The document presents a comprehensive overview of customer focus and customer care, emphasizing the importance of aligning organizational practices with customer needs and expectations. It provides strategies for incorporating customer insights into business models, including mission statements, core values, and detailed customer journey analyses. Additionally, the document outlines various customer types, effective communication practices, and the significance of creating positive customer experiences throughout all stages of interaction.

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Customer Focus
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
Customer Focus
CUSTOMER CARE

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Customer Focus
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
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Customer Focus
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Customer Focus
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
It is easy to lose sight of the customer in the day-to-day
running of an organisation. Most of our time is spent with
others who also work in the organisation. We tend
therefore to look inwards and make the decisions that seem
right for us.
Focusing on the customer means changing that emphasis to
put customers firmly back in our sights. It means getting to
know them better, putting them into our plans and knowing
how to make their experiences of coming to us not just one
of satisfaction but one of delight.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
FOCUSING ON CUSTOMERS
There are three main ways we can re-focus on the
customer...
A. by incorporating the customer into our internal
structures...
1. our purpose as a business
2. our core values
3. our policies and contracts
4. our products
5. our internal procedures
6. our jobs.
B. by finding out who our customers are...
their primary needs
1. the type of people they are
2. their reasons for using us.
C. by knowing what our customers experience when they
use us.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
A MISSION TO SERVE
The organisation's mission statement is the key statement
that in writing or in its practical implementation draws
others into the purpose of the business.
The mission statement should reflect the organisation's
commitment to serve its customers.
This is the Mission Statement of media corporation, Pearson
plc: "We are a major international provider of media
content, renowned for distinctive products that deliver
information, education and entertainment in ways that
people want them.“
This is what electronics giant Sony states as its purpose:
"To experience the joy of advancing and applying technology
for the benefit of the public."

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Customer Care
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CORE VALUES
Core values are the important values at the heart of the
organisation's reason for being in business.
This is how business machine and computer giant IBM
expressed its purpose...
"We shall increase the pace of change. Market driven
quality is our aim. It means listening and responding more
sensitively to our customers. It means eliminating defects
and errors, speeding up all our processes, measuring
everything we do against a common standard and involving
employees totally in our aims.“
And this is IBM's rival, Apple's statement of core values:
"Our mission is to transform the way people do things by
focusing on their experience with our computers. Our goal
has always been to create the world's friendliest, most
understandable, most usable computers - computers that
empower the individual."

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Customer Care
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PERSONAL MISSIONS
Customer service mission statements or goals should
translate into something meaningful for each person in the
organisation.
This is a personal mission statement focusing on the
customer; it could be used by anyone from the Managing
Director to the front office receptionist.
"I will personally find out who my customers are and what
they need and expect from me.
I will measure how well I am meeting their needs and
expectations and I will take whatever action is necessary to
satisfy them fully.
I will let my suppliers know what I need from them and
provide them with feedback on their performance."

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Customer Care
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KEY BELIEFS
Core values are the key beliefs that are important for
everyone in the organisation.
Like mission statements, a written set of core values
articulate what people try to live and should reflect the
importance of the customer focus.
Campbell's Soups, for example, has three core values which
are...
1. a profound respect for people
2. an obsessive desire to satisfy our customers
3. a passion for creative risk-taking.
The job of management is to articulate these values and
ensure that they are translated into meaningful action at all
levels of the business.

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Customer Care
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POLICIES AND CONTRACTS
In the last few decades more and more service industries
have recognized the need to make contracts with their
customers. Customers can now find out what's on offer
before they use a service or product.
In the UK, the introduction of Citizens Charters for state
agencies, nationalized industries and public services has
reflected this trend. While each charter is different in detail,
they each promise that...
1. services should be open to all who are eligible
2. services should be developed with the customers' input
3. service delivery should aim to meet customers' needs
not the needs of the provider
4. standards of service should be clearly set
5. performance targets should be set
6. where service falls below target, the customer should
be recompensed.

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Customer Care
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PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
We give our products a customer focus when we see not
just the one-dimensional features of the product or service
but their multi-dimensional benefits to those who use them.
1. a table is not just a wooden plank with four legs but a
centre for family gatherings, sociable meals and an
essential part of a room design.
2. a haircut is not just 20 minutes of removing hair from
the back and sides of the head, but a way of looking
smart, a sign of belonging to a certain group, an image,
a factor in personal attractiveness and self-esteem.
3. a package holiday is not just two weeks in the sun but a
chance for the family to be together, to share things
together and to have fun together.

