Name of the Faculty: MAILYN Q.
ALARCON
Schedule for Instruction: MON/WED – 2:00-3:30 P.M
Republic of the Philippines
CAMARINES NORTE STATE COLLEGE
F. Pimentel Avenue, Brgy. 2, Daet, Camarines Norte – 4600, Philippines
TOPIC 6
CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY
OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
Familiarize and analyze the hotel or restaurant policy in providing great customer
service strategy in the new normal setting.
Explain the emerging trends regarding the use of technology in the field of hospitality.
DISCUSSION:
A customer service strategy is a thorough plan to handle customer interactions. It let you
provide a consistent customer experience throughout the customer journey. Improved
customer experience results in a more loyal customer base. Loyal customers buy more often,
spend more, and refer their friends and family to you.
8 Steps to Develop an Effective Customer Service Strategy
Step #1: Make customer happiness the end goal across the company. A successful
customer service strategy is a result of focusing on customer happiness. The customer-first
mindset across the board makes support teams better at their jobs. When everyone works with
the end customer in mind, your customer service team doesn’t have to make solutions look
better. They simply deliver them. Another benefit of a customer-centric approach is that you'll
remove organizational silos. Information can flow quickly between the customer support team
and other teams. This makes customer care extra efficient and thorough.
Step #2: Identify all customer touchpoints. Analyze your customer interactions. To do
so, answer the following questions:
How often do your customers contact you?
Which channels do they use to do so?
What do your customers ask or request when they contact you?
How do you measure customer engagement?
You’ll benefit from these insights because they allow you to:
Gain a deeper understanding of the context of customer service inquiries.
Improve your product or service to prevent specific customer issues.
Predict customer needs so you can allocate your staff accordingly.
Reduce customer churn and increase their lifetime value.
In other words, you can match and exceed customer expectations.
Step #3: Set goals for customer service.
Here's what SMART goals look like for your service team:
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Define specific goals instead of vague aspirations: Make each goal focus on one area
only
Make goals challenging enough so you can keep growing, but attainable with work and
targeted effort
Ensure your customer service goals directly correlate with your business objectives
Know how you’ll measure your goals and within which timeframe
Finally, the best customer service reps focus on customer relationships. They feel
empowered and supported to do right by the customer. Make this approach the background of
all customer service goals you set.
Step #4: Identify customer service KPIs to monitor. With your goals in place, you must
then define KPIs to track and improve. Without them, you can’t turn your goals into action
plans. KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, provide an instant look into how well your
customer service is doing.
Step #5: Build a driven customer service team. Then, it’s time to identify the right people
to work on these goals and KPIs. Successful customer support teams have people who aren’t
just driven by those goals — they’re also customer care champions. In other words, they’re
committed to the highest customer service standards. They talk about the importance of
customer care to other teams. They consistently share their learnings and best practices.
Here are the traits you should look for when building your customer service team:
Internal motivation: Are they driven to do great work beyond money and status?
Self-awareness: Do they recognize their impulses, judgment, and moods? Their impact
on others?
Positive attitude: Do they display friendliness, enthusiasm around challenging tasks,
focus on teamwork?
Adaptability: Are they willing to learn new processes and technologies?
Empathy and social skills: Do they genuinely care about other human beings? Can they
read social cues to identify needs and concerns as they arise?
Identify the personalities that will enrich your team and match your company culture. List
all the skills you want a person to have for each of your customer support roles. Mark all listed
skills with must-have or good-to-have, and include both hard and soft skills.
Step #6: Create a consistent feedback loop. Your feedback collection strategy should
focus on two equally important sources of information: Input from your customer service reps to
you. Listen to your customers through surveys, polls, on social media, in focus groups, and
conversations with your reps. This way, you can improve your products, features, positioning,
and all business communication. Listen to your reps about their experience servicing your
customers. This way, you can identify opportunities for training programs and hiring.
5 Core Principles of a Successful Customer Service Strategy
Whether you’re a one-man eBay business or a Fortune 500 company’s Director of
Customer Satisfaction, a sound customer service strategy is critical to your success. Much of
your reputation, customer retention, sales, and ultimately profits all depend on it.
1. Choose the Right People
Customer service representatives must have certain skills: diplomacy, rapid learning,
the ability to stay calm, and exceptional communication are some of the most important. Reps
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who give confusing answers will only make customers more frustrated. Reps who get angry will
practically start a riot. Never look at customer service as a low-skill position to be filled as
cheaply as possible. Hire intelligent, professional people for the job. And if you offer phone
support, then for the love of all that is good, make sure that your reps speak clearly enough for
anyone to understand.
2. Focus on Solving the Problem Quickly and Thoroughly
Make your customer jump through as few hoops as possible. The ideal customer
service interaction has just two steps:
The customer contacts customer service. A rep receives their request and completely
resolves it. Notice that nowhere in those two steps are being put on hold, getting
shuffled around to different agents or to superiors, or being left with unanswered
questions.
To achieve this kind of customer service, you need to provide your support agents with
high levels of training and flexibility. They should know everything about your product so
that they can answer any question about it. They should also have the power to provide
refunds and replacements, make changes to accounts, and do anything else the
customer might ask of them.
