Fabian Kasukula

Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

Customer Care

Unit 10.1 Giving customer’s positive image

Element 10.1.1Creating a positive impression

Introduction
People who are providing services must make a good impression so as to succeed in
building business. In customer service it is important to impress the customer; this will ensure
that customer will have positive impression of the organization. It is very important to make a
good first impression and to maintain this throughout the interaction with the customer.

The meaning of positive impression

- Behavior affects the impression that customers form of services they are receiving
- Excellent customer service is provided by people who are good with people
- Communication with customers and giving positive impression whenever dealing with a
customer. By doing this will also be giving positive impression of organization and the
customer service it provides

Examples
To establish effective relationship with customers you need to show that
- Meet your organization’s standard of appearance and behavior
- Greet your customer in a way that is appropriate to their need
- Communicate with your customer in a way that makes them feel valued and respected
- Identify and confirm the needs and expectations of a customer
- Treat customers courteously and helpful even when working under pressure
- Maintain communication with your customers with customers to ensure that they are kept
informed and reassured

The concept of customer care

Definition
Customer care means making customer want to come back for more, and getting them
recommend products and services to others. Customer care is not only about meeting customer
expectations but satisfying the customer by focusing staff energies on offering value, getting it
right first time, and improving it in the future.

Impact of customer care on our organization

- Increased success
- Developing and satisfied work force

Secure top management commitment

- Top management must fully be committed to the concept of customer care, to have a big
chance of success. Customer care involving leadership helps to focus roles and
responsibilities clearly.

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

Know your customers

- Customer care is wholly reliant upon knowing your customers’ needs and expectations

Types of customer
a) Internal customer
b) External customer

Internal customer
Definition
Internal customer is anyone within the organization who at any time is dependent on any
one else within the organization. Employees are internal customers and the care for them is
actually the same as for external customers. Their loyalty and productivity also depend how they
feel at work.

External customer
Definition
External customer is anyone who receives services and finished products from the
Organization or people or businesses that provide a service to, customer loyalty is created by
strong relationships where the customer feels special and important.

People buy products and services on an emotional feeling. The feeling can be to feel
good, safe, effective and even to increase their confidence. Customers buy a product for the same
reason. If the product or service gives them a good feeling, they will continue to buy that over
and over again. But, if the company that sells the product doesn’t make them feel important or
special, they will buy it somewhere else.

Why is good customer service important?

Good customer service is important as it is easier and cheaper to keep existing customers
happy than keep finding new ones. Word of mouth is powerful method of retaining a customer
and a happy customer will mostly likely refer friends and relatives to a company which they have
a good experience with.

Element 10.1.2 Establishing effective relationship with customers

Introduction
Establishing effective rapport (understanding) with customers enhances the chance of
closing. The challenge and importance of developing trust and rapport escalate (increase) in
direct relationship to the price of the company product or service

Meaning of building rapport

The chance to make first impression with a customer demonstrates a desire for the
customer to accept the service, as his/her questions are answered and his/her needs are met.

Importance of good relationship with customers

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

The importance of developing trust and rapport will escalate in direct relationship to the
price of the product or service offered.
How to improve services by learning how to earn prospect’s confidence
- Be mindful of body language gestures and remember to put the positive
- Create harmony
- Make eye contact and listen with genuine interest
- During needs analysis interview ask open-ended, clarifying questions
- Dress and act professionally

The effects of bad relationship with customers

A bad customer relationship has a tremendous impact on business failure. When a
customer or potential customer contacts business, businesses reputation is placed in the hands of
customer service staff. How the customer service staff handles a query or complaint affects how
that person perceives the business performance.

Word of mouth is the best customer care tool a company can hope for, but also can turn
out to be a bad tool if the staff offering service is using abusively/harsh language to a customer.

Causes of bad relationship

 Employee has no sufficient knowledge of what he/she is explaining to customer
 Employee passing blames to other employees
 Paying insufficient attention to customers
 Ignoring customer questions and needs will discourage to seek assistance from the
Organization

Example
A potential customer goes into a fitness club that was built last year. The Centre is trying
up its customer base. It employs 50 staff members, part time and full time who have not received
much training in customer service and complaint handling.

The customer asks about booking a gym session for later that day. He/she does not
receive a positive reply, and the receptionist’s attitude is negative to customer questions. The
customer shrugs and walks away.

How much has the fitness club lost in potential revenue?

- Shs 10,000 the price for gym session
- Shs 2,000 a drink, sandwich, possibly a swim etc.
- Shs 1,000,000. lost potential members fees

The disgruntled potential customer will tell at least ten people about his/her bad experience, so
(Shs 10,000+shs 2,000+shs 1,000,000) *7=7,084,000)

How to demonstrate effective relationship with customer through role play

- Find out what customer want and need
- Deal with difficult customer

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

- Handle customer complaints to keep customer satisfied

- Explore all the dynamics on how to make a winning first impression and maintain
positive relationship.
- Focus on what to do and what to avoid when listening to customer to ensure
- Delivery to the customer expectations

Develop mechanism of receiving feedback from customers

Businesses are aware of the importance of customer feedback and reviews, the thought of
implementing a proactive mechanism to gather customer feedback from customer at every
opportunity and be timely about it, while experience is still fresh.

