Use of ICT in communication with customers
There are number of ways that ICT can be used to communicate with customers such as:
- E-Mail ( it is important that when a member of staff sends an E-mail to a customer they must use a formal language and be polite)
- Text ( also when a staff sends a text to a customer informing them of something they must write it formally and keep it short )
Argos
Argos is a retailer shop where you find in every high street it sells many products and service such as:
- Electrical goods
- Mobile phones
- Toys
- DIY products
- House ware Accessories
- Outdoor leisure
- Jewellery
- Personal care
- Insurance
- Credit cards
Argos does not concentrate that much on customer service for the reason that customers go there order the products and wait to receive thier products, Argos does not focus that much on customer service, they only want to keep the price as low as they can, they also want to offer the customer value for money products.
Argos business objectives are just to keep the products as low as they can; they want to satisfy the customer by offering them value products at the lower price.
Argos is not keen in teaching their staff about customer service the reason being is that many of the products Argos sells is at a lower price than other retail shops this is because Argos does not spend that much money in training its staff so for that reason they are able to offer the products at a lower price but if Argos starts training their staff about offering high standards of customer service then this means that Argos has to spend a lot of money in training their staff which means that they have to sell the products at a higher price then they use sell so for this reason Argos believes that offering products at a lower price is more important than offering good customer service.
Argos does not offer that much of good customer service because they do not offer a parking space for their customers and they do not care if the customer needs help in choosing a product as it is self service where the customer place his order then waits to receive their products.
Argos objectives are to keep their products as low as they can, they don’t promise their customers that they will be offered an excellent customer service as customers are required to assist them self when it comes down to ordering products. Argos don’t acknowledge their staff to know about selling skills ,Argos does not believe that it is not essential for staff to know about selling skills because when Argos sells products they are not physical for the customer to see, this is because when a customer orders a product, the product is taken from the store storage where a member of the staff gets the product from the storage and brings it at the customer service till where the customers are required to pick up their ordered product.
Also Argos gets very which is the main downside of the shop. Which results in you have to queue up at the tills to pay for the goods then you have to queue up again at the tills to for your items to be given to you, all of this can take up to half an hour and also Argos is one shop where the staff that are working there have their own conversations and seem to be unaware to all the customers waiting for their help.
Argos targets every type of customers as they sell variety of products that every type of customers desires.
Argos does not train the staffs about selling skills and excellent customer service because they believe that the customers should have the choice of buying products without being persuaded to buy it. But they give a customer service book to the staff.
Every shopping centre has an Argos retail shop but they all have different store formats it is not like Tesco where all Tesco stores have the same store format where customers know where each product is, the reason that every Argos has its own store format is because as I already mentioned Argos does not have the products they sell at the store the products are kept at the back of the store where the staffs working the get the product that the customer orders.
Argos offers after sales service for the reason that customer have a peace of mind if the product they have purchased gets faulty and also Argos offer after sales service because every retail shop in the U.K offers after sales offers.
Harvey Nichols
Harvey Nichols was founded in the year 1813 in London; it is an upmarket department store which sells the following products:
Harvey Nichols is the well known retail shop for upper class people, so for this reason Harvey Nichols shop offer a high standard of customer service. Harvey Nichols offer high standard of customer service because their customers are upper class people which means that upper class people expect to be offered high standard of customer service because they are buying products which are expensive.
Harvey Nichols trains all the staff to make the customers feel that they are valued and that they are satisfied with the service that they are offered. They also train the staff that keeping existing customers are more important than new attracting new ones which is why high standards of customer service is offered at Harvey Nichols.
They target Upper class citizen because they sell expensive product which means that only upper class people can afford to buy the products, they also target upper class citizens because they have invested a lot of money in training their staffs to offer excellent customer service, they have all so invested in a lot of money in gathering data in offering excellent customer service where customers feel that they are getting the services they expect so for Harvey Nichols to gain back that money they have invested they must target upper class citizens.
Harvey Nichols measures how staffs are offering customer service to the member of the public by
Harvey Nichols uses customer feedback to find out what customers think needs improvements within the store, they also use customer feedback to find out what customers think of the service that they are being offered so by Harvey Nichols finding out what customers think and what they believe needs improving they, they will use that data to improve the services and try to improve on what customers think needs improving.
Harvey Nichols offers this service so that they can understand why customers are not happy with the services that they are being offered, they also offer this service so that if a customer’s feels that they have not been treated fairly the can make a complaint where it will be dealt with, Harvey Nichols uses this service to find out what customers normally compliant about and try to offer a better service by using this data.
Harvey Nichols is one of the few organisations that use this sort of data to improve their customer service; they use this data by finding out how much sales they made, this is because if Harvey Nichols sales more, then this means that the staff have been offering excellent customer service which makes customers but products as well as coming back to experience that customer service that experienced but if Harvey Nichols has been making less sales then this means that customers have not been receiving good customer service to persuade them buy products. Using this sort of data in improve customer service is not reliable.
Harvey Nichols uses surveys to find out about what customers think of customer service offered at Harvey Nichols; they also use surveys to find out what customers want to see changes occurring in Harvey Nichols retail stores, by Harvey Nichols using this sort of data they will be able to improve on the customer service as well as making changes the customers would like to see.
Harvey Nichols is in the market position of expensive/luxury the reason being is that they sell expensive brands as well as quality products at the top of that they offer excellent customer service which puts them at the top of the market when it comes down to clothing/jewellery retail shop.
Harvey Nichols offers high standard of customer service through:
- Offering the customer a parking place
This is part of the customer service that Harvey Nichols offers; it offers car parking so that their customers don’t have to look for car park.
They offer this service because they don’t want the customers feeling disappointed about not having their size, Harvey Nichols main aim is to keep the customer satisfied as well as making sure that the customer leaves with a good experience of the retail shop.
- Always having products in stock
This is an important service that Harvey Nichols offers, they make sure that when a customer looks for a product that they sell they must have it in stock, if they don’t have that product the customer requires then they will be offering bad customer services.
- Offering discount to regular customers
Harvey Nichols offers a discount to regular customers so that customers feel that they are valued as a customer also so that the customer comes again to make more purchases which is a selling technique that Harvey Nichols uses to make sure that their customers return.
- Training the staff who offer help and product information
Harvey Nichols makes sure that all staff working on duty have a full depth knowledge on the product that they are going to sell this is because if the staff don’t know that much information about the product then it will be difficult for the staffs to persuade the customer to purchase that product
- Offering after sales services
Harvey Nichols offers after sales service so that the customers feel that they can get support whiles not even in the store, after sales service is offered through phone and e-mail also Harvey Nichols offer this service so that when customers but products they have a peace of mind that they will get support if any goes throng with the product that they have brought
All these things that I have mentioned is part of the customer services they offer these service so that the customers feel that what they are paying is worth it , they also offer these service so that they can gain more customers. If Harvey Nichols was not offering these service that I have mentioned then they would not be offering good customer service.
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