Implement Customer Service Systems Copy
Consistency
Customer service standards must be monitored to ensure they are consistent. Consistency is the key to customer relationships. Customers expect and are entitled to the same high levels of service with each interaction. On the one occasion that they receive poor service, they will start looking to your competitors for their next interaction. It is therefore, critical that your agency encourages all personnel to consistently provide high levels of customer service.
We have already looked at some ways in which your agency can encourage involvement of employees in the improvement process of customer service standards. So how can we ensure that they consistently provide the required level of customer service? A few considerations may include:
- Create a positive work environment
- Create incentives for employees who adhere to customer service standards
- Ensure you provide sufficient support and resources
- Ensuring there are systems and structures in place that are clear and easy to interpret
- Provide staff with relevant training
One of the most important points on the above list is training. There are a plethora of products and services that an employee needs to know regarding working in the real estate industry so an agency needs to ensure their staff are well equipped to enable them to provide excellent customer service.
An effective induction and training plan, matched to appropriate performance expectations will benefit the agency, customer service standards, fellow colleagues and ultimately, customers.
By giving employees skills, agencies are encouraging the employees to use them. Employees who lack confidence, who are stressed and unhappy are likely to project their feelings onto customers and will be unable to live up to the customer service standards you set.
Agencies with restrictive hierarchical structures actually prevent employees from giving good customer service. No customer wants to wait while a simple query is escalated to higher and higher levels.
Customers with queries or complaints want them to be solved at the front line. Good managers understand this and ensure that their employees have the necessary skills to do this.
Feedback
Feedback is just as important regarding customer service standards as it is for implementing customer service strategies that we spoke about in a previous session. Let’s re-cap:
Methods of gathering feedback:
- Surveys (written or online)
- Surveys (phone interview)
- Face to face discussions
- Benchmarking against competitors and industry best practice
- Feedback forms
Feedback should be gathered from:
- External customers
- Internal customers
- Suppliers
- Anyone who has any dealings with the agency either directly or indirectly
Common mistakes made:
- Questions need to reflect what you need to know about the customer, not what the agency feels is important
- Surveys need to use probing questions, not closed questions
- Customers are not always reliable
- Feedback MUST be responded to
Complaints
Effective complaint management can turn a negative into a positive as discussed in the previous session. The most important feedback comes from complaints. How do you know the areas in which you need to improve or the areas to continue with as they are working well? Let’s re-cap:
- Encourage your customers to complain – create a culture that complaints are positive opportunities
- Thank your customers for their complaints and contributions into your continuous improvement practices
- It’s not personal, what customers really want is to have their problem solved
- Ensure your agency has a complaint management procedure
- Train all staff to handle complaints competently
Communicating Adjustments
Where it is decided that adjustments are to be made to customer service standards, all employees who will be affected by the change need to be advised. This can be done by implementing a communication plan.
In developing a communication plan or strategy, the following questions should be asked and answered:
- Who needs the information, why and when?
- What information do they need?
- What does management want to say?
- What medium should be used to communicate the information?
The aim of a communication plan is to inform employees about:
- Objectives of the adjustments to customer service standards – why are we changing them?
- How these objectives relate to the agency goals
- Expected benefits of the proposed changes
- New policies and procedures
- How the improvements will affect each employees work, actions or performance contribution
- Who they should contact if they have queries
- Timeline for the improvements to take place
- How they can collect and provide feedback regarding the improvements
Effective and efficient information sharing at all levels within an agency is essential to fostering a customer focused workplace culture. An efficient flow of information = greater opportunities for employees to perform to the expected standards = greater levels of customer satisfaction = successful customer service standards.