Organisation Structure
The employers are responsible to providing good customer service shown by the store customer service standards.
Every selling partner must be able to say what minimum standards are expected of them, before becoming a partner you must do a 5 hour induction which covers all aspects of customer service, health and safety etc. The offensive weapons act is also mentioned in the induction, as for the partners to be aware because it is illegal to sell knife or blade to anyone under the age of 16. All partners must ask if in doubt for proof of identification if the customer is under the illegal age. The induction also includes a 1-hour tour around each floor in store showing the fire exit doors and what to do when the alarm sounds. Health and safety is also included in the induction, as well as the health & safety policy.
A further induction must be taken if you want to use the till as a cashier, this induction is mainly of the buttons and features which will have to be used in order to make a transaction/sale.
The main customer service standards expected of all employees are:
The customers should be acknowledged within 2 minutes of entering the department, this could mean a smile to the customer of greeting by mouth.
All departments should have a clear identifiable customer service manager, the manager should give help to customers when the number of customers outnumber the numbers of partners.
On each department the customer service manager can be recognised with a gold plated badge which holds customer service manager.
Cashiers must use the customers name, as where the customer identifies themselves e.g. my credit card, John Lewis account card, through filling up a order form etc.
The employees normally have a 1-hour induction session at the end of every 2-3 day discussing & correcting their job roles.
The induction will normally include a half an hour video, which shows what steps to take if a customer is a suspicious type etc.
The employees must also dress by their set guidelines, this is because to show respect to the customers and also to be easily identified to the customer as a partner of John Lewis.
The male selling partners must wear as it includes in the guidelines (main points):
- Suits must be medium or dark grey, navy or black
- Shits must be in white, ivory/cream (not yellow) or pastel blue
- Jewellery can be worn but should be inconspicuous e.g. no more than one stud in each ear and no visible piercing jewellery other than in earlobs.
John Lewis wants their partners to look smart to their customers, as-well as use the partners entrance, which is seen at the far back of the building as this one of the roles of customer service for all partners.
Dealing with complaints
John Lewis wants to keep their customers happy and satisfied in order to do this the business must take the complaints further e.g. making the problem right through changes which may be undertook in each of the stores departments.
If a complaint is not dealt with then the business will not succeed and the customers will not feel satisfied, the customers may use word of mouth to pass the bad news on to at least 9 other friends or relatives.
The John Lewis store deals with complaints fully, the procedure they take when a complaint comes through to the department is shown through my diagram:
The procedure, which each department takes when a complaint is made at each department, must follow these procedures as seen above set by the business.
But if its only a very miner complaint then the department can deal with it instead of going through all these procedures.
Customer records
John Lewis holds records of purchases made by customers, this is kept through all the following payment methods:
(When these records are used they automatically update the computerised system, this way John Lewis will be able to hold up to date information on its customers.)
The company keeps these records because it can target its customers with promotions.
These Records are also kept by the business in order for the selves in each department to be up to date and for orders on products.
The company also holds records of products being returned to the store so 1 less order can be made for future ordering on that particular product, records are kept on refunds for security purposes.
An analysis of the customer service provided by the organisation
Examples of the type of customer service used on each department are the customer must be acknowledged within 2 minutes of entering your department this can be by a smile or greeted.
Each partner on each department must wear the correct clothing followed by the dressing guidelines.
The customers name must be mentioned if the customers identifies themselves.
The company policy is very good as if something goes wrong in a department; there are procedures to be followed. Training is also offered for the new partners, which is a part of the policy to all new partners to have the right training for there job role.
Monitoring is also part of the policy for new partners. On the departments the new partners are monitored by the manager of that job role e.g. if you are a sales man than you would be monitored by the customer service manager on that department. This is done to help the staff with improvements, which could be made, to provide a better service.
Partners when answering a phone call from customers must also mention a greeting as well as your name and the department.
I think the main strength in the business is the way the staff perform to the customer e.g. in a good manner, polite etc. But on the other hand the main point for improvement would be to employ more staff on each department, as there sometimes doesn’t seem to be enough staff around when the customer needs help. So this leaves the customer with no other choice but to wait, until staff are free with other customers. This waists time for the customer as he will have to wait and also the customer and sale might be lost because of this reason.
But there is a disadvantage to this improvement as if there was more staff employed than there is already now, than the prices of products may rise to pay for these extra staff. Therefore some customers may be lost and not very many sales would be made.
The other improvement, which could be made, is to have more stock of products or to order stock just before it runs out. This is because on the department I worked on gardening, lawn- mowers where most of the times out of stock. When customers wanted the product they would have had to wait of up to 2-weeks. This put many people off the product therefore sales where lost.
I think generally that the customer service is very good at John Lewis, as I was on the home decorating department a lady wanted a refund on a lawn mower that she just purchased a week ago. The lawn mower had not been used therefore she was entitled to a full refund, which she received straight away with no hesitation by the customer service manager, following the refunds procedure set out to each and every department, the lady left happy because of the service that was offered to her.
I also feel customer service is good at John Lewis as the partners address the customer in a very polite and well manner.
E.g. A lady was asking for paint brushes, John a member of staff on my department pointed out to her that they would be found on the home decorating department and even showed her the way their and explained to her the different sizes of paint brushes, which where available.
The woman thanked him for his help and this would always be remembered by customers as a good service and may return with friend’s etc.
John Lewis deals with complaints through its procedure. The legal constraints affecting the customer service situation on the computing department is that John Lewis can only install for you owned copies of software. Also disc/ media can not be installed for the customer if they dount belong to the customer. Also the department is not responsible for any data lost, we advise to back up your data.
The other legal constraints applying to all departments in the store is products if needed to be returned, must be returned within 28 days of purchase.
Refunds or returns will not be accepted on certain items, which have been opened and used e.g. CD, DVD, Tapes etc.
My experience of customer service
The way I communicated with customers was in with good manner, very polite and also offering them as much information as I could.
But some information or questions to answers I couldn’t give as I new nothing about the product. Therefor I explained to the customer I was on work- experience and don’t know much about the product. I then offered the customer if they wanted help from another member of staff.
I also dealt with small complaints e.g. refund wanted or exchange etc.
In most cases I apologised to the customer for the faulty goods and asked them if they would prefer a full refund or an exchange. In some cases I offered the customer with a free tea or coffee voucher for apologies from the department, which the customer was happy with.
I gave a refund to the customer because a refund has to be given on a faulty product. But refund can’t/ doesn’t have to be given after a purchase on the product of 28 days.
