HRMD320 Human Resources Management | Customer Service

1- Definition of customer service

2- The difference between training and development

3- The benefits of training and development

4- Potential disadvantages of training and development

5- The contribution that employees can make to the brand image of the organization

6- Performance indicators that an organization could use to measure the level of customer service

Answer:

Customer service

Customer service is the services that company provide to their customers. It may be assisting the customer, helping them in any way about the product or in short it can be said that customer service is a technique which is used by the companies to work on the satisfactory level of the customers for the product. When a customer reaches a company to buy a product, company welcomes them and provides them with the product guidance, and also tries to maintain the satisfaction level of the customer by considering their needs and desire for buying the product (Pollock,  Jefferson and Wick, 2015).

Customer service not only includes providing service to customer before buying the product but also helps the customer in order to use the product. It guides them whenever they have any problem with the product. Company always tries to increase their standards in the field of customer service because they want that their customer should enjoy buying the products from the company and would further recommend to other people. This will increase the standards of the company and also the image of the company in the competitive market (Brcic and Latham, 2016).

Now to increase the customer service standards of the company the management people has to work on some of the aspects which includes training and development of the employees. A proper training has to be provided to the employee so that it can be easy to have proper understanding about the work or activity he/she has to perform. For company to have a good place in the market, it is important to pay more attention on their employees, because they are the main assets of the company and hence should be provided with the proper training. And the main aim of the training should focus on the overall development of the employee because then only he or she can work with his or her full efficiency. Training also help employees to boost up their confidence and work on the activities given by the management authorities with full confidence and skill (Jazaieri et al., 2018).

The employees can be developed when focus is given on providing proper training. Training is given in the early stage of the employment to the employee, where the employee should learn the new skills and techniques for doing the work or activity. And this is important as well, if the company would not provide proper training about the work to the employee than it might take a long time for the employee to understand the right way or technique to perform a specified activity. And hence, this could result in poor productivity of the company (Mone and London, 2018).

Development of the employee is equally important for the company, because if the customer is not developing his/her skills or the way of doing or performing the activities then it could be a great loss for the company. A proper development comes after proper training. The main difference between training and development is, training is provided at the early stages where employees learn skills that are needed to perform the work. Whereas in development includes enhancing that skills and techniques which the employee has learned during his/her training days. Developing the new techniques and skills for the work is really important for the company to improve its productivity and also to maintain their good image in the competitive market (Lindsey et al., 2015).

Customer service is done when the customer reaches the outlet of the company to buy the product or the service and it relates to the relation that company creates with that customer for long terms. Customer service can be done in many ways, which involves maximizing the satisfactory level of the customer, so that later when they would think to buy something the 1^st preference will be the same company (Cook, 2017).

There are potential disadvantages of the training and development as well. If something has advantage it also has some disadvantages also. It can be seen that company focuses on giving proper training and spend time with the employees so that they can learn new skills. But if they give devote their time with the competitors then it can impact the overall image of the company in the competitive market. Also the brand image is maintained by the employees if they focus on managing the overall activities of the company with efficiency and dedication. It will also help to maintain the overall goals of the company in the high competitive market (Hill and Alexander, 2017).

Performance indicator is one of the techniques which can be used by the company to attract the customers on large scale. Now days it all has become electronic and customer can have every detail about any product so easily sitting at home only. Even the customers can have different reviews also about how the product is performing and what all are the advantages. Companies can consider net promotor service so as to have their product promoted. A satisfied customer will surely recommend the service and product to another person and this is how net promotor scores can be very helpful in attracting the customers.

For example, Ritz-carlton Hotel Company, this hotel has been the best example for customer service. Once a customer while checking out left his laptop charger in the room only and he realized this while he was in a flight. He decided to call the hotel after reaching home. But when he reached home, he received a parcel from the hotel itself and in that parcel, it was his laptop charger.

Some of the software companies like Autodesk, solid works and others have provided the tutorial videos, which are easily available on the internet sites like YouTube. This helps a lot to the customer who is having trouble in using this software.

So, training and development plays a great role in boosting the overall performance of the employees in the workplace.

References

Brcic, J. and Latham, G., 2016. The effect of priming affect on customer service satisfaction. Academy of Management Discoveries, 2(4), pp.392-403.

Cook, S., 2017. Measuring customer service effectiveness. Routledge.

Hill, N. and Alexander, J., 2017. The handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement. Routledge.

Jazaieri, H., McGonigal, K., Lee, I.A., Jinpa, T., Doty, J.R., Gross, J.J. and Goldin, P.R., 2018. Altering the trajectory of affect and affect regulation: The impact of compassion training. Mindfulness, 9(1), pp.283-293.

Lindsey, A., King, E., Hebl, M. and Levine, N., 2015. The impact of method, motivation, and empathy on diversity training effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(3), pp.605-617.

Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.

Pollock, R.V., Jefferson, A. and Wick, C.W., 2015. The six disciplines of breakthrough learning: How to turn training and development into business results. John Wiley & Sons.