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Customer Care
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PROCEDURES
In his book "The Golden Rules of Customer Service", Carl
Sewell describes how, by focusing on what his customers
needed from his car dealership business - instead of what he
needed - he gradually beat the competition. Sewell
describes six key differences in his approach:
1. While others accept orders if they can fit them in, we
accept all orders regardless.
2. While others are open at set times to suit their staff, we
are open at any times to suit the customer.
3. While others aren't interested in what the customer
thinks, we are interested in everything they think.
4. While others work only on things the customer pays for,
we work on everything the customer sees and experiences.
5. While the others put profit first, we put service first.
6. While others measure only what's important, we measure
everything.

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Customer Care
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SYSTEMS
Effective internal systems are essential for delivering the
product or service to the customer in the right way.
Maximising your systems to aid the customer's experience
provides the competitive edge and greatly improves
employee performance.
But efficient systems cannot compensate for a product or
service that is not up to the needs and requirements of the
customer. Professor Brian Quinn of Dartmouth College says
he knows of no example where any major innovation
resulted from a highly structured system. The product or
service must come first; a system aimed at helping the
customer comes afterwards.
"Service systems that are low on the friendliness scale tend
by their very design to subordinate convenience and ease of
access for the customer in favour of the convenience of the
people within the system." (Karl Albrecht & Ron Zemke)

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
CUSTOMER-FOCUSED JOBS
The traditional way of listing duties in a job description has
limited value for customer care. They describe duties to be
done, not results to be aimed for.
When a job is described in customer terms, however, we
immediately have a plan for action.
Not: A waiter takes orders, serves on tables and clears up
after people leave.
But: A waiter ensures customers enjoy their visit by showing
people to their table, taking correct meal orders - and
remembering who ordered what - serving timeously,
checking that there are no problems, and doing what is
necessary to create the right environment for customers to
have a good time.

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
WHY WE HAVE CUSTOMERS
In today's mammoth consumer society, there are a wide
range of reasons why people buy goods and services. They
range from practical reasons to emotional reasons to
psychological reasons.
However, there are always two needs that a person has at
the moment they make contact with you and become a
potential customer.
These are:
1. to find a product or service that meets a need they have
right now. Without the product or service, the customer will
have an unmet need and therefore a problem. The contact
you have with a customer can be seen as a problem-solving
exercise.
2. to not have an unpleasant experience in the process of
finding a suitable product or service. Whether you meet this
need or not depends on your attitude and attention towards
the customer.

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Customer Care
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TYPES OF CUSTOMER
It is not always easy to identify who the customer is. For
example, someone working deep inside an organisation may
be several levels removed from the paying customer and
may not understand the concept of the "internal customer".
These are seven different types of customer...
1. the paying customer
2. the using customer
3. the browsing customer
4. the casual customer
5. the long-standing customer
6. the internal customer
7. the boss as customer.
Because of these different types of customer there may be
conflicts: for example between a using customer and a
paying customer.

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Customer Care
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THE INTERNAL CUSTOMER
On his first day in the office, the new sales manager was
pleased to see Jim confirm an order with one of the
organisation's customers.
After the back-slapping, Jim dashed off the paperwork and
invited everyone for a drink at the pub.
"So, who's your next customer?" asked the boss.
Jim proceeded to tell him all about the company from
whom he had won the order.
"No," interrupted the boss, picking up the half-completed
paperwork. "I mean, who is your internal customer?"
Jim stopped in his tracks and then realised that he had an
internal customer as well as an external one.
"Right! It's Yvonne in the office."
Jim then proceeded to fill in the form properly, check that it
was right with Yvonne, before inviting everyone to that
drink.
“There are only two levels of staff in a firm. Level one is the
sales people. Level two is all the other people whose job is
to support level one. There are no other levels.” (Jan
Carlzon)

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ANALYSING CUSTOMERS
It is invaluable for the way you deliver customer care to
know why your customers use you. In many service
industries, such as a hotel or restaurant, the reasons may be
different for each customer: one customer comes to drink
alone, in peace and quiet; another comes with their friends
for a party.
You can find out why your customers use you by designing a
Customer Spidergram.
1. place the name of your product or service in the middle
of a piece of paper
2. around it, list the relevant characteristics of each
customer eg sex, age, numbers, who they come with, how
they come
3. draw a leg of the spider for each characteristic and on this
leg, mark the variables. For age, it might be "under 21's";
"over 21's"; for how they come, it could be "car", "foot",
"public transport".
4. carry out a customer survey and draw the Spidergram.

