week 10 Flashcards
customer satisfaction formula
doing the job right the first time + effective complaint handling
= increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
types of service failures
- The service itself, e.g. unavailable service
- Service provider e.g. rude staff
- Thing outside the service provider’s control, e.g. air traffic controllers on strike
- Customer related, e.g. made booking for wrong day
customer responses to service failures
- Do nothing
- Complain in some form to the service provider
- Take some kind of overt action via third party (e.g. complain to consumer claims tribunal)
- Defect and simply not patronize (return) the firm again
- tiges v dons :)
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Complaints as an opportunity – customer-centric service organisations look at complaints as:
o A stream of information that can be used to help monitor quality and highlight improvements to service design and execution
o A series of individual customer problems, each of which requires a resolution
Capturing complaints:
Complaints can be made through:
o the service provider’s own employees
o intermediary organisations acting on behalf of the original supplier
o managers who normally work backstage, but are contacted by a customer seeking higher authority
o suggestions or complaint cards mailed or placed in a special box
o complaints to third parties
Central complaints logging:
o Tracking to resolution
o Early warning indicator of determination
o Issues requiring more research
Customer complaint types:
Passives: Least likely to do anything. Skeptical about benefits of complaining
Voicers: Most likely group to complain to the service provider, less likely to spread wom. Believe that the outcome of complaining can be positive for both parties
Isrates: Most likely group to engage in wom and to switch. Average propensity to complain to the service provider, but unlikely to complain to third parties
Activists: Strong propensity to complain to everyone and become emotional
The theory of stress and coping:
‘Think-feel-do’ framework
• Cognitive appraisal is the process of categorising the encounter, with respect to its importance to well-being
- Coping refers to the constantly changing efforts (behavioural and cognitive) that people employ to master, tolerate or minimise a stressful situation:
- Emotion-focused coping
- Problem-focused coping
People complain:
• To recover economic loss
• To rebuild self-esteem
explain service recovery paradox
o Customers who experience a service failure, but subsequently receive excellent service recovery beyond what they expected, may ultimately be even more satisfied than they were before the failure.
o Companies should plan to disappoint customers (lower expectations) so they can recover and gain stronger loyalty???
o SRP tends to occur in low harm failures followed by an exemplary service recovery
factors influencing complaining behviour
o The level of dissatisfaction
o Personal importance of the service
o The cost of complaining, e.g., time and effort and anxiety involved with a confrontation
o The benefit to be gained from complaining, i.e., value of the outcome
o The access to a means of registering a complaint
o Who is to blame for the problem (attributions)
o Demographic factors, e.g., education, age
o Successful past complaint
customer attributes of blame
Casual: who is to blame for satisfaction or dissatisfaction?
Control: Is the cause of dissatisfaction in the control of the company?
Stability: Is the satisfaction or dissatisfaction likely to recur?
causes of service switching behaviour
pricing
inconvenience
core service failure
service encounter failure - uncaring, unknowledgeable, responsive
no response to service failure
completion have better service
ethical problems
invoulountry switching (customer moved, provider has closed)
How to prevent customers from failing:
- Collect data on customer fail points
- Identify root causes of failure
- Establish preventative solutions including:
o Redesign service processes
o Educate customers
o Encourage customer citizenship, e.g., Weight Watchers
define service recovery
Involves the actions taken by the organisation to put things right for the customer following a service (core or supplementary) failure
Justice Theory:
Major theory regarding the service recovery:
Procedural Justice: The process used to resolve the problem e.g. speed and convince
Interactional Justice: The behavior of the firms representatives during the complaint resolution process e.g. open communication, concern, effort
Distributive (outcome) justice - What a customer receives as an outcome of the recovery process e.g. refund, replacement, apology
What type of justice is that? (look up answers)
“The manager had a good attitude. She wanted to make sure that I left satisfied.”
“The waitress agreed that there was a problem. She took the sandwiches back to the kitchen and had them replaced. She also bought us a free drink.”
“The hotel manager said that it didn’t matter to her who was at fault, she would take responsibility for the problem immediately.”
“The receptionist was very rude; she made me feel like the doctor’s time was very important, but mine was not.”
“I had to tell my problem to too many people. I had to become irate in order to talk with the manager, who apparently was the only person who could provide a solution.”
“There refusal to refund our money or make up for the inconvenience and cold food was inexcusable.”
grace boffa
look at lessons from management table
before during and after
:)
!!!
developing effective recovery process
- Top management commitment
- Develop a ‘complaints as opportunities’ culture – Don’t shoot the messenger!
- Training and empowerment, e.g., Ritz Carlton
- Ownership of the complaint
- Service recovery tactics (see next slide)
- Learning from experience and preventing problem recurrence
Service recovery tactics:
- Act fast
- Apologise but don’t be defensive
- Show you understand the problem from the customer’s point of view
- Don’t argue with customers
- Acknowledge the customer’s feelings
- Give customers the benefit of the doubt
- Clarify the steps needed to solve the problem
- Keep customers informed of progress
- Consider compensation
Learning from experience and preventing problem recurrence:
Blueprinting: Understand the processes behind service delivery to identify potentially weak links
Control charts: Displaying performance as measured by specific criteria over a period of time
Fishbone diagram: A cause and effect analysis
Pareto analysis: (80/20 rule): used to identify the principal causes of observed outcomes
see photo
There are many courses of action open to customers who experience a service failure.
Outline the courses of action open to a dissatisfied customer.
Why do customers frequently choose not to complain to the offending organisation?
Good students will emphasise that we must encourage customers to voice their dissatisfaction. State advantages, e.g., the firm can fix the problem for the consumer and prevent the problem from happening to other customers, the customer will be unlikely to spread –WoM, etc.
Factors influencing complaining behaviour:
The level of dissatisfaction
Personal importance of the service
The cost of complaining, e.g., time and effort and anxiety involved with a confrontation
The benefit to be gained from complaining, i.e., value of the outcome
The access to a means of registering a complaint
Who is to blame for the problem (attributions)
Demographic factors, e.g., education, age
Successful past complaint
“too much effort,
lack of time
no one will listen”
