Customer Services at Tesco

Introduction.

I am doing a project based on Customer Services for Tesco. I am doing research into the company and with my findings I am going to provide recommendations to improve Customer Services at Tesco. The areas that I am going to be covering are:

What Customer Services does there company provide.
How do they measure Customer Satisfaction.
How do you know that their customers are happy.
What legislation affects their customers at Tesco.
How do they segment their target market.

And

What is their Customer profile.

From the above I will provide recommendations for improvements.

Theory Of Customer Services.

Customer Services is the overall activity of identifying and satisfying customer needs.

“Most people entering a shop or contacting a firm by letter or telephone, have suggested that by this action they have a need”

I think that this suggestion is true because people go to the shop and need somewhere to park and what kind of parking they need, if they need to use the toilet facilities, also just going into the shop buying the products. The customer must be treated and advised accordingly, and the advice that they are given must be accurate.

“After sales service is an essential element of customer service in any type of organisation, it may cover faulty goods, refunds, exchange of goods, complaints about goods, service or hygiene.”

Many customers go back to the store in which they have received something and have a query about the service or product in which they have received. Sometimes it may be food things but other times its not. A lot of good will be refunded or goods exchange will take place. It requires a salesperson to be aware of the consumer’s charter and the relevant laws on the sale of goods trade descriptions. Many shops/stores have a “customer service department” to deal with queries which certain people might have.

Measuring Customer Satisfaction.

It is important for Tesco to measure how satisfied their customers are so that if they need to they can make improvements to products or the service in which they provide. The ways in which Tesco measure Customer Satisfaction is by:

Sending out questionnaires to customers through post or email. This shows if Tesco need to make any improvements to their service or any of their products.
The Tesco Loyalty card- This is provided by Tesco and it has the customer’s details. Tesco can use this to see how often the customer shops there and to see if there are any product/products in particular that they buy. If they see that that customer has not shopped in Tesco for a few months they might post them some product vouchers (e.g. money off coupons) to bring that customer back to the store. If Tesco do this it makes the customer see that Tesco’s are willing to help the customer in all sorts of ways to bring there custom back. This helps Tesco measure the satisfaction of individual customers.
They record some of their calls that are made by customers for training purposes.
On the spot questions from staff.
Observation (e.g. mystery shoppers.)
Customer panels or interviews.
Customer comments on the web site or in store.

From this they can analyse the sales performance e.g. sales levels, number of customers, records of products brought and from the loyalty card records. All of this is part of market research and they get the feed back from their customers.

What Customer Services Tesco Provides

From my findings at Tesco I have found out the following:

Products:

Most of the products that are sold at Tesco are of good quality (apart from the food that looks untidy on the shelves, and that it looks like it has been thrown in.) I ...