 Approaches used to get feedback

 Feedback direct from customers and staff
 Direct discussion with customers
 Analysis of customer complaints and enquiries
 Attitude surveys and questionnaires
 Visits to premises
 Focus group discussions and customer audits

Element: 10.1.3 building customer trust

Introduction
Building trust results in customer loyalty, which results in more profitable customers and
a greater chance for marketing and sales success. Most business struggle because trust is not yet
present in a loyal customer base. Customer ranges from merely satisfied to unhappy. Challenge
is to bring more people into loyal customer category. This means building trust.

The importance of installing confidence into customers

Installing confidence to customer’s increases trust in customers you have in your
company, products, and industry. This is one of the most cost effective ways to sell more when
your customers trust you: you can charge higher prices than your competitors do. Offer a
different feature set than your customer is looking for, and require a longer wait of delivery, and
still customers will buy from you. Customer trust is that powerful

The meaning of trust

Trust is the glue that holds the business relationship together and expressed repeatedly in
your actions. This includes what you do and do not do. Simply things are key, such as returning
phone calls immediately and being consistent in your words and actions. In this way, trust is an
absolutely essential part of providing service, sales as well in business in general. If trust is not
present, customers will not buy or come for your service.

Trust is an investment
Building trust is not cheap. It is an investment in your service to customers. This means hiring
good people and providing them with ongoing training, offering money back guarantees, and
going out of your way to meet customer need better.

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

Competence and credibility

Trust is built by showing competence and credibility. Competence is getting the job done
right, better than the competitor’s. It is expressed through knowledge of client’s needs, your
product / service and the ability to work with others. Credibility is your character, integrity and
honesty. Only say what you really mean and be a person of integrity. Show genuine concern for
the customer through giving and unselfish behavior. The focus is on the customer and his or her
needs.

How to build trust

Trust is built through frequent interactions. These interactions are your opportunity to
build trust. In fact, any interaction you have with customers has an impact on trust.

Communication is about trust, not technique, when trust is high, it is effortless, and when
low it is a huge burden. Listening build, trust because it shows how much you value the
customer. It meets a deep psychological need to be respected as a person. Listening is the single
most important thing you can do to build trust.
- Trust customers to do the right thing
- Return all phone calls immediately
- Send thank your notes
- Be extremely organized and dependable
- Do something different and special be creative
- Handle complaints promptly with empathy and honesty.
- Offer great customer service
- Show sincere appreciation
- Become a valuable resource to the client
- Create solutions that add value to customers.
- Partner with customer
- Create a customer, not a sale
- Do not over promise and do what you say you will do.
- Do something that is not expected
- Always give more than expected
- Do these things without any expectation of a return from the customer

The basic rules of human relations to consumer

- Good moral within your company
- Feeling good about themselves and their contributions to their goals department and to
the company
- Team players
- Employees should never complain within earshot of customers
- Employee should never complain to customers about other department’s employees
- Utilize post mortems after joint projects so everyone can learn from experience
- Employees should become “Customer for Day” to experience firsthand what your
customers experience when doing business with your company

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

Indicators of customer confidence

- Customers with problems are delighted (take great pleasure)
- Managing customers’ expectations
- Customers are easily accessing the company when they complain

Ways of instilling confidence into customer

- Customer education is key to instilling confidence into customers
- Exceeding customer expectations for customers who have problems instills customer
confidence
- Make it easy to complain
- Maintain a one on one relationship with customers instills confidence to customer
- Understanding what customer wants instills confidence

Element 10.1.4 Customer care codes and professional ethics

Definition of concepts
Code
Basic guiding principles and standard of conduct to guide all employees, officers and
members of the Board of Directors of the company to meet goals to achieve the highest business
and personal ethical standard as well as the company’s to conduct business in accordance with
the applicable laws and regulations that apply to business.

Ethics
Ethics is having a concept of seeking a basic for ethical behavior. Ethical policies provide
benefits to perform and consumer alike. Taking them out of the boardroom and applying them at
the process level would lay the foundation for process effectiveness, efficiency and continual
improvement.

Responsibility
Any concerned person carries on his/her employment and his/her professional services
with care, efficiency and correctness, using tools and time at his disposal at his best, taking on
responsibilities connected with fulfillments and behaviors.

