ASSESSMENT TASK 1 – Develop a customer service plan

1. Customer service plan

2. Innovative Widgets

2.1 Customer support policy and procedure – collecting market research

Purpose: The purpose of this policy is to set up best practices for helping customers with their inquiries regarding to our service or products.

Scope: The scope of this policy applies to any inquires/problems that customers may have regarding to our service or products to be handled by our team members.

Resources: Specific procedures for the implementation of this policy are available below and on the company intranet.

Relevant legislation: Anti-discrimination legislation; Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (VIC); Privacy Act 1998; Competition and Consumer Act 2010; Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (VIC).

Updated/ authorized: 11/2016 – Renata da Silva

Customer support process/es

1. Greet the customer cordially and present yourself.
2. Ask them how you could help them.
3. Listen fully the customer needs and ask them questions to gather more information.
4. Provide the information/support with the many details as possible.
5. Only provide correct information. If you are not sure, ask the customer to gently wait until you check the information.
6. Ask the customer if he wants anything via email or even printed information.
7. Ask customer is the support was helpful. Collect feedback.
8. After finding a resolution, fill the customer support form and send to customer service manager.

2.2 Customer complaints policy and procedure

Purpose: The purpose of this policy is to ensure the management of complaints runs transparently, fairly and consistently following the organization requirements.

Scope: The scope of this policy is related to the management of customer complaints by employees and contractors of Innovative Widgets.

Resources: Specific procedures for the implementation of this policy are available below and on the company intranet.

Relevant legislation: Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (VIC); Privacy Act 1998; Competition and Consumer Act 2010; Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (VIC).

Updated/ authorized: 11/2016 – Renata da Silva

Customer support process/es

1. Greet the customer cordially and present yourself.
2. Ask them how you could help them.
3. Listen fully the customer complaint and ask them questions to gather more information about the complaint.
4. Apologize for the inconvenient caused and thank for their complaint saying that this helps to improve the service’s quality.
5. Ask them how they would like it to be resolved.
6. In case of a faulty item, ask the customer if he allows us to send it to quality department for testing. No product replacements can be authorized by staff members’.
7. Using your professional judgment to evaluate cases of refund for faulty products on maximum $25.
8. After finding a resolution, fill the customer complaint form and send to customer service manager.
9. Any complaint that cannot be solved from this procedure must be directed to the Customer Service Manager.

2.3 Recordkeeping policy and procedure

Purpose: The purpose of this policy is to establish guidelines to implement and to maintain the records management system meeting the organization needs as well as it legal and accountability requirements.

Scope: The scope of this policy is related to the management of recordkeeping by employees, management of Innovative Widgets.

Resources: Specific procedures for the implementation of this policy are available below and on the company intranet.

Relevant legislation: Privacy Act 1988; Anti-discrimination legislation; do Not Call Register Act 2006; Industry codes of practice; State Records Act 2000.

Updated/ authorized: 11/2016 – Renata da Silva

Recordkeeping process/es

1. Innovative Widgets keeps their records clear, up-to-date to ensure that they can be accessed and used to help customers, to provide quality in service and must be understood by anyone who access it.
2. The records must be kept on Innovative Widgets System and employees are not allowed to hoard records in their own private store.
3. Innovative Widgets allows customers to see information hold about them.
4. Any record must be confidential and secured as on the Privacy Act 1998.
5. Any information that is found as incorrect must be revised and updated.
6. Employees are not allowed to destroy records without authority from management team.
7. Document reasons for decisions or recommendations that you make.

2.3 Reflection on your development and design of a customer service plan

To develop and design the customer service plan for Innovative Widgets we had firstly considerate our mission and customer needs. In order to go for the right pathway, we also based the development of our customer service plan on others companies who have a high level of positive feedbacks in this department.  

The second step it was to look at the successful experiences that customers had with our competitors and find out what was behind that positive feedback. Moving forward in gathering information, we had created a thorough analysis of our current operations, tracking all feedbacks, complaints we had received. 

