list of previous buyers of flats or apartments to potential buyers. The evaluation of construction services is beyond technical capabilities of most buyers. However, the prospective customers are free to call the previous customers. When prospective customers hear from them about the company and its satisfactory delivery, they feel assured and develop a more positive attitude towards the company.
4. Empathy: It refers to the caring, individualized attention the service firm provides each customer. When service provider puts himself in the shoes of the customers, he may see the customer’s viewpoint better. When customers feel that the provider is making his best effort to see their viewpoint, it may be good enough for most.
5. Tangibles: It refers to physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of a service firm’s employees. The job of the tangible and physical evidence of a service is multifunctional. When a patient in the waiting room of a clinic sees the doctor’s certificate, he becomes aware of the quality of service he is about to receive. Tangibles provide the customer proof of the quality of service.

Hence service marketing mix has 3 additional qualities : People, Process and Proof (Physical Evidence). 

These dimensions are relevant for banking, insurance, appliance repair and maintenance, securities brokerage, long distance telephone service, automobile repair service and others. The dimensions are also applicable to retail and business services. Sometimes customers will use all these dimensions to determine service quality perceptions at other times not. For example, in remote encounter such as an encounter with ATM, empathy is not likely to be relevant dimension and in an encounter such as scheduling a repair call, tangibles will not be relevant.

Using SERVQUAL INSTRUMENT to Measure Service Quality

It is formulated such that it measures the (lack of) service quality as the difference between customers’ expectations and their evaluation of the service they received. The first part of the questionnaire asks customers to indicate the level of service they would expect from a firm in a particular industry. The second part of the questionnaire asks customers to evaluate the service performed by a specific service firm.  

SERVQUAL uses 21 questions to measure the five dimensions of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Through SERVQUAL, firms can measure customers evaluations of their service performance. For example, if customers consistently give firm low scores for one dimension, such as reliability, then the firm’s management can take steps to improve that particular dimension of their service offering.

Gap 1: between consumer expectation and management perception

This gap arises when the management does not correctly perceive what the customers want. For instance, hospital administrators may think patients want better food, but patients may be more concerned with the responsiveness of the nurse. Key factors leading to this gap are:

• Insufficient marketing research
• Poorly interpreted information about the audience's expectations
• Research not focused on demand quality
• Too many layers between the front line personnel and the top level management

Gap 2: between management perception and service quality specification

Although the management might correctly perceive what the customer wants, they may not set an appropriate performance standard. An example would be when hospital administrators instruct nurses to respond to a request ‘fast’, but may not specify ‘how fast’. Gap 2 may occur due to the following reasons:

• Insufficient planning procedures
• Lack of management commitment
• Unclear or ambiguous service design
• Unsystematic new service development process

Gap 3: between service quality specification and service delivery

This gap may arise through service personnel being poorly trained, incapable or unwilling to meet the set service standard. The possible major reasons for this gap are:

• Deficiencies in human resource policies such as ineffective recruitment, role ambiguity, role conflict, improper evaluation and compensation system
• Ineffective internal marketing
• Failure to match demand and supply
• Lack of proper customer education and training

Gap 4: between service delivery and external communication

Consumer expectations are highly influenced by statements made by company representatives and advertisements. The gap arises when these assumed expectations are not fulfilled at the time of delivery of the service. For example, the hospital printed on the brochure may have clean and furnished rooms, but in reality it may be poorly maintained, in which case the patients' expectations are not met. The discrepancy between actual service and the promised one may occur due to the following reasons:

• Over-promising in external communication campaign
• Failure to manage customer expectations
• Failure to perform according to specifications

Gap 5: between expected service and experienced service

This gap arises when the consumer misinterprets the service quality. For example, a physician may keep visiting the patient to show and ensure care, but the patient may interpret this as an indication that something is really wrong.

