Customer Service Basics

• Customer service means giving support to current and future customers, boosting their satisfaction with the company's offerings.
• Quality customer service creates a feeling of value and being heard, so training is key.
• Training employee challenges include time and money.
• Key benefits to training are better employee attraction, recruitment, retention, and involvement.
• Training improves skills, communication, workplace knowledge, morale, confidence, and job satisfaction.
• Career growth is also a benefit of training.

Organization of Service

• Perceived service value is how consumers rate a product's worth by weighing what they get against what they give.
• Customer orientation focuses on activities and beliefs that prioritize customer interests, creating superior customer value.

Loyalty and Customer Relationships

• Building customer touchpoints involves creating positive relationships with loyal customers
• Include managing service encounters, offering incentives and special options
• Develop smart pricing for long-term use, manage a customer database and communicate well with customers

Service Failure Recovery

• Basic customer needs when disappointed include:
• Emphatic ear: They want to communicate their issue
• Apology: Sometimes a sorry is enough
• Solution: They want the problem fixed
• Compensation: They want compensation
• Follow up: They want to know their issue was handled
• Reassurance: They want to know they are in good hands
• Service is recovered when a customer service worker turns a bad experience into a good one.

Service Trends in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

Shrinking Customer Loyalty

• Focus on short-term strategies such as price discounts
• The best example is frequent flyer travel programs
• The basic concepts are:
• Identify people who frequently buy from you
• Recognize their contributions
• Reward these individuals to increase their loyalty to your company and brands

Increasing Customer Sophistication

• Customers are starting to understand the concept of value at any price point
• Examples are limited-service hotels, upscale hotels, fast food segment and tourism sectors
• These provide a array of products and services that focus more on value and less on quality or price alone

Increasing Emphasis on the Needs of Individual Customers

• Mass marketing is becoming a thing of the past.
• Over the last few decades, many major hotel chains have developed lodging properties to appeal to various market segments (transient, business, limited-service)
• Some merged with or acquired other hotel chains that focus on different market segments
• Travelers now expect hyper-personalized experiences such as customized hotel stays where room preferences are pre-arranged (type of pillow, meal restrictions, etc)
• Data analytics and AI are used to tailor services

Organizational Culture

• Includes the beliefs, attitudes, and values that define a company
• It develops naturally, like culture, whether encouraged or not.
• How to develop organizational culture:
• Hire and train with care and define mission and vision-Look for committed people
• Foster Commitment -create programs that will inspire your people to aspire for continuous improvement
• Develope a story - all cultures have great stories--Write a history of where your company came from and where it is going. This will make your employees feel as if they are part of something important

Service Culture

• Service culture highlights the importance employees place providing excellent service
• Adopting a customer support culture entails a people sharing the same vision and excelling at serving the customers

Consumer Behaviour In Tourism & Hospitality

• Consumer behavior impacts hotel, restaurant, and entertainment choices, so understand what drives those decisions.
• Consumer behavior can be divided into 3 stages: pre-visit, onsite, and post visit
• Loyalty is when customers consistently choose a brand, even with other options.
• Loyal customers stick with their preferred options, despite higher prices or stricter policies, prioritizing convenience.

How customer loyalty is built

• Build loyalty by exceeding expectations, providing great service, responding to feedback, committing to improvement, building relationships, and understanding guest wants.
• Providing guests with a personalized experience

Customer Service Definitions

• In tourism, it covers service before, during, and after a trip.
• In hospitality, it solves guest issues and reflects the property's quality, shaping first impressions.
• Improves guest satisfaction and experience.

Consistency and Reliability

• Results in building customer loyalty and improving reputation
• Consistency is doing things the same way every time as per procedure
• Reliablility means dependable at all times
• Consistent, high-quality service earns customer trust, increasing loyalty and repeat business.
• Reputations are built on consistent, positive customer experiences, driving word of mouth advertising

Personalization and Customization

• Set business apart by crafting unique experiences that value each guest's needs.
• Creates customer loyalty and demonstrating the business cares about individual needs builds lasting memories.
• Exceeds customer expectations and results in a satisfying satisfying experience.

Customer Service Principles

• In tourism, communication that is prompt and clear resolves issues effectively and enhances the customer experience by reducing frustration.
• Effective communication boosts efficiency by reducing misunderstandings.

Empathy with Customers

• Customers who feel valued forms bonds with the company and staff.
• Understanding and addressing customer concerns with compassion resolves issues quickly.
• Transforms negative situations and can result a memorable customer experience.
• Enhances a brands image and attracts loyal customers, and creates a positive and lasting impression.

Test your knowledge on key concepts in customer service, including customer orientation, handling complaints, and fostering customer loyalty. Explore the challenges and benefits of customer service training and the importance of perceived value.