Customer Service

Customer service, a department within a company, which tries to ensure that customers are happy, both with the goods or the service the business/company is providing, also the manner in which the manner they are served by employee’s and the company approach towards them. All businesses need customers to buy their products and services. In order to do this company’s and businesses must treat customers respectively so that’ll encourage them to buy their products or service. As more and more companies compete for customers business, businesses must provide a high-quality product or service that is safe and reliable, does what it’s suppose to, and offers good value for money, but during this they must ensure that a high standard of service is provided for the customer.

If a poor customer service is provided it is likely that the customer will take their business elsewhere, this could be due to poor staff, or just general lack consideration for the customers needs. This important aspect of customer relations is so vital to the successfulness of a business that most customer service departments within a business produces questionnaires, deal with customer enquiries and complaints a forward these to the departments which they apply to so that customer service in future their will be greatly improved thus improving relations with customers and improving sales.

All customer service departments aim to improve customer relations by:

Providing relevant information for that matter
Giving general advice
Providing credit facilities for customers
Delivering goods, making sure they arrive on time, ensuring that they are at a decent quality when they arrive to the customer and dealing with refunds if needed
Providing after-sales services such as, warranty’s, refunds and insurance

The benefits of a good customer service record usually reflect in the high level of sales and returning customers.

Most of the time the individual needs of customers and the methods of providing customer service vary between different types of businesses. Also customer service may vary between different businesses even though they are providing the same goods or services, this could be due to the businesses taking different approaches towards customers. Simpler methods of customer service are like, giving information about the shop opening times, special staff trained in dealing with customers and the shop dealing with complaints and refunds.

Business customer service departments must also keep various aspects of their department constantly under review to allow ...

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Business customer service departments must also keep various aspects of their department constantly under review to allow them to make changes in the way the company deals with customers.

Things like:

Reliability, a reputation for good reliability within the company can bring in new customers and bring back previous customers

Friendliness, this allows a good atmosphere between customers and the company. This allows customers to feel more appreciated, some companies train staff to allow them to give this friendly manner across to them

Availability of goods and services, the availability of goods is important as it gives customers and satisfaction knowing that goods will be there when they need them, mostly convenient rather than anything else

Speed of delivery, this may sometimes only apply to some businesses which deliver to customers products which are to big of heavy for them to take away there and then, this means the company must provide a quick delivery service as to not cause the customer any inconvenience

Caring for the environment, most customers expect companies and their suppliers to look after the environment by avoiding pollution and waste from by-products during production

Customer safety, an issue that is one of the most important within a business. Customers have the right the to expect that a company is providing them with safe goods or service which ensure their well being. This applies all over the company, from the premises of the company to the products it’s providing.

A fixed policy for exchanges or refunds, almost all businesses have a policy for exchanging goods if they are faulty or do not meet the needs of the customer. If customers do not which to make a exchange for the product they can opt for a full refund of their money. The exchange and refund policy also has its limitations where a company can set a period of time where the product is valid for exchanging or refunding.

Access to buildings/premises, easy access to the premises of the company is vital as this could be the vital factor depending on what business, e.g. post office, most elderly people go to post offices to collect pensions and without easy access they won’t be able to access that service thus the post office losing a lot of business.

Customer Service, McDonalds

McDonalds as a company relies heavily on the satisfaction from their customers. To do this they try to convey the McDonalds Company and its staff as a friendly company, which customers can depend on to give a quality, and friendly service for those who enter their restaurants. To do this some of the things McDonalds try to do to achieve this are:

Provide a friendly atmosphere between customers and employees
Offer training to employees to allow them to feel and act more comfortably around customers
Accommodate for any type of customer e.g. people with disabilities
Offer questionnaires to customers so that customers can suggest how they want the company to be improved on the way it’s ran
Offer a clear customer satisfaction policy about their food
Offer a speedy service as a matter of convenience
Make customers feel as comfortable as they can when they are in their restaurants

By doing this McDonalds has ensured that it keeps all of their customers happy thus winning many awards for customer satisfaction and the quality of their service. Also to help with customer relations McDonalds has created a very interactive website

(www.McDonalds.com) Where customers can feel they are more at one with the company itself, the website also encourages customers to make enquiries and suggestions about how the company is currently running and whether its to a satisfactory standard.

Also McDonalds customers can write to McDonalds UK’s head office where they can make complaints, suggestion, or request general queries at:

McDonald's Restaurants Ltd.
11 - 59 High Road
East Finchley
London N2 8AW

Customer Service,

Cadbury Schweppes

Cadbury Schweppes depends highly on the successful of its customer satisfaction record; this is to ensure they feel a good relationship between the company and its customer base. Worldwide Cadbury Schweppes has won many awards just as McDonalds has for its excellent customer service record.

The importance of customer service and their satisfaction is shown throughout the whole company.

Logistics, customer services and purchasing (grouped together as our supply chain) manages the sourcing and flow of products, services and associated information throughout Cadbury Schweppes, locally and internationally.

We oversee the entire supply chain to make sure the right materials and products reach the right place at the right time and price - both from suppliers, and on to customers. We work closely with colleagues in sales, marketing and manufacturing to capitalise on any available synergies, and with customers to develop a co-ordinated supply chain agenda.

As a graduate you'll be expected to start making a real difference from the word go, helping improve our business efficiency and the value for money we achieve.

(Taken from the Cadbury Schweppes website, )

Also they’re priority to customer satisfaction is again show on their website where they point out how key their customers our to them as a company on the whole.

Our purpose & values

We are an international company, proud of our long heritage, respectful of the social and natural environment in which we operate, supportive of our consumers, customers and colleagues and passionate about success.

We make, market and sell unique brands which give or bring pleasure to millions of consumers around the world every day.

We have done this successfully for over 200 years. This success has been built upon understanding the needs of our consumers, customers and other stakeholders and by operating to a clearly defined set of vales.

But around us the world changes. The obligations of business to society have broadened. Yet at the same time we want to ensure the continuation of our own heritage.

Our statement of purpose and values provides a clear framework for our strategic intent and how we will conduct our business.

Our objective is to consistently deliver superior shareowner returns.

While we are committed to this objective, we recognise that the company does not operate in isolation. We have clear obligations to consumers, customers and suppliers, to our colleagues and to the society, communities and natural environment in which we operate.

(Taken from the Cadbury Schweppes website, )

Also they encourage customers to help with the running of the company by asking them to contribute to anything, which they may feel is not to a standard, which they like. They do this by offering an address on the back of all their products, on the back of one of their products, a marble bar, it says:

“At Cadburys we are proud of the quality of our products and we want you to enjoy them. If you are not entirely satisfied with this product, please return it with it wrapper to our customer services manager at the address below, saying when and where it was bought, if bought in the republic of Ireland please return to, Cadbury Ireland ltd., Coolock, Dublin 5.

CADBURY LIMITED, P.O. BOX 7008, BOURNVILLE, BIRMINGHAM, B30 2PT UK.

Made by Cadbury Stani, Argentina