Determinants

The ten determinants that may influence the appearance of a gap are:

1. Competence is the possession of the required skills and knowledge to perform the service. For example, there may be competence in the knowledge and skill of contact personnel, knowledge and skill of operational support personnel and research capabilities of the organization.
2. Courtesy is the consideration for the customer's property and a clean and neat appearance of contact personnel, manifesting as politeness, respect, and friendliness.
3. Credibility includes factors such as trustworthiness, belief and honesty. It involves having the customer's best interests at prime position. It may be influenced by company name, company reputation and the personal characteristics of the contact personnel.
4. Security enables the customer to feel free from danger, risk or doubt including physical safety, financial security and confidentiality.
5. Access is approachability and ease of contact. For example, convenient office operation hours and locations.
6. Communication means both informing customers in a language they are able to understand and also listening to customers. A company may need to adjust its language for the varying needs of its customers. Information might include for example, explanation of the service and its cost, the relationship between services and costs and assurances as to the way any problems are effectively managed.
7. Knowing the customer means making an effort to understand the customer's individual needs, providing individualized attention, recognizing the customer when they arrive and so on. This in turn helps to delight the customers by rising above their expectations.
8. Tangibles are the physical evidence of the service, for instance, the appearance of the physical facilities, tools and equipment used to provide the service; the appearance of personnel and communication materials and the presence of other customers in the service facility.
9. Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service in a dependable and accurate manner. The service is performed correctly on the first occasion, the accounting is correct, records are up to date and schedules are kept.
10. Responsiveness is the readiness and willingness of employees to help customers by providing prompt timely services, for example, mailing a transaction slip immediately or setting up appointments quickly.

By the early 1990s, the authors had refined the model to five factors that enable the acronym RATER:

1. Reliability: the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately
2. Assurance: the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence
3. Tangibles: the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials
4. Empathy: the provision of caring, individualized attention to customers
5. Responsiveness: the willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service

The simplified RATER model allows customer service experiences to be explored and assessed quantitatively and has been used widely by service delivery organizations.

summary Letter : April 2016 Elective Services Marketing Course : PGDM : SPJIMR

nt

WHAT  TRAVELS ? WHO TRAVELS ?

A product is a material object which travels from the people who make it to the people who use it. Many times the On the other hand, a service is an “act” for the people who benefit from it from the people who produce it and either the customers or the providers need to travel to the “site”. the act. produce business the people travel  the product travels and the logistics cost is significant. In the service business the people travel – mostly the  customers and sometimes the service providers – and the traveling is a major consideration in the services business.

“Market radius” in cement business

“Travel and parking convenience” in malls

“Night time shopping” is the new trend when there is less traffic

“Sell only where there is service location”in TV business

Teleconference reduces need to travel personally? Really ?

POSSIBLE  TO  INSPECT  BEFORE  BUYING ?  Customers like many of their products to be standardized but they want most of their services to be customized. This is also because a product can be pre-inspected whereas a service cannot be. A service needs to be experienced and , when a customer is being serviced, it is natural for him to want it customized based on his feedback. TANGIBILITY : The products are tangible and can be inspected / sampled before buying. Service on the other hand is experiential and sometimes based on a belief. 

HOW IMPORTANT ARE PEOPLE IN DELIVERING QUALITY ?: The quality expected from a product is mostly embedded in the product itself at the time of its manufacture and depends in turn on the quality of the materials used and the setting of the machines. Both materials and machines, being inanimate, can be standardized. On the other hand the qualities that people expect from  service are different : customization and variation is appreciated in service and this depends a lot on the experience, skill and motivation of the service-giver on the spot.

SCALABILITY :  The product business is scaled up by expanding the manufacturing, distribution and  reach capacity. On the other hand, the service business needs a supply of trained service providers and this involving either poaching people from the competitors or increased activity of recruitment, induction, training and motivation. Attrition of trained manpower is a danger to service business.

OWNERSHIP : A product ( flat, car, machine) can be owned and can go into your balance sheet as an asset and is re-salable and you can accumulate it to build your wealth. A service ( degree, surgery, haircut) cannot be owned as is always shown as an expense. It is not resalable and cannot be transferred to someone else. Products begin as materials and machines work on those materials to create improved / shaped / transformed materials which are called products. Services begin from service givers and improve / shape / transform  objects (woodwork), bodies (surgery), minds (education). 

THE SOURCE OF VALUE : The customers buy "products" essentially for the value they find inside the box - whether a soap or a TV . On the other hand, the customers buy "services" for the value of they find in the "encounter" with the service provider - whether doctor, waiter or a consultant. The quality of the products depend essentially on how materials are chosen and converted. The quality of the service depends on how the service providers are selected, trained and motivated.  