The third relevant topic it was the interaction of our employees with customers. We gathered data of the average customer experience from customers’ and employees’ points of view. We also had meetings with our employees to evaluate their performance and to listen what areas/tasks they had been struggling with.   

The communication within the company is also very important. When designing a plan to manage any area, all staff member must be informed of the existence of that material. Anyone within the company have access to this information and they must know how to access. However, prior any employee start working training has to be provided to ensure that they understand their role and responsibilities, the policies and procedures and the company’s expectations in regarding to their performance.

After handling all this information it was possible to rate our current performance, identify which areas our customer service we are already excellent at, and which areas need improvement. Moreover, we could draw our strategies have a better flow of information within the team members, ensure that employees/ management have a better understanding of process which results in delivering a customer service that matches with our customer expectations.

The customer service plan must be revised every six months. 

ASSESSMENT TASK 2 – Manage and develop the team

1. Submit a customer service report

Write a brief report (no more than 1 page) to the board of Innovative Widgets to:

1. summarize customer service team performance
2. identify possible causes of customer service shortfalls
3. identify options to address the problem/s.

According to Innovative Widgets records our customer service has been decreasing the quality. The number of calls shown on our database from January reveals the increase of number calls with a variation of 14% from the previous year. 

The table shows that in January and February the calls represented less 2% compared to the previous year. However, this number went to +3,5% in March, and the team member were the same. In June, July and September the variation in number of calls grown, achieving respectively, +4%, 4,5% and 7%.

On the last semester, the table reveals a significant change regarding to the team members:

• Two new staff members were added to the team (Taya and Mary);
• The supervisor John, was in vacations for two months (October and November);
• One of our experienced customer service officer members quit his job (Nitin).

The result of this transition had an impact of the calls per month, raising its number from 7% in September to 10% in October and 12% in November.

The possible causes of customer service shortfalls can be easily explained on the last semester of the year, with the absence of the supervisor and the addition of two new employees.

One of the new employees, Mary, has been showing an inappropriate behaviour with customers and has been noticed that she is not following company’s policies and procedures.

In order to address the problems the solutions are: training to the new employees (techniques for solving customer complaints, policies and procedures, how to access to information), coaching (experienced staff members helping the new employees). For Mary it is necessary a meeting to explain her company’s expectations with her performance as well as company’s mission.

2. Submit an email to resolve a customer complaint

Dear Customer Sir/ Madam,

Thank you for taking the time to communicate to us why our service did not meet your expectations. Please accept our sincerest apology for the inconvenience we have caused you and Yore Mine Co. We acknowledge our mistake with the much delayed delivery and also on the product specifications. We also apologise for our staff member, Mary, who was in contact with you. She had a misunderstanding on your order date, however, we don’t approve her behaviour and she is now under training.

We have every desire to address your needs and provide the best solution available to resolve your issue as soon as possible. I was personally looking after your order and we have already sent the widgets on the specifications requested. We also will collect the previous delivery, as they were in a wrong size.

Your order will definitely arrive today, between 2pm and 4pm.   

Innovative Widgets will be in contact with you in the coming days to make our best attempt in regaining your confidence in our company.  In addition, we have the compromise to prevent this problem from occurring again in the future. Is part of our mission as a company to deliver consistently high-quality customer service.   

Thank you,

Kindest regards,

Renata da Silva – Customer service manager

Innovative Widgets

3. Participate in a coaching role-play observed by the assessor

Prepare to participate in a role-play with Mary (your assessor) to address her performance issues. You need to prepare to:

3.1 Role Play

4. Submit coaching documentation, e.g. coaching plan, notes, etc.

5. Plan coaching/training session

ASSESSMENT TASK 3 – Monitor and improve customer service

1. Set of KPIs for customer service team members (4 KPI’s)

1.1 Call/enquiry/complaint handling time

Call:

• call resolution: how many contacts it takes to resolve customer issues;
• call abandonment: measures the number of callers that hang up before they can be connected to an employee;
• average hold time: how long (in seconds) that customers wait during the course of a call;
• customer satisfaction: measures customers’ level of satisfaction after the call - very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied.

