Раскрытые топики к ГОСу по Английскому / topic+15

Topic 15. What are the guidelines of inducing customer delight? How important to a company’s success is customer care and proper ways of handling complaints?

Nowadays customer care became as important as attracting new customers and retaining them. Actually customer care is the way to retain once attracted customers. But in the increasingly competitive service sector, it is no longer enough to promise customer satisfaction. Today, customer delight is the stated aim for companies battling to retain and increase market share. It is confirmed by a number of surveys, that customers receiving a good service will stimulate new business by telling up to 12 other people and 80 per cent of people who feel their complaints are handled fairly will stay loyal. This numbers indicate the importance of customer care for the company.

Delighting a customer means doing something over and above his or her expectations. Recommended ways of inducing 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 as an unexpected thank you to regular customers; and always returning calls, even if 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.

The proper way of handling customer’s complaints is also of great importance. Almost all companies have help phone-lines for customers to call and ask questions or complain about something and web sites to write e-mails to. But in fact some companies fail to answer their customer’s e-mails and phone calls effectively. The e-mail contact address often is the Computer Service Department that got nothing to do with the customer service. The situation with the help-lines and call centers is not better: delays in answering calls, being cut off in mid-conversation or left waiting for long periods. All this is the reason for companies of loosing their not only existing customers but also potential customers. The definite proof of it is the number of surveys, confirming that customers treated badly will tell about it to up to 20 people! Finally, treating customers in such way makes doubtful the success of the company.

Nowadays customer care is obviously here to stay. A good customer service means doing what was promised, satisfying customers, being reliable, being courteous and if things go wrong, than dealing with complaints quickly. On the other hand, the more customers are promised, the greater the risk of disappointment.