THE ROLE OF SENIOR MANAGEMENT :   In product business the managers are the heroes. In service business the front line employees are the real heroes. The process of creating a market-driven design in a product business involves many months of work by expert manpower and managers before the product is produced. These experts are involved in doing the marketing work -  doing situation analysis, formulated MVC, deciding specs of material, machines, men and methods. A lot of expert work happens at the back end over a long period of time before even a single product item is put into market. On the other hand, the same process of creating a market driven design needs to happen in front of the customer in few minutes in services. The front line - far away from the HO - and without the luxury of experts and time – is tasked with understanding the customer and producing service to satisfy the customer.

 THE POSITION OF THE CUSTOMER : In the product business, the customer is outside the manufacturing process and hence two processes need to be created (1) The process of bringing the voice of the customer in the process of product creation (2) The process of physically taking the products to market where the customers are. In the service business the customer is inside the business and cannot be ignored – his requests and demands force your front line service providers  to understand and adapt to him. That is why, in service business, it is worthwhile to treat the front line service givers as the customers themselves.

THE ROLE OF STANDARDIZATION AND MECHANIZATION : In the product business, a company proactively anticipates what the customer wants, frequently standardizes its products, makes them to stock off-line (when the customer is absent) and brings them through the supply chain to where the customers are. Mechanization is used extensively in the processes. The machinery is used to process materials and machines. In product business the role of the machines is primary and the role of the workers operating those machines is secondary. On the other hand in the service business, a company is managed in a reactive mode by asking customers on-line what they desire and then the company tries to deliver it in an individualized manner in real time at the front line. Since the value is created mainly through conversation, individualization and customization , the role of employees is primary and the role of the machines i

Challenges in Services Marketing

The very nature of services creates some marketing challenges 

Variable performance of service providers and
variable expectations of customers results makes mismatch possible
resulting into complaints and conflicts and dissatisfaction Being highly people dependent (rather than machine dependent) the service delivery is hard to standardize and on top of this (A) customer expectations and scripts are variable (being intangible) in terms of inspectable qualities (mostly functional) , experiential qualities (mostly servicescape related) and belief qualities (mostly emotional) (B) service provider expectations from the customers and scripts are variable. As a result of this, it is very difficult to ensure consistent satisfaction on both the sides of a  service encounter and hence potential for complaints in very high and most customers are emotionally upset over the fact that they paid upfront but things did not turn out to be as they seemed particularly in "experiential" areas. Complaint collection and resolution and recovery and escalation need to be thought of as integral part of the service design itself and channels for handling these cycles and frequent reviews are necessary. This is not only true for end customers but for first-customers also (i.e. employees). There is no point in "employee recovery". We must make sure that the disengaged employees are detected early and counseled and brought on track. The first line leaders are very important in service business. In fact good first line supervisors are worth their weight in gold.

Insecurity / risk perceived by potential clients
Because the services marketing is fraught with complaints, potential customers consider a new service source (company, outlet, person) a risk and hence word of mouth and referrals are very important in acquiring new customers . This is also the reason why customers are more loyal in services and barriers are high for new competitors. The direct contact with and insecurity of clients create opportunities for the necessary relation management.


Internal marketing The quality of the staff and their motivation and their cultural alignment makes a strong impact on the quality of service delivered to the customers.This in turn depends on the leadership focusing equally on treating the employees as the "1st market"
Actively managing customer encounters The mfg location, process, equipment, materials, people and overall impression created by these does not reach the customers in product business because the product is pre-created at few locations and then distributed to faraway customers. The value of products to the customers is embedded in the product that is in front of them. Since the services are co-created and since the customer is almost always a part of the service manufacturing process , the "insides" of the 

Capacity management
Services can not be stocked up like physical products, so unused capacity will alfaraway ways be lost. An accountant with nothing to do, or a hotel room that is not occupied, both are by definition not productive. On the other hand, the capacity can fall short when the question for a service shows unexpected peaks. These events could (and perhaps should) lead to the development of capacity management.

Three tasks

The core problems mentioned above are usually dealt with through a combination of three marketing tasks: external, internal and interactive marketing.

• External marketing means ‘making the promise’,
• Internal marketing means ‘making the promise possible’, and
• Interactive marketing means ‘fulfilling the promise that was made’.

Services are a prerequisite to convert products into solutions and to differentiate them from the competition. Therefore in most industries, providing a service is no longer an option but a necessity.
Products today have a higher service component than in previous decades.