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THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Identifying what happens from the start to the finish of a
customer's experience of your product or service is an
important way to focus on your customers.
This process is the Customer Journey and has five stages:
1. Deciding to use. It is at this stage that customers reflect
on past experience or, if they haven't used you before, on
what they have heard from others or on your own claims.
2. Joining. This is the moment of contact with you. It can be
in person, by phone, by letter, by Internet and so on. When
it is in person, it is invariably your staff who determine
whether this contact is profitable or not.
3. Using. The stage of using a product or service is the
moment when a customer's expectations are matched or
not.
4. Leaving and 5. Reflecting. A customer's view about you is
often formed just before he or she leaves and so this is a
vital time to reinforce your service message.

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Customer Care
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EXPECTATIONS
All customers have expectations of what they will get from a
product or service, based on your publicity claims, their
previous experiences, what others have told them and the
obvious expectations they would have from your type of
service.
Where expectations are low due to previously bad
experiences, the opportunities to make a good impression
on a customer are much greater but with every raised
expectation there comes a need for ever higher standards of
service.
In a survey of hotel guests in 1990, Oberoi and Hales found
that customers expected staff to be: reliable; responsive;
competent; approachable; courteous; caring; reassuring;
understanding; communicative; and confidence-inspiring.
The customer's impressions are largely determined by the
behaviour of the staff.

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JOINING
The stage of "joining" which is the initial contact a customer
makes with the organisation is all about impressions. What
they experience, whether in person, in writing or on the
phone, is what they see, hear, feel, taste and smell.
1. what personal customers see are buildings, car parks,
staff, other customers, tidiness and cleanliness, rubbish,
stock lying about, weeds, upkeep of buildings, how busy
people look, lighting, signs, directions, space.
2. what phoning customers hear is how pleasant the voice
tone is, how clear, friendly and helpful, how quickly the
query is handled; music, muzak, phone jingles;
background noise; overheard conversations.
3. what personal customers feel are how friendly people
are, the general ambience, heavy scents and odours
such as cooking smells and furniture polish, the texture
of carpets and furniture, a welcoming handshake.

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MTL Course Topics
PHONE JOINING
For many people, the point of joining an organisation is the
telephone. Because nearly all of us use the phone to deal
with external customer queries, it is the way most people
find out just what our customer care is like.
how we speak is more important than what we say. Most
customers prefer a warm, friendly and sincere tone of voice.
1. We should learn to smile and relax on the phone.
Research has found that a tense man sounds elderly,
irritable and inflexible on the phone while a tense
woman sounds emotional, irrational and dim.
2. We should not lie on the phone as lies are more easily
detected in a phone call than in a face-to-face meeting.
3. We should give the customer all our attention when we
are on the phone. Don't speak to someone else; don't
leave people hanging on; don't speak with something in
your mouth.
4. Speak clearly; sum up at the end.

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PHONE TALK
The phone is probably the principal way in which customers
make contact with us. It is the main way in which a browsing
customer can become a using customer.
Yet most of us don't recognise how important the phone is
in letting people know who we are, what we can do for
them and how much we value their interest.
According to research...
20% of organisations don't give a message of welcome
15% don't give their name
38% don't ask for the caller's name
45% don't ask for a contact number
79% don't ask what the call is about.

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USING AND MATCHING
The "using" stage of the customer journey is about matching
expectations with the service offered.
Situation 1: Julie arrives at the pool with their two-year old
daughter and expects easy access for her pushchair.
Matched.
Situation 2: They get changed: Julie expects nappy-changing
facilities.
Matched.
Situation 3: Julie wants to play safely in the pool with her
daughter but there are rowdy teenagers in the pool whom
the attendant ignores.
Mismatched.

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LEAVING AND REFLECTING
When you meet customer expectations, and they are
generally satisfied, most people don't think any further
about the kind of service they've received. They simply take
it for granted.
It is when you don't meet their expectations that customers
start to realise that something is wrong and they have not
received what they expected. The negatives tend then to
assume a much larger importance than their actual
seriousness. When one thing is wrong with your service,
people start to look for other things that are wrong to back
up their belief that it is your poor service and not their
mistaken judgment that explains it.
"It's not that you look for the standard, but you notice it
when it isn't there." (One hotel guest)

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RE-FOCUSING
One way to re-focus attention on the customer is through
an awareness programme. These can include total quality
improvement plans; training in customer care;
improvements in systems; brainstorming exercises on better
service, and so on.
Titles of customer awareness programmes can reflect your
focus on the customer and include...
1. Customers First and Last
2. Who cares wins
3. First service
4. Quality pays
5. Right first time
6. Excelling at Selling
7. Satisfaction guaranteed
8. Exist for the Customer

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THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn