Final Project

Final Project 

Phase 1 

EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGIES

    In customer service industry, there are some strategies that are most effective. Customer service strategy is created by idea which based on customer happiness. In my opinion, especially empowering the staff, enhancing customer loyalty, and taking advantage of feed back are the most effective customer service strategies.

     Providing good service anytime is one of important condition to get customers’ trust, so first strategy is empowering staff. Through the service if the staff doesn’t feel a sense of ownership, they cannot guide customers properly. In case, some problems are happened, but staff couldn’t do anything. It means that customer cannot trust them also the shop own. On the other hand, the staff who is empowered can deal customers flexibly because they have authority to make decision that are best for customers. Moreover, customers think they are reliable. It leads to the shop get trust from customers.

    Second strategy is enhancing customer loyalty. Loyal customers are necessary to continue the business regardless of the size because the loyal customer is who use the shop over and over, use constantly, and recommend to people around them like family, friends. Loyal customer can be an advertiser. Therefore, loyal customer contribute sales, also they expand their potential. There are many ways to get loyal customers like using reward program, offering personal discount, creating a point system, and build A-plus value. These are not essential things for the business but if your business doesn’t use these, it’s difficult to get loyal customers. Famous business; Sephora, Starbucks, actually use these programs.

    Last, taking advantage of feedback is effective strategy to improve their service. Through getting the feedback, they can know which part is their strong points, advantage and which is their room for improvement. In addition, they know who are the customer. Feedback doesn’t only give them a chance to know about themselves and also know more about customer. They can provide more suitable service as understanding customers’ age group, preference, needs and expectation. Feedback is also a perfect opportunity to built a good relationship with customers. By improve their service based on customers’ voice, customer think they really value.

    Every business has different vision, customers’ needs, depends on these contents. However, each business can create their own strategies based on these three. It because providing great service anytime by empowering the staff, built a loyalty program and expand their potential customer then never stop getting better by feedback is productive strategies. Through these steps, their service more suit for customer.

REAL-TIME SERVICE MOMENT

    I went to a café which located in Main St. The staff of the café is friendly and greeted me with smile. He made me feel like he has helpful attitude. I’m not a native English speaker, so ordering at café is not so difficult, but I sometimes feel nervous. In this case, his attitude made me good first impression of the café. Greeting customer with welcome mind is a basic thing that I learned over and over through this hospitality course. As I experienced this, I think that it is easiest thing in customer service but having a big effect.

     At that time, I ordered matcha latte, but the staff said that matcha latte is not available now. Managing the stock is one of the important things for customer service. When I heard that, I was little disappointed. However, he asked me my favor and suggest chai latte. This respond shows his professional knowledge. Having enough knowledge about the beverage they serve is skill which is related to increase customers’ satisfaction. Also, I thought that he has two abilities which are the ability to communicate effectively and the ability to use empowerment thorough dealing with this lack of stock problem quickly and smoothly by suggesting another thing. According to Kevin Stirtz who is the author of more loyal customers: 21 real world lessons to keep your customers coming back, “Know what your customers want most and what your company does best.” Thus, whatever happened, trying to find best way whatever happened is related to make customer happy. This situation proved this is truth.

    In addition, this café is really care about cleanness of their environment. After I got latte and took seat, people who have taken seat next to me left. there are some cups and plates on the table. It is a sight see well in café, but the staff clean the table as soon as they left. it didn’t busy time, so even though they don’t clean, no customer doesn’t need to wait. On the other hand, if the staff keep the place clean, the atmosphere of café is definitely better than left dirty dishes on the table. Making a clean eating area means that they care and want your customers to have a good time. If the area customer eating or drinking is dirty, it is easy to guess that kitchen sanitation is poor. Therefore, unclean space leads to questions of food safety and their management. In this point, the café is manage the staff and environment well.

THE SUCCESSES AND WEAKNESS OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE

    Tim Horton which sells coffee and doughnut is one of the most famous chain coffee shops and fast food restaurants in Canada. Tim Horton has over 4,000 restaurants in 14 countries. As you can see from this number, this restaurant successfully rising. It means that they have strong advantage that better than competitors.

 

    The key success factor is their price. They are much cheaper compares to their competitor such as Starbucks, McDonald’s. This price attracts people of all economic levels and gain repeat customers. When you walk in Vancouver, it is common sight that someone who walk with a cup of coffee from Tim Horton. These people want to grab coffee and go somewhere like workplace, and schools. This price makes this need solves easily so that Tim Horton is a good place to just grab coffee and some bakery goods.  

    Moreover, their application contributes to gain loyal customers. These days, using restaurants shops own apps is famous way. They also follow this trend and control well. In the app, you can get offer each week. This offer provides customers discount or gain extra points. This offer trigger buying motivation.  

    On the other hand, Tim Horton has weakness. You can sometimes see unclean chair and table in Tim Horton. Cleanliness is essential thing in food industry because their environment effects to impression and trust. In fact, it can be said that Tim Horton can cover this weakness by their price. However, increasing customer satisfaction, they need to control quality. Customer feel nothing wrong about cleanliness and product they serve regardless of which shops they use. If they can improve this aspect, they take more advantage and decrease fear of expansion in competition.

After all, while taking advantage of their price, they should take care of their management to keep the same quality.

REFERENCES

Integrity Services. (n.d.). 4 Reasons Why Restaurant Customers Value Cleanliness as Much as                 Food. Retrieved from  https://integrityservicecompanies.com/2018/11/09/4-reasons-why-restaurant-  customers-value-        cleanliness-as-much-as-food/#:~:text=Cleanliness%20is%20an%20essential%20part%20of%20customer%20service.,have%20a%20good%20time%20while%20they%20are%20dining. 

Shastri,A. (n.d.). Detailed SWOT Analysis of Tim Hortons with Company Overview. retrieved                                 from https://iide.co/case-studies/swot-analysis-of-tim-hortons/

Phase 2 

THE CHALLENGE AND IMPROVEMENT 

    In customer service, there are a lot of challenges because no one customer be the same. they need to think best way to provide a good service every time. According to the customer service skills text, there are ten common barriers to excellent customer service which are laziness, poor communication skills, poor time management, attitude, moodiness, lack of adequate training, inability to handle stress, insufficient authority, serving customers on autopilot, inadequate staffing. To improve service, they should find solution for these.

 

    Break bakery & café is one of the few cafés which open 24 hours. Their pastries and opening hour make this café popular. However, as I heard from few workers who work at break bakery & café, at the mid night shift, there are only two people there. If there are few customers, it doesn’t a problem, but the place, where they work, is located in downtown and near the bar and pub. It means that two staffs are not enough to manage all. It also related to a long waiting line. This challenge is caused by inadequate staffing. Moreover, this poor management cause inside customer in other words staff’s stress. As I mention in infographic, hiring the people who have proper abilities and managing well is a way to improve. 

    Having a choice to return products is good for customer. No one likes to go through the tricky returning process, so having a flexible return policy is much better than one that doesn’t However, Apple which is know for its sleek, innovative products doesn’t have impressive return policy. Customers only have 14 days to return products, as long as all the accessories, packaging, documentation and receipt are included. As a gift, customer needs a gift receipt in order to return something. In this case, the most effective way to improve is making return process easier. Clarify the policy when they buy products, customer understand what they need when they want to return.

 

     Lastly, I discuss about challenging of personalised service. Recently, using websites, or apps are becoming common even in customer service. It means that service is easy to personalised. Personalised is great way to increase loyal customers, however there are challenge about managing customer data. Marriott international hacked approximately 500 million hotel customers data in November 2018. Using customer data and analyse customers needs provide positive effect, but they should keep them safe. How to manage the data is related to trust. They need to be careful about it.

 

 REFERENCES

Abi T,T.(2022, September 25). The biggest data breaches. Retrieved                                                    from https://www.upguard.com/blog/biggest-data-breaches

Barker, S. (2022, August 17). 8 of The Best ways to Improve Your Customer Service and                 Boost Sales in 2022. Retrieved from https://shanebarker.com/blog/improve-customer-             service/　

Bond, C. (2020, January 2). 10 retailer with the best and worst return policies. Retrieved 

        fromhttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/best-worst-return-policy_l_5e0e373ce4b0b2520d1e94ed

Phase 3 

FUTURE JOB 

I’d like to work in the food industry. Actually, I haven’t decided yet what kind of position or specific things. However, through the service excellence/ essentials program, and working as a server in a restaurant, I realised that this job is really interesting. Before I took this program, I never work as a server, so I cannot know about the duty and responsibility of a server. Based on ability or essential skills I learned in this program, and support from co-worker, I can notice that food industry such as café, restaurants, or pub where the staff and customer meet face to face is one of the place staff can see the customer who become happy because of our service.

 I think that I’d like to get job in my country. I plan that after I go back to Japan, I try to work in restaurant or café as utilise my experience here and things I learned from the program to get job in Japan. I believe that my experience that work in different country become a big advantage, because I get skills to how to deal customer who are from other country.

There are many things I learned through this, but especially how to handle the complaint is useful thing for me. There are not so much chance to handle them, but in case I face to it, I need to know about it.

I’d like to get job in food industry by using practical skills I learned from this program.

MY UNDERSTANDING OF CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Through the Service Excellence/ Essential Program, my perception of customer service is changed. First, I think dealing the customer is very difficult for me, because no one customer is not same and I think that I cannot handle difficult customers. However, I learned basic duty and skills about customer service like interpersonal and social/soft skills. The one of the important things for me is becoming a better listener that I learned in front desk service. It seems easy but in the real situation it become a little difficult. If I face to difficult customer, I will be impatient. After I realised that listening is related to understanding, I can be more patient than before. These clarify skills what I need to know and acquire. Also, through the course, there are some opportunities to demonstrate how to provide the service in the different situations. I understand these skills from practice in demonstrate and presentations.  

Before I took this program, I have never work at restaurants and I don’t have practical skills. I believed that no experience is disadvantage, but I noticed that once I started working, I can learn little by little.

I’m still learning, but by using the knowledge I learn effectively, I’d like to provide a better customer service. 

Moreover, through event planning course, I learnt how to plan and success the event. The flow of plan the event is totally unknow things for me. Through the assignment, I can know how to do. This experience is valuable for me.