The old dichotomy between products and service has been replaced by the service-product continuum. Many products are being transformed into services. For example,IBM treats its business as a service business and it sold off its traditional hardware business. It sees the physical goods as a small part of the"business solutions" industry. They have found that the price elasticity of demand for "business solutions" is much less than for hardware. There has been a corresponding shift to a subscription pricing model. Rather than  receiving a single payment for a piece of manufactured equipment, many manufacturers are now receiving a steady stream of revenue for ongoing contracts. 

Technical words in service are service encounters, service quality, service theater, service experience, servicescapes, and service recovery.

Service orientation of their staff is a big business.

Service Market SegmentationAttributes of Effective Segmentation :

1. Identifiable
2. Accessible
3. Sizeable
4. Profitable
5. Unique needs
6. Durable
7. Measurable
8. Compatible

 Reasons for marketing Segmentation:

1. Facilitating proper choice of target markets
2. Higher Profits
3. Facilitates tapping of the market, adapting the offer to the market
4. Stimulating Innovation
5. Makes the marketing effort more efficient and economic.
6. Benefits the customer as well
7. Sustainable customer relationship in all phases of the customer life cycle
8. Targeted communication
9. Higher market share

Diff between product and service mix

Product marketing mix is concerned mainly with 4 p’s

1.         Product

2.         Price

3.         Place

4.         Promotions

Nowadays, a 5th P which is commonly included in products also is PEOPLE.

Service marketing mix has the same 4 P’s as above, but it has 3 extra P’s which have to be included in the service marketing mix.

1.         People

2.         Physical evidence

3.         Process

To understand the difference between product marketing mix and service marketing mix, we need to first understand the different between products.  There are different types of products. A product is basically a stand alone thing, which when sold to a customer, passes the ownership to the customer. A service is unlike a product, where the ownership remains with the company itself.

Also note – price, place, products and promotions can be quite same for products as well as services. So we will differentiate on the basis of the 3 main P’s where people get confused.

Let us look into the 3 main P’s which differentiate product marketing mix from service marketing mix.

People – In the case of products, when you have a product like Adidas, then you will always plot 4 P’s for it – product, price, place and promotions. You can have a 5th P of people which can include your employee base your distribution channel and other channel networks. In the case of services, the people part is very important.

Services are generally made by people themselves. For example – Samsung is a product, but the customer care of Samsung is a service. If you have the right people in customer service, the brand will benefit, but wrong people over there can destroy the brand.

Similarly, modern retail, e-commerce, travels and tourism are all services (and not products). Therefore in service marketing mix, people play a major role. In travels and tourism, your guide plays a major role. In modern retail, the floor manager and executive plays a major role in your decision-making. In E-commerce, the customer service after purchase of product plays a major role (though E-commerce is trying to simply outdo manual services).

Physical evidence – One of the main differences between product marketing mix and service marketing mix is physical evidence. Physical evidence is the ambiance and the looks which you give to a service to make the customer “feel better” or “feel positive” for the service. It refers to how a Samsung service center looks when the customer enters. It refers to the colors and user experience which an E-commerce portal provides. It refers to the lighting and ambiance and plush seats in a premium restaurant vs a cheap restaurant. There is nothing in products which can be categorised as physical evidence. We can use packaging, but packaging itself becomes a form of promotions and hence it is a completely different P altogether. Physical evidence is used to describe the marketing mix of services only.

Process – Just like physical evidence and packaging, process too can be accommodated for services by outlining the way a product moves from factory to end point. But it is practically the same for each and every product. And hence product too is not a common distinguishing point for a difference between product marketing mix and service marketing mix.

On the other hand, look at the process of 3 different fast food chains – McDonald’s,Subway, Pizza hut. All of them provide fast food, but the process of provision is very different. If we were to draw a service blue print, we will find that making a Subway sandwich is much simpler, then serving customers in McDonald’s. Comparatively, serving a pizza and delivering pizzas is simply the toughest due to the number of ingredients involved, and due to the fact that the customers expect a kind of fine dine in Pizza hut, being the premium brand that it is.

Each and every service you go to, will have a separate process. Walmart will have a different layouts as compared to other hyper stores. The process of registering insurance might be different between LIC and Aegon religare.

FMB B18 Services Marketing

Sessions 1 and 2 : 2.00pm to 4.30 pm on September 23, 2015

Session 1 and 2 were devoted to introducing trading 

Before you can understand what does a trader do, it is important to know that there is no generic description of a trader except that he is neither a manufacturer nor a end customer. A trader always operates within a context of what happens upstream - and what happens downstream - to him. Hence the importance of drawing a "ROUTE TO MARKET" diagram. Without this context you will not know what his role and job description.

