Customer Service in Retailing PDF

To develop a sustainable customer service advantage, retailers offer a combination of personalized and standardized services. **Personalized service** requires that service is based on establishing a set of rules and procedures for providing highquality service and ensuring that they get implemente...

To develop a sustainable customer service advantage, retailers offer a combination of personalized and standardized services. **Personalized service** requires that service is based on establishing a set of rules and procedures for providing highquality service and ensuring that they get implemented consistently. The effectiveness of standardized services relies mainly on the quality of the retailer's policy, procedures, and store, as well as its website design and layout. capabilities of each service provider. Some service providers are better than others, national chains that emphasize self-service and lower costs. However, recommendation engines coupled with a database of customer transactions are providing automated personalization. available to consumers, and recommendation engines are a response to this information overload. At the appropriate moment---generally when you're about to make a retail purchase---the engine subtly makes a product suggestion. Amazon was the pioneer of automated recommendations, but the service has now been adopted by other retailers. For example, the Wine.com site offers customized situations, retailers offer good service by simply providing a layout and signs that enable customers to  ability to convey trust and confidence. Trust and confidence are particularly important at Nordstrom, where merchandise can be relatively expensive and customers rely on the good taste and fashion judgment of its sales associates. When a customer asks, "How do I look in this dress?" she doesn't always want to hear, "Great!" equipment, personnel, and communication materials. Nordstrom has always prided itself in providing a modern, but classic ambiance with wide unobstructed aisles. It maintains a consistent image throughout all the touch points with its customers including Nordsrom Rack, its catalogs, and other media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and an array of fashion and photo-sharing sites. 19 **Empathy Empathy** refers to the caring, individualized attention provided to customers. Nordstrom attempts to hire people that are knowledgeable about fashion. But equally important, they must love helping others. Salespeople use a CRM software that tracks customer information such as preferences for brands and sizes and describes what was purchased in the past. Sales representatives often proactively call customers to alert them to new shipments of their favorite brands. If a customer's favored salesperson is unavailable when she comes in, another salesperson can access her record to better provide that famous individualized attention. **Responsiveness Responsiveness** means to provide customer service personnel and sales associates that really want to help customers and provide prompt service. Unlike so many retailers during recessionary times, Nordstrom has not cut back on customer service and sales personnel. Customers don't have to go looking for One way to promptly solve service issues is to empower its employees. For example, a Nordstrom shoe sales associate decided to break up two pairs of shoes, one a size 10 and the other a size 10'/2, to sell a hard-to-fit customer. Although the other two shoes were unsalable and therefore made for an unprofitable sale, the customer purchased five other pairs that day and became a loyal Nordstrom customer as a result. Empowering service providers with a rule like "Use your best 1. The **knowledge gap** reflects the difference between customers' expectations and the retailer's perception of those customer expectations. Retailers can close this gap by developing a better understanding of customer expectations and perceptions. 2. The **standards gap** pertains to the difference between the retailer's knowledge of customers' perceptions and expectations and the service standards it sets. 3. The **delivery gap** is the difference between the retailer's service standards and the actual service it provides to customers. This gap can be reduced by getting employees to meet or exceed service standards through training and/or appropriate incentives. 4. The **communication gap** is the difference between the actual service provided to customers and the service that the retailer's promotion program promises. When retailers are more realistic about the services they can provide, customer expectations can be managed effectively to close this gap. 25 Knowing What Customers Want: The Knowledge Gap ============================================== The first step in providing good service is knowing what customers want, need, and expect and then using this information to improve customer service. 26 Retailers can reduce the knowledge gap and develop a better understanding of customer expectations by undertaking customer research, increasing interactions between retail managers and customers, and improving communication between managers and the employees who provide customer service. 27 Retailers use a variety of approaches for assessing customer perceptions and expectations of customer service. **Social Media** Retailers can learn a lot about their customer expectations and perceptions of their service quality by monitoring what they say about the retailer's offering and the offerings of competitors on their social networks, blogs, review sites, and what they are posting on sites like YouTube and Flickr. Numerous retailers   Employees are motivated to achieve service goals when the goals are specific, measurable, and participatory in the sense that the employees participated in setting them. Vague goals---such as "Approach customers when they enter the selling area" or "Respond to e-mails as soon as possible"---don't fully specify what employees should do, nor do they offer an opportunity to assess employee performance. Better goals would be "All customers should be approached by a salesperson within 30 seconds after entering a selling area" or "All e-mails should be responded to within three assess their service quality. These professional shoppers visit stores to assess the service provided by store employees and the presentation of merchandise. Some retailers use their own employees as mystery shoppers, but most contract with an outside firm to provide the assessment. The retailer typically informs salespeople that they have "been shopped" and provides feedback from the mystery shopper's report. Some retailers offer rewards to sales associates who receive high marks and schedule follow-up visits to sales associates who prompt low evaluations. Meeting and Exceeding Service Standards: ======================================== emotional support, provide appropriate incentives, improve internal communications, and use technology. 41 each customer interaction, even if it is not their specific job. In addition, Apple personnel are encouraged to anticipate needs, even if the customer doesn't express them. A PC user who keeps stopping by the store might need some encouragement about how easily Apple will help him convert his files, for example. 42