3. Listen to Feedback
Some customers will have complaints about flaws in your product. Others will have
ideas for improvements they’d love to see. When they contact you with this kind of information,
pay attention to it, and act on their requests whenever feasible. Many companies pay
thousands of dollars to find out what their customers want. Don’t take it for granted when yours
tell you for free.
4. Strive to Make Your Customer’s Life Easier
Make complete and accurate descriptions of your product available to the public. If you
can’t provide such descriptions at the point of sale, then post them on a website. Most
prospective customers would prefer learning about your product online over needing to contact
customer service. Likewise, comprehensive user manuals and public knowledgebases will
greatly reduce the number of support requests you receive. Finally, always look for ways to
make your product easier to use and more reliable. The less often it makes your customer call
for help, the better.
5. Streamline Your Operation
Look for ways to provide faster answers and make your reps’ jobs easier. Consider
using customer service software like Zendesk or a CRM platform like SalesForce. Just beware
of the potential pitfalls which can cause these to be a drain on your resources rather than the
vast improvement they should be.
HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN IMPROVE HOTEL GUEST EXPERIENCE?
Technology can help improve the guest experience by enabling staff to deliver
exceptional service. Many hotels have systems where a guest's preferences and notes have
been automatically saved (where they ate during their last stay, that they prefer extra pillows,
etc.
Technology plays a huge role in our everyday lives. It has also become integrated into
the daily operations of hotel management. As hotels reopen and work toward full occupancy
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(while following local, state and national reopening guidelines in light of COVID-19), technology
has become more important than ever, and it will play a key role in recovery.
Hotel technology can be leveraged across all departments to enhance guest
experience, streamline operations, manage post COVID-19 protocols, and improve
communication between staff and guests. Here are 5 reasons why you should be using
technology in hotel management.
1. Guests Want Convenience
Guests want the check-in experience to be quick and painless. Most airports allow you
to check in online or go to kiosks where passengers can do it themselves and print out
baggage tags without needing staff help. In many fast-food restaurants, you can place your
orders and pay via a tablet or kiosk. In cinemas, you can buy or collect tickets at a digital kiosk.
Guests want that same kind of seamless, technology-driven, contactless experience in
the hotel industry, especially as contactless hospitality becomes more and more prevalent.
Whether it’s checking in at an automated kiosk by scanning a QR code or ordering room
service on a tablet, there’s no need to stand in a queue or have to leave your room to order
food. Hotel guests want an easy and smooth experience. Technology allows this to happen in
the hospitality industry.
2. Enable Your Guests to Access Information and Make Requests -- On Their Terms
People crave convenience and hotel guests are no different. They want everything to be
easy and within a metaphorical arm’s reach. Many hotels have created a Guest App where
guests are provided with useful information such as nearby entertainment venues, restaurants,
bars, medical facilities and more inside an app. Guest Messaging also allows guests to
connect with the hotel through SMS messages.
3. Improve Communication
Technology is essential for facilitating communication - especially within the hospitality
and tourism industry where many businesses are large and dispersed. Sophisticated
communication platforms are used by many hotels to allow different departments and members
of staff to stay connected and respond to guest requests more efficiently.
For example, ALICE allows all of your hotel’s departments and operations to stay
connected with a single platform. By providing a way for all of your staff to stay on the same
page and be able to track guest requests, your hotel can run a lot more smoothly.
And it’s not just for communication between your team either. Platforms like ALICE can
help improve the guest experience too by making it easier to access all of the information they
might need. Guests can access reservation details, restaurant and bar opening times and
room service via text message or by an app - which is easier and saves time.
4. Enable Your Staff to Provide Superior Service
A great guest experience keeps customers coming back and a bad one can deter them
for life. Technology can help improve the guest experience by enabling staff to deliver
exceptional service.
Many hotels have systems where a guest’s preferences and notes have been
automatically saved (where they ate during their last stay, that they prefer extra pillows, etc.) so
when guests stay at the same hotel, staff can accommodate them appropriately. It’s touches of
personalization like this in hospitality management that make the experience much better for
guests.
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5. Hotel Technology is Expected
Unless your hotel is supposed to be a remote getaway, perfect for people taking a break
from our always-connected-society, technology is essential. Guests walk into hotels and expect
strong, reliable WiFi. If you can offer something that can make their stay more convenient,
seamless and effortless...that’s even better. You’re sure to greatly boost their guest
experience, making them want to return and/or recommend you to the world- which is exactly
what you should aim for.
Hotel management companies and developers need to be embracing new and
interesting technological ideas if they want to stay relevant, and if they want to operate
efficiently post COVID-19. Technology has opened up a world of opportunities that hotels can
take advantage of to make their brand really stick in consumers’ minds and forge paths that
can lead to positive growth in the industry.
ASSESSMENT:
Search for a news article regarding the emerging trends on customer service strategy by
means of using technology in restaurant or hotel setup during the new normal. Make a critic or
reaction about the chosen article.
REFERENCES:
https://www.helpscout.com/blog/good-customer-service/
Arenas, CD Edric Publishing House (2019). Quality Service Management in Tourism
and Hospitality Industry
Ford, R., et. al. (2012). Total Quality Management for Hospitality and Tourism;
https://www.channelreply.com/blog/view/customer-service-strategy
https://www.aliceplatform.com/blog/5-reasons-to-use-technology-in-hotel-management
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