Without this you will not understand why an Onida distributor gets 8% and the same for Videocon gets 12%. 

Then the class was divided into 4 groups of 6 each. 3 groups were asked to debate within themselves the following and the 4th group was asked to make class summaries. The 3 questions to the 3 groups called A, B and C were

1. As a trader, are you a buyer for your customers or a seller for your principals ?
2. How do you create value for your principals and for your customers ? What do you bring to the table for each one of them?
3. How should valuation be done for trading business
   ( if you want to buy or sell a business) 

The first group said it is not easy to answer because both is true. 

The second group showed a good progress.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
essions 3 and 4 : 4.00pm to 6.30 pm on September 24, 2015

The third group seemed to be aware of the principles and factors but could not create a way to arrive at how much to pay.

This took the discussion towards P/E ratio and then towards ROI

types of encounters and tools analysis

Types of encounters

Shostack describes three types of service encounters:
1.         The remote encounter – where customers interact with a service, or part of it, through the mail e.g. financial services, mail order.  The remote encounter may also occur via a machine, e.g. the ATM.  Leaflets, brochures and forms sent by mail need to be designed with the consumer in mind.  Machines need to function and be user friendly.  This type of encounter should be the easiest to control as it is based on some form of physical object, be it printed material or a computer terminal.  Quality should be assured as they can be tested, modified and made uniform.
2.         The indirect personal encounter – where customers interact with a service by telephone.  There is potentially more scope for variability entering the service delivery.  This can be avoided by requiring the employee to work to a script, but problems may still arise if the customer’s enquiry/complaint requires reference to other parts of the organisation only to find their support is not forthcoming.
3.         The direct personal encounter – where customers interact face-to-face with the service provider.  Customers now have the opportunity of visualising the providers of the service.  Judgements about service quality may be made from the appearance and demeanour of the service provider.  The increasing use of uniforms, now referred to as corporate clothing, and the development of interpersonal skills training are recognition of the impact direct personal encounters may have on customer satisfaction.
In addition to these three types of encounter, there is a host of other encounter points that may influence the customer’s view of the service.   For example:
The front entrance to an organisation
The car park
The organisation’s vehicles
The interior of a building – type of furnishings, plants (real or plastic)
Signs
Brochures/leaflets
The above list is simply illustrative but indicates that service organisations contain a wealth of encounter points (not only human).  It is at these points that impressions are formed which are subsequently converted into feelings, beliefs and perhaps lasting images.
In certain service situations (some observers may say the numbers are increasing) the customer has a choice between a personal and impersonal encounter.  Langeard et al sought to measure customers’ willingness to participate in the process of producing a service.  By developing scenarios for a range of services (bank, petrol station, hotel, airport, restaurant, outlet selling travellers cheques) respondents were asked to indicate which type of encounter they preferred.

The rules of the game

In service encounters people come together to obtain certain goals.  To achieve these goals and coordinate the behaviour of the participants, rules must be developed.  Rules specify the behaviour which is regarded as appropriate in a given situation.
Rules should be distinguished from norms and conventions.  Norms refer to modal behaviour, i.e. what most people do; sometimes most people break the rules.  Conventions refer to arbitrary customs, e.g. hats for nurses.  Conventions can vary without affecting performance or attainment of goals.
There is a great deal of scope for creating added value by investigating customer behaviour, their effect on the situation and how they should be handled.
There is a need to understand why customer experiences of service provision can range  from excellent to vows never to return’ .

