Friday, 20 February 2009

Why Customer Service ?

Every business whether it is sales of products or services, depend heavily on customers. Customer Service assumes significance in that few businesses can continue to grow without a strong base of quality customer service. Customers form the foundation of any business. It would be suicidal to ignore the complaints if any by the customers. Apart from the quality of the products or services sold, the customer feedback by word of mouth, act as an ambassador for the seller/service provider. Applying the same token , after sales services/24-hour services support form the vital cog in the wheel of a successful business house.
Banks are often cited as the testing crucible for customer satisfaction and the standard of services. Here the quality of the customer service can be assessed by a single visit to a bank branch. An impatient junior officer, a service bottle-neck at the counters or imparting of wrong or factually incorrect information -all these contribute to deficiency in customer service, let alone more serious errors. Today Banks, which basically offer the same services and charge the same for common services, are preferred only on the basis of their quality of services. Customer services are given the utmost importance by most successful leading banks. They have instituted special customer response and grievances redressal systems where high-ranking officials monitor the correctness of the responses or the redressal of a particular grievance.
The standards of customer services in banks are today excellent and many business corporates like mobile phone services providers ,internet service providers, utility services and courier agents are practicing excellent standards of customer service.
It was Dale Carneigie, if I remember correctly, who once said that the Customer was Always Right. How true! Give in to the Customer arguments and then when things have cooled down sufficiently, prove your arguments to him. The customer would stay permanently loyal to you.
Customer service is no longer a mere sales jargon or sales pitch. Customers today who are very knowledgeable and demand services, cannot be sidelines or shortchanged any more. The competition is waiting to snatch away your precious bank of customers. If you fail to deliver or fail to redress in time, the loss is yours.

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