The disadvantage of not abiding to the codes, rules and professional ethics
- The breach of code rules may be considered as non-fulfillment of contract obligations
- The company may end losing business to their competitors
- The company will lose its integrity
- The company cannot provide assurance to customers and management of the quality of
its product and services

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

Unit10.2 Offering quality and standard customer care service

Element 10.2.1.Managing customer needs and expectations

Introduction
It is easier to keep current customers than recruit new ones, so it is worth having a good
complaint handling procedure in place, and managing customer complaints well. Disgruntled
customers are twice likely as satisfied customers to tell others about their bad experience

The concepts of quality and standard

- Quality and standard enhance the level accepting the product/service
- Using customer feedback to understand customer expectation and needs
- Anticipate the needs and problems of customers and to set realistic expectations

The importance of identifying needs of customers

- Customer needs to feel that messages they are sending or being correctly received and
interpreted
- The need to feel welcome.
- The customer always feels that he/she important
- Customer need to be comfortable when being attended

Demonstration on how to provide quality service and standards to satisfy customer needs
and expectation
 Be available
Customer search of human voice than electronic message are relieved when you
make staff available to answer questions and handle complaints or suggestions.

 Be courteous
Even when a customer becomes rude or irate, it is important for your staff to keep
calm and remain polite.

 Offer a good deal at fair price

You don’t to have to charge top quality prices to make a profit.

 Anticipate future customer need

In shifting economy or rapid evolving industry, a good manager will anticipate
his/her client’s needs and make effort to meet them

The benefit of dealing with changes of customer’s needs and expectations

 Recognize the benefit of leading continuous improvement.
 Classify the “gaps” that lead to customer dissatisfaction
 Analyze information gained from customer feedback to determine changes or
improvement required to fill the “gaps”
 Use employees’ comments and behavior to identify stages of resistance they indicate

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

 Respond appropriately to employee reactions, indicative stages and review the Service
Delivery Process
 One organization surveys every fourth customer with complaints. Another describes
complaints as “free information” about their customers’ needs and expectations.

These organizations supplement surveys of people who complain with routine and often
extensive data collection tools in order to understand their customer.

Customers are surveyed to determine their level of satisfaction with existing services.
These surveys assess customer satisfaction with existing services, delivery of services,
helpfulness of employees, and overall performance of the organization.

Some companies add a few short questions to the end of customer calls or correspondence.
Companies also survey their front –line employees for their attitudes as well as for
their ideas for improving service asking their employees to take the customers perspective.

Manage customer expectations

Organizations do not wait for complaints to come in the door. They try to anticipate the
needs and problems of customers and to set realistic expectations through customer education
and communication strategies. Research shows that 40 percent of complaints come from
customers having inadequate information about a product or a service. Using customer feedback
to understand customer expectations needs organizations educate their customer and/or the
public on what they can expect from their products and services and what obligations and
responsibilities their customers have

Element10. 2.2Managing customer complaints

How to deal with customer complaints into recover service delivery
 Improve how your business deals with complaints
 Below are tips on how to deal with complaints

Put a complaint handling procedure in place.

 Look at how your business currently handles complaints, and whether it is effective
 Involve your staff in developing a complaint handling system and decide who will handle
complaints
 Anticipate common complaints handling procedure and prepare standard solutions with
you staff
 Write down your complaints handling procedure and prepare standard complaint for
 Ensure all staff are trainees in the complaint handling procedure, and have the skills to
handle complaints well
 Have a sign saying your business welcomes genuine complaints about your product
/service
 Clearly advice your customers where they can report any problems, and ensure staff are
trained
 Ensure your customer can report any problems to your 24 hours a day, if appropriate.
 Keep a record of all problems and complaints raised, and analyze the information
gathered

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Fabian Kasukula
Vocational Teacher Mbeya RVTSC

 Trail the system and use customer and staff fee back to improve it one’s time

Dealing with customer complaint

- Thank customers for raising their complaints to you.
- Have one staff member manage each complaint to its outcome, and make sure they have
full authority to organize acceptable solutions
- At all times, treat customer with genuine empathy, courtesy, patience, honest and fairness
- Respond to the complaint quickly; tell the customer how it will be handled and advice the
customer when they can expect a response
- Speak to the customer in person, and do not rely solely on any written complaints, or
records of conversations
- Demonstrate to the customer that you clearly understand the full nature of their
complaint, by familiarizing yourself with any background information, listening
carefully, asking questions to clarify the situation and summarizing back to the customer
your understanding of the problem.
- Once details of the complaints have been taken, advice the customer what will happen
next
- Adopt a solution focused approach by actively involving the customer in this process, and
ensure they are happy with proposed solution before proceeding.
- Keep customer informed of progress during the process.
- Ensure all promised action is full completed promptly
- Clearly advice the customer of the outcome of their problem and advice the customer of
any action that will be taken to prevent the problem arising again.
- Always work within the relevant government regulations, and ensure the customers and
your rights are protected
- Follow up with the customer within one week to check everything has been satisfactorily
resolve

Identification of potential difficult customer complaints

a) Understand what the customer need and expect
b) Encourage customer complaints as many customers think it is simply not worth the hassle
to complain
c) They are skeptical that the organization will do anything or they may even fear
retribution

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