The Critical Incident Technique

Organisations need to know what customers expect from the service experience.  In particular they need to study what goes on during the encounter with service personnel to see if it lives up to customers’ expectations.  A method particularly suited to achieving that objective is the critical incident technique which has been described as: a set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behaviour in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving problems and developing broad psychological principles.
By collecting statements from the participants in an encounter it seeks to determine incidents (behaviours, actions) that are especially helpful or inadequate.  It is particularly valuable for evaluating employee/customer interactions but can be equally revealing when applied within an organisation.  For example the following questions can reveal effective or ineffective behaviours of a supervisor.  Employees, and even management, could be asked to:
•           Think of a time when your supervisor did something that you felt should be encouraged as it seemed in your opinion an example of good supervison
•           Think of a time when the supervisor did something that you though-. was not up to par
What may be interesting is the degree of agreement/disagreement between management and employees as to what constitutes effective and ineffective behaviour by the supervisor.
Applications of the critical incident technique to the service encounter communication problems
Having a technically sound operational system is insufficient for delivering service quality and providing customer satisfaction.  Positive service encounters require effective oral communication skills on the part of the employees.  This is particularly so in the case of high contact service organisations like hotels, airlines, restaurants, colleges etc.
The aim must be to identify, with the aid of the critical incident technique, employee behaviours that are regarded as either effective or ineffective in exchanges with customers.  There is an endless amount and variety of customer behaviours that may prove difficult to manage.  For example:
*          Unreasonable demands
*          Demands against company policy   (Check your policy?
*          Unacceptable treatment of employees
*          Drunkenness
It may often be the case that customer expectations or demands exceed the organisation’s and its employees’ willingness and/or ability to meet them.  In knowing how to handle these demands employees should have a knowledge of customer expectations and how they are formed.
Organisations often equip their employees with scripts which specify a range of responses to be used in a given situation.  There are inherent dangers with this approach as the customer perceives the organisation to be impersonal and inflexible.  To overcome this, employees should be encouraged to expand their repertoire of possible responses.
Organisations need to train employees to be competent communicators.
There is a large body of research from which communication strategies can be developed.  However, there are a number of fundamental principles that every employee should adhere to when confronted with a difficult situation:
•           Remain calm – an irate customer can be equated to a pressure cooker so the lid needs to be taken off gently
•           Let the customer vent his/her anger – don’t interrupt, laugh etc
•           Listen with understanding – this diffuses anger and demonstrates concern.  Apologise to the customer for being inconvenienced and state that you are there to help.  It is vital to show a sincere interest and willingness to help.  The customer’s first impression of the employee is all important in gaining cooperation
•           Restate what the customer is saying, in summary form.  This tells the customer that you have listened and understood what has been said
•           Don’t blame others or make excuses.  Instead, take the responsibility and initiative to do whatever you can to solve the problem as quickly as possible, and
•           Find out what the customer wants.  If that cannot be met, state why  and propose your own solution.  The customer may also be asked what he or she would consider a fair alternative
•           Once a solution is agreed, act quickly.  If agreement cannot be reached, refer the customer to someone else able to resolve the problem.
In all the dealings with the customer it is important to be courteous and considerate and respect the feelings of the customer.

Satisfactory and unsatisfactory encounters

In addition to asking employees for examples of interactions with customers that were difficult and uncomfortable, the views of customers are invaluable for revealing the specific events and employee behaviours that make for a satisfactory or dissatisfactory encounter.  Critical incidents (events and behaviour) are uncovered by asking consumers the following:
*          Think of a time when, as a customer, you had a particularly satisfying (dissatisfying) interaction with an employee of (service specified)?
*          When did the incident happen?
*          What specific circumstances led up to this situation?
*          Exactly what did the employees say or do?
*          What resulted that made you feel the interaction was satisfying (dissatisfying)?
Responses to questions such as these can shed enormous light on the performance of the entire service delivery system.  It can reveal specific customer perceptions of how well (or badly) employees responded, failures in the service delivery system and customer needs and requests.  It can provide surprises, e.g. excellent service as a consequence of unexpected and unrequested employee behaviour.  In addition to individual expressions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a particular event or behaviour customers may intimate their overall feelings, for example:”
Everything went right – ‘a sincere and professional team effort. accommodating, polite but not pushy, warm atmosphere, courteous, efficient and professional, no waiting, best service ever received, everything was perfect’.
Everything went wrong – ‘inefficient, unprepared, slow, not accommodating nor attentive, no assistance, unprofessional, bad decor/atmosphere’.
Customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction will depend to a large extent on whether, and how, employees apply their ability, willingness and ingenuity.  Implicit in all of this is the recurring theme of how well prepared, motivated and rewarded the employees are.  Personality may explain acts of extreme helpfulness.  However, employee response must be planned on a much firmer footing.  The service organisation bears a heavy responsibility for ensuring that employees are well resourced to act in a positive manner.
Dr Brian Monger is Executive Director of MAANZ International and an internationally known consultant with over 45 years of experience assisting both large and small companies with their projects.  He is a specialist in negotiation and behaviour He is also a highly effective and experienced trainer and educator