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Southern Crescent Technical College

Customer Service: Your Responsibility & Opportunities

Pete ToshThe Focus Group

Pete.tosh@thefocusgroup.biz

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Lou Holtz?

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Customer Service @Southern Crescent Technical College

I. Your Service Objective & Your ChallengesII. Utilizing a Customer Focused ApproachIII. Designing the Value & Experiences You Want

to Provide Your CustomersIV. Delivering Positive Customer Experiences

While Building RelationshipsV. Measuring Your Customers’ Perceptions of

Their Experiences with Southern Crescent

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I. Your Service Objective & Your Challenges

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Southern Crescent Technical College’sService Objective:

The objective of any business is to attract & retain customers

Everyone has a customer. If you are not serving the external customer, you better be serving someone who is

The best predictor of an organization’s future financial success: its customers’ perceptions of their experiences with the organization

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Service ‘Givens’

• You are a service business: education, hospitality, food-service, financial-resources, etc.

• You serve multiple customers – students, parents, donors, alumni, etc.

• Students are the most immediate consumers of your services

• Your sustained success is in part related to the quality of your service

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Customer/Student Retention a Key to Your Success

• Significant revenue is lost when a student leaves: tuition, fees, bookstore & food purchases, etc.

• 1,700 schools collectively lost $16.5 billion due to attrition

• Primary reasons students leave higher education: educational quality, grades, personal, schedule, not worth it, college doesn’t care, & poor service/ treatment

Dr. Neal A. Raisman, ‘The Power of Retention: More Customer Service in Higher Education’

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Calculating the Value of a Customer

• Allows you to determine the profit increase from a reduction in the loss of customers

• Puts the cost of customer requests in perspective

• Illustrates that recovery efforts are an investment & not an expense

• Gets the attention of everyone concerned with the financial health of the institution

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Unprecedented competition driving continuous improvement

Your competition: any service provider your customers come in contact with – UPS, Amazon etc.

Your Service Challenges

Enhanced customer expectations for speed, reliability, convenience, etc.Customers demanding greater value while showing less loyalty

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II. A Customer Focused Approach

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Customer Focused Organizational Strategy

• Organization-wide, long term commitment to focusing your strategy toward customers’ needs & experiences

• Delivering value by tailoring your services to your customers’ needs

• Increasing revenue & profits by making enhanced customer loyalty a primary objective

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A Three Step Customer Focused Approach

#3 Measuring Customers’

Perceptions of Their

Experiences#2 Delivering

Positive Experiences &

Building Relationships

#1 Designing Value &

Experiences You Want To Provide Your Customers

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Step #1: Designing the Value & Experiences You Want to

Provide Your Customers

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Your Customers Expect Value:

Value = GOT COST

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Your Customers Expect Value:

Value= Product + Service + Experiences Price + Effort

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Your Customers Expect Value:

• What level of service do you provide?

• What type of customer experiences do you create?

• How much effort do your customers have to exert? How easy are you to do business with you?

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Differentiating Southern Crescent Through Positive Customer Experiences

• Take-away impressions formed by encounters with an organization’s employees & it’s service

• Sensory information that creates:– Perceptions– Recollections– Awareness– Impressions– Sensations– Effects

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You Cannot Not Create Experiences for Your Customers

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What Feelings & Reactions Have You Had When You Were a Customer?

Buying a Car?Ordering a product or service from a supplier?As a patient in a doctor’s office or hospital?Having dinner in an up-scale restaurant?

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Step #2: Delivering Positive Customer Experiences Which

Build Relationships

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Customers Have Expectations Regarding the Quality of Every Service Encounter

Explicit Service Promises

Implicit Service Promises

Past Experiences

Expected Service

Perceived Service

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Quality Service is Closing the Service Gap

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Most Important Dimensions of Quality Service

Tangibles - appearance of offices, grounds, employees, etc. (What Customers See) Disney

Reliability – performing to your service promises consistently & accurately (Keeping Your Promises)Ritz Carlton

Responsiveness - willingness to help customers & provide prompt service (Readiness to Serve) Amazon

Assurance - knowledge of employees & their ability to convey competence & trust (I Made the Right Choice) Fed Ex

Empathy - caring & individualized attention provided to customers (Commitment to the Customer) Nordstrom

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Moments of Truth = Customer Service Encounters

Moments of Truth:- any interaction in which a customer comes in contact with an organization & forms an impression- customer experiences that contribute positively or negatively to relationships with customers

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At a Disney Theme Park Each Customer Has 70+

Moments of Truth

Where Do Your Customers Experience Moments of Truth?

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Cycle of Service Map

A series of Moments of Truth in the sequence in which the customer

experiences them

Example – think of the Moments of Truth you experience on a flight?

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Step #3 Measuring Customers’ Perceptions of Their Experiences

with Southern Crescent

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Not Knowing Customers’ Expectations:

A Root Cause of Unsatisfactory Service

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Customer Satisfaction Survey Methods

- Face to face interviews- Electronic- Focus groups- Mystery shoppers- Comment & complaint cards- Customer panel or advisory board- Mail- Telephone

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Customer Complaints: Feedback You Don’t Have to Ask For

• If Southern Crescent is typical, 25 percent of your customers are dissatisfied enough to consider switching to your competition

• But only 1 percent are likely to tell you before they do leave

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A Complaining Customer is Saying He/She:

• Cares• Thinks you care• Thinks you have the potential to do

better• Expects to see improvement• Wants to continue the relationship

Customer complaints are an excellent source of market intelligence

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The Psychology of Service Recovery:Complaints are Inevitable

Complaining customers are assets giving you opportunities to improve & excel beyond your competition

Service recovery - a strategic method for increasing customer retention & profits

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Customer Service: Your Responsibility & Opportunities

I. Your Service Objective & Your ChallengesII. Utilizing a Customer Focused Approach III. Designing the Value & Experiences You Want

to Provide Your CustomersIV. Delivering Positive Customer Experiences

While Building RelationshipsV. Measuring Your Customers’ Perceptions of

Their Experiences with Southern Crescent

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‘Avoid the Lou Holtz’

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Thank You

Pete Tosh The Focus Groupwww.thefocusgroup,biz

pete.tosh@thefocusgroup.biz478-746-6891