Enquiry:

• average speed of answer: how long (in seconds) takes for a staff member to answer an enquiry;
• how many enquiries are misunderstood;
• frequency: how many times the same enquiry appears;
• how many times it needs to be transferred to another employee to answer an enquiry.

Complaint handling time;

• average handle time: amount of time spent on each call and includes related administrative duties such as submitting call reports;
• talk time: the total time required to handle all customer calls offered over a certain period of time, not including after-call work (wrap time) or hold time;
• transfer rate: number of calls that need to be transferred to another employee to be resolved;
• frequency: how many times the same complain appears percentage.

1.2 Following organisational procedures

• How often policies and procedures are consulted;
• How many times an employee contravenes organisational procedures;
• How often employees misunderstand organisational procedures;
• What policies and procedures are more consulted.

2. Plan or procedure for monitoring team members’ performance (based on 1 KPI)

Call

3. Questionnaire to gather customer feedback

Develop a questionnaire to collect customer feedback related to KPIs and/or designed to uncover identifiable gaps between services provided (including the quality of service) and customer expectations.

10 questions in all, 8 close ended, 2 open ended using likert scale

4. Report containing recommendations for improvement of customer service.

Prepare a 1–2 page report for the management at Innovative Widgets containing recommendations for organisation-wide customer service improvement. The report should contain:

4.1Three or four recommendations. At least one recommendation should address how to improve public relations at Innovative Widgets.

4.2 Rationale for each recommendation based on your knowledge of:

1. problem identification and resolution
2. managing customer service and customer relationships
3. managing quality customer service delivery
4. procuring appropriate technology to address customer needs.

This report is addressed to Innovative Widgets management team and contains recommendations for improvement of customer service.

Innovative Widgets is a company that provides components for machinery used by companies across industries. As its vision states: “To maintain all Australian business running without problems using safe, quality widgets”, Innovative widgets has a compromise in making life easier.

As a customer service manager in this company, my role is to assist my team members and ensure that we provide excellence in customer service maintaining our image in a high positive level with our clients.

Over the last few months we have been receiving negative feedbacks, which took as to an urgent plant for improvement of or service.

After collecting all the internal and external feedbacks, we came across frequent problems.

First of all, I would like to give some recommendations of how we should improve our customer service:

• Map all the current processes and review outdated processes;
• Provide frequent training for staff members;
• Update the website for self-service solution;
• Settle an easier way to share a feedback;

The reason why I am indicating these four recommendations is that by exploring them with details we can cover all/almost all our issues. Explanation for each recommendation:

• By mapping all our current processes we can analyse the root of our issues and update the processes which are not so helpful or didn’t come along with the company’s and market development;
• Our customer service employees are our front line in the company. They are basically the image of the company. Is highly necessary that they follow policies and procedures, have knowledge of their role and have skills for dealing with different situations. Training brings knowledge, helps to understand processes, and also brings the consciousness that everyone needs to recycle, to get new information;
• By updating the website for a self-service solution we make our customers’ life easier. By just looking on the website they may have information that could take longer to get by calling the customer service centre. Also, reduce the burden on the phone lines;
• Getting feedback from our customers is always necessary. Even confident with our performance in the market we still need to know from our customers if we are meeting their expectations and achieving organisation goals. Many customers don’t really like to share a feedback as the surveys are long and tiring. However, we want their feedback, so we have to stablish an easier and faster way for them to provide a feedback.

When dealing with problems we have to address solutions for our customers. Is should be created policies and procedures for frequent problems in order to make customer service team life’s easier and to keep our standard.

As Innovative Widgets mission states, we are always seeking for innovate new ways of manufacturing and testing widgets, and this includes processes of delivering service. So it is time to search for new technology to help us to bridge the current gaps, such as: new software, automatize processes, etc.

The proposed Customer Service Improvement will lead the improvement of customer service across Innovative Widgets’ services over the next six months, when it should be revised after analysing the results.