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Another satisfied customer?
23 Jul 2007
Topics: Customer service, Automotive, Kitemark®, PAS 80
Everyone will agree that a high level of customer satisfaction is good for business - a study published in January 2006 in the Journal of Marketing confirms that "satisfied customers are economic assets with high returns and low risk."
In fact, in an analysis of the study, The Consumerist highlights the fact that "companies at the top 20 per cent of the American Customer Satisfaction Index greatly outperformed the stock market, generating a 40 per cent return". In other words, happy customers don't just mean consistent business, they may also be boosting share prices.
If this is the case, why do so many companies fall down when it comes to customer service?
To some extent, it's a question of perspective and expectation versus reality. A recent BSI survey of 1,715 respondents carried out by research company Tickbox reveals a mixed picture of customer services practices among UK businesses. The majority of respondents have experienced rude, unhelpful staff, often lacking knowledge about the products they are selling.
Complaints handling processes are also seen as inadequate. Almost half the respondents said they had received computer-generated written replies to complaints.
Overall, according to nearly two-thirds of respondents, customer service levels in the UK are declining. However, this should be seen against a background of rising expectations, says Robert Crawford, executive director of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS). As some organizations have upgraded the service they offer, others are under pressure to match these improvements.
"I'm not convinced service is actually getting worse in the UK, it is just that companies and businesses have not kept up with expectations," Crawford says. "It is also the case that we have got used to complaining. Thirty years ago the British would never complain and we maintained a stiff upper lip, whereas now we are much more likely to."
Call to action
The call centre industry is waking up to the need for action. Crawford concedes, for example, that service levels in customer contact centres leave much to be desired. He attributes this to the fact that they have been developed over the past ten years as a way of cutting costs rather than improving service.
At a recent global conference, Vincent Vanden Bossche, president of the European Confederation of Contact Centres, said, "We must work together and share best practice in order to raise customer satisfaction levels."
He vowed to use the newly-created global forum to share best practice. A survey of European users shows that 78 per cent of respondents agreed that their most recent call centre experience had exceeded expectations. However, those expectations were exceedingly low: only 6.4 on a scale of one to nine.
Meanwhile, Howard Kendall, former ICS chairman and now head of the Help Desk Institute, says, "The bottom line is we need to make customer services better. It is about using basic common sense, being welcoming on the phone, doing things you say you are going to do and having proper communications and feedback.
"A standard in itself won't transform customer service - the aim is to make organizations think about service and how they can improve it. It sets a baseline to build on," Kendall adds.
Other sectors are coming under pressure to improve their reputations for service and are approaching BSI to find ways to regain credibility with customers. The garage services industry asked BSI to create a Kitemark® for service after the sector was heavily criticised by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
This resulted in PAS 80 and associated Kitemark® scheme for service and repair of vehicles to ensure that they meet the highest possible standards. This was developed by BSI in conjunction with members of the automotive industry and aims to ensure technical and service standards are maintained. It includes a framework of performance measures identified as important to the customer.
One survey of garage owners adopting the Kitemark® showed most of them experienced an uplift in turnover as a result.
This demonstrates the positive impact that improvements in customer service can have on business performance. Over two-thirds of customers switching to rival services do so because they feel they have been poorly treated. It is commonly held to be five times cheaper to retain an existing customer than to recruit a new one. On one estimate, a one per cent reduction in customer service problems could generate an extra £16m in profits for a medium-sized company over five years.
A new approach
Amid rising public expectation about standards of customer service, BSI has launched a new code of practice, which aims to boost the quality of provision in this area.
BS 8477:2007 Code of practice for customer service has been developed in partnership with consumer magazine
The creation of the code is backed by nearly 90 per cent of respondents to the BSI survey. They agreed that customer services in the UK would benefit from a defined set of standards for good practice.
BSI British Standards' operations director Shirley Bailey-Wood explains that BS 8477 covers the main principles of good customer service and - crucially - addresses the issue of getting senior management to throw its weight behind improving service.
"This standard is about taking a customer satisfaction view; everything from opening times to management buy-in and back office functions. It includes all the elements that come together to make customer service good. It provides organizations with something they can benchmark against and acts as a checklist for those who are new into the market," she says.
For any business seeking competitive advantage from high levels of customer service, the guidance laid out in BS 8477 provides a clear benchmark against which they can assess their progress.
CASE STUDY: HELP WANTED
BSI is currently undertaking a study to determine the feasibility of developing cross-sector European standards that help improve the quality, delivery, customer satisfaction, billing and handling of complaints of European services, with the aim of improving cross-border trade.
For more information, visit:www.chesss.eu
Business Standards © 2010. Editorial produced by Caspian Publishing in association with The British Standards Institution. Editorial opinions expressed on are not necessarily those of BSI Group or Caspian Publishing. Neither Caspian Publishing nor BSI Group accept responsibility for advertising or editorial content, nor for that appearing on linked third-party websites. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without written permission from BSI Group or Caspian Publishing.
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