Reference no: EM133340440

The Board at your retail business is pleased with the control you have taken to address some of the customer service problems that had arisen. New team members are performing better at job and feeling more confident in the role.

At this stage, the Board would like you to take some steps to improve organisation-wide delivery of customer service. They would like some specific targets developed to measure the performance of the customer service team. They would also like to monitor customer satisfaction levels and then recommend any changes required to improve the delivery of customer service at company.

Before you can respond to the Board, you will need to do some further research.

See Appendix 1 for additional information gathered by the company related to customer service.

Appendix 1

Your company missed its financial targets this year. This problem triggered an investigation into customer service. Previously, customer service was not monitored as most of the team had years of experience at the company. Now, however, 90% of the team is new.

The following information has been recently gathered by the company on customer service team performance through call-monitoring and management observations:

A few team members are high performers in all areas, but most team members achieve between 60% and 50% of targets ,i.e., most team members are consistently poor performers,
Sales at 65% of targets
90% of team members take 30% too long on average to resolve enquiries or complaints,
90% of team members take 40% too long to answer phones(customer on hold an average of 12 minutes each),
Total number of customers has remained stable.
Team members do not correctly store customer information,
Team members have no reliable system for retrieving customers' information. The majority of customer information exists on paper invoices which are not readily available when talking to customers on the phone.
The following customer feedback has been gathered by your company through questionnaires:

'Finally! It's been a year since anyone has asked my opinion',
'Customer service seems to be getting worse ,not better, half the time I call up, I have to provide my details again because customer records have been lost',
'Customer service employees are sometimes rude and defensive',
'Enquiries and complaints take too long to be resolved and involve multiple calls',
Customer service employees are often unable to help with problems',
'Customer service employees appear to have no procedures and inspire little confidence in ability to handle anything but the most routine of enquiries',
'With the exception of one or two staff members, service is uniformly poor'.
The following data has been gathered by the company questionnaires:

30% of customers are considering another supplier,
20% of customers have found another supplier, but could be persuaded to switch back,
50% of customers feel that they are not being listened to,
90% of customers never hear any suggestions to indicate that the company understands and considers their changing service or product needs

KPIs Customer Service Team

1. Call/enquiry/complaint handling time:

-The KPIs should aim to reduce the time taken to handle calls, enquiries and complaints. The target should be to reduce the time taken to below 30% of the current average time taken, with an ideal target of 15%.

2. Following organisational procedures:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are following organisational procedures correctly. The target should be to ensure that all customer service representatives are following organisational procedures correctly at least 95% of the time.

3. Identifying customer issues and opportunities to increase customer satisfaction or meet customer needs:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are identifying customer issues and opportunities to increase customer satisfaction or meet customer needs. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are identifying customer issues and opportunities correctly at least 95% of the time.

4. Assisting team members to improve customer service:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are assisting team members to improve customer service. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are providing assistance to team members at least 95% of the time. 5. Assisting other internal customers of customer service team:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are assisting other internal customers of the customer service team. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are providing assistance to other internal customers at least 95% of the time.

6. Customer retention:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are successfully retaining customers. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are retaining customers at least 90% of the time.

7. Sales:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are successfully making sales. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are making sales at least 65% of the time.

8. Ability to handle complaints:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are successfully handling complaints. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are handling complaints successfully at least 95% of the time.

9. Ability to record and store customer information:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are successfully recording and storing customer information. The target should be to ensure that customer service representatives are recording and storing customer information successfully at least 95% of the time.

10. Customer satisfaction:

-The KPIs should aim to ensure that customer service representatives are providing a satisfactory level of customer service. The target should be to increase customer satisfaction to at least 90%.

Question:

Develop a performance review plan and procedure for monitoring team members' performance against KPIs. Your procedure must include information about the management of records associated with monitoring performance and detail the specific criteria which will be reviewed when managing team performance.