In the more and more competitive service industry, it
is no longer enough to promise customer satisfaction. Today, customer “delight”
is what companies are trying to achieve in order to keep and increase market
share.
It is accepted in the marketing industry, and
confirmed by a number of researches, that customers receiving good service will
promote business by telling up to 12 other people; those treated badly will
tell their tales of woe to up to 20 people, and 80 percent of the people who
feel their complaints are handled fairly will stay loyal.
New challenges for customer care
have come when people can obtain goods and services through telephone call
centers and the Internet. For example, many companies now have to invest a lot
of money in information technology and staff training in order to cope with the
“phone rage”—caused by delays in answering calls, being cut off in
mid-conversation or left waiting for long periods.
“Many people do not like talking to machines,” says
Dr. Storey Senior Lecturer in Marketing at City University Business School.
“Banks, for example, encourage staff at call centers to use customer data to
establish instant and good relationship with them. The aim is to make the
customer feel they know you and that you can trust— the sort of comfortable
feelings people have during face-to-face chats with their local branch
manager.”
Recommended ways of creating customer delight include:
under-promising and over-delivering (saying that a repair will be carried out
within five hours, but getting it done within two); replacing a faulty product
immediately; throwing in a gift voucher (购物礼卷) as an
unexpected “thank you” to regular customers; and always returning calls, even
when they are complaints.
Aiming for customer delight is all very well, but if
services do not reach the high level promised, disappointment or worse will be
the result. This can be eased by offering an apology and an explanation of why
the service did not meet usual standards with empathy (for example, “I know how
you must feel”), and possible solutions (replacement, compensation or whatever
fairness suggests best meets the case).
Airlines face some of the toughest challenges over
customer care. Fierce competition has convinced them that delighting passengers
is an important marketing tool, while there is great potential for customer
anger over delays caused by weather, unclaimed luggage and technical problems .
For British Airways staff, a winning telephone style
is considered vital in handling the large volume of calls about bookings and
flight times. They are trained to answer quickly, with their name, job title
and a “we are here to help” attitude. The company has invested heavily in
information technology to make sure that information is available instantly on
screen.
British Airways also says its customer care policies
are applied within the company and staff are taught to regard each other as
customers requiring the highest standards of service.
Customer care is obviously here to stay and it would
be a foolish company that used slogans such as "we do as we please”. On
the other hand, the more customers are promised, the greater the risk of
disappointment.
1.We can learn from Paragraph 2 that
.
A. complaining customers are hard to satisfy
B. unsatisfied customers receive better service
C. Satisfied customers catch more attention
D. well-treated customers promote business
2.The writer mentions “phone rage” (Paragraph 3) to
show that________.
A. customers often use phones to express their anger
B. people still prefer to buy goods online
C. customer care becomes more demanding
D. customers rely on their phones to obtain services
3.What does the writer recommend to create delight?
A. Calling customers regularly B.
Giving a “thank you” note.
C. Delivering a quicker service D.
Promising more gifts.
4.If a manager should show his empathy (Paragraph 6),
what would he probably say?
A. “I know how upset you must be.” B.
“I appreciate your understanding.”
C. “I’m sorry for the delay.” D.
“I know it’s our fault.”
5.Customer delight is important for airlines
because________.
A. their telephone style remains unchanged
B. they are more likely to meet with complaints
C. the services cost them a lot of money
D. the policies can be applied to their staff