Customer Service

¶ … customer service philosophy consists of two parts. First, the company's prices are highly competitive, and second, employees are empowered to "delight the customer." By offering these two components of highly excellent customer service, the company has set itself apart from its competitors. By offering targeted discounts and a specific philosophy for returning and complaining customers, the company has built a loyal customer base that has contributed to its prominence in the business world. At least this has been the case before internal difficulties began to affect the company's financial standing.

Made for You's current strategy is to act generously towards repeat customers and those with legitimate complaints. Such generosity occurs in the form of automatic discounts for repeat customers. Legitimate complaints such as delivery delays, unavailability of requested pieces, or long waits for service are compensated in terms of discounts, charge cancellations, or upgrades. While these strategies are extremely effective in terms of customer loyalty and grievance settlement, it is not so in terms of the company's financial situation.

One major problem is that the company's sales manager is unaware of its financial difficulty. The manager is therefore operating under the assumption that the company can afford the kind of financial compensations it has offered over the years to ensure customer loyalty. Since the company can no longer afford this, the strategy is likely to create further problems that will probably not be mitigated by gaining the loyalty of customers. Question 3 a) The term "internal customer service" refers to the relationships among those who work within the organization (Friedman, 2014).

The different individuals and departments within Made for You, along with the company's suppliers, therefore form part of the company's internal customer base. b) Because Made for You's external customer service is far better than its internal communications, the sales manager is unable to foresee the implications of his customer service strategy. If there had been a better connection between the finance department and the sales management team, for example, the manager might have made a more strategic decision when it came to providing external customer service.

Furthermore, the breakdown of the relationship between Made for You and its furniture suppliers has not been communicated to the sales department. Better internal customer service would have ensured an open communication channel between the supplier and sales departments. It is also possible that the breakdown in the supplier-company relationship is because of a basic lack of effective internal customer communication. The problem might have been mitigated by better and more open communication channels between the company's managers and its suppliers.

At its basis then, there appears to be a lack of communication in the company's internal customer service setup. Improvement of such communication could mitigate not only the broken relationship with the supplier, but also provide a better basis for future sales management decisions. Question 4 My company, Sparkle & Shine, provides a cleaning service for local residents. Customers make an appointment with the company, after which a team of cleaners provide a custom service, according to the needs of the client.

I will evaluate the quality of service and customer requirements by requesting customers to fill out a brief survey after having made use of our service. Questions will focus on the quality, speed, and pricing of the work that has been done. Questions will be constructed according to the mission and purpose of the company, which is to live up to its name, "Sparkle & Shine." Customers will be asked specifically if the team has held up to the standard suggested by the company's name.

Question 5 The first component of my strategy will be evaluation. I will provide my customer service team with feedback from customers, which they could then categorize according to levels of satisfaction. Customers with the lowest level of satisfaction will then be contacted to devise ways in which greater satisfaction can be achieved. Provided that the complaint is found to be legitimate, the customer service team will be called upon.