BSBCUS401 Coordinate implementation of customer service strategies
Assessment
Read through the following case study and complete the associated four tasks. You should reflect on your learning and your own research within this unit.
Currently working students are encouraged to base the scenario of this assessment on their dental or medical surgery/practice.
Case Study
Consider the following scenario.
You work for ABC Stationery, a small business that supplies office supplies to small and medium-sized businesses within the South East Queensland market. The business has eight staff members, and it has started to grow. As part of that growth, you have been asked to look at the business’s customer service strategies. A new Client Management System (CMS) with an integrated document control system has been purchased in order to stop the loss of corporate knowledge, which happens when staff members leave.
Currently, no formal customer service strategies have been put in place, and there has been no previous formal training within the organisation in customer service.
About the business:
- Two business partners own the business.
- Three administration staff take sales over the phone and liaise with the bigger clients on a daily basis. One member is new, one has been with the company for one year, and the other has been with the company for eight years.
- The finance manager has been with the company for three years.
- There are two sales staff that mostly work remotely. They have been with the company for two years.
Employee demographics:
- The average age range is 25–55.
- There is a mix of males and females.
- Two of the administration team are from non-English speaking background.
As a manager, it is important that you review customer service and seek ways to make improvements. It is important to consider improving not only your own standard of customer service but also how you assist others to make improvements in their standard of customer service.
In order to identify ways to make improvements in customer service, you need to clarify and accurately assess the needs of customers. There are several ways that this can be accomplished, but they are all based on communication techniques. By ensuring that there is good communication with customers, the number of customer complaints will reduce.
Communication techniques may relate to:
- Analysing customer satisfaction surveys
- Analysing quality assurance data
- Conducting interviews
- Consultation methods, techniques, and protocols
- Making recommendations
- Obtaining management decisions
- Questioning
- Seeking feedback to confirm understanding
- Summarising and paraphrasing
Task 1
Part A
Imagine you are a customer of ABC Stationary. Think about the type of service you would expect from the business and staff and also what kind of situations would make you unhappy with their service. With this information in mind, develop a questionnaire (minimum of ten questions) that you could use to gather information from customers on what they like about ABC Stationary’s service and what they think could be done better and what kind of service could be implemented that is not currently provided. It could cover such areas as:
Customer needs may relate to:
- Staff attitude
- Staff knowledge
- Complaints
- Prices/ value for service
- Purchasing experience
- Return of goods experience
- Accuracy of information provided them
- Instore experience
- Patient chairside experience (dental students)
- Anything else?
Part B
Ask (at least ten) customers to complete the questionnaire. If you don’t work or have the opportunity to ask customers in a retail situation, adjust the questionnaire so it suits the area in which you work. If you are not currently working you may simulate the customer responses. Simulations can include using friends and family to complete the questionnaire.
Customers may include:
- Corporate customers
- Individual members of the organisations
- Individual members of the public
- Patients
- Internal or external
- Other agencies
Task 2
Analyse the feedback from the questionnaire. Create a report explaining your findings, i.e. what are the customer’s needs, and make a comment (recommendation) on areas in customer service where improvements could be made.
Task 3
Using the information from Tasks 1and 2, explain in a report the customer service issues and problems that you diagnosed and the appropriate options that you identified for improving customer service. Include in this report budget allocations that are required and where the budget allocation will come from. Your report should also outline how you will promptly action procedures to resolve customer difficulties and complaints whilst acting within organisational requirements.
You need to mention how these options meet with the organisation’s requirements, i.e. business aims, objectives, and strategies, and you should provide opportunities for continuous improvement.
Organisational requirements may include:
- Access and equity principles and practice
- Anti-discrimination and related policy
- Confidentiality and security requirements
- Defined resource parameters
- Ethical standards
- Goals, objectives, plans, systems, and processes
- Legal and organisational policies, guidelines, and requirements
- OHS policies, procedures, and programs
- Payment and delivery options
- Pricing and discount policies
- Quality and continuous improvement processes and standards
- Quality assurance and/or procedures manuals
- Replacement and refund policy and procedures
- Who is responsible for products or services?
Strategic areas for improvement may include:
- Courtesy/politeness
- Delivery times
- Merchandise characteristics
- Price offers
- Product/refund guarantees
- Product/service availability
Task 4
Develop a PowerPoint presentation to present your findings from Tasks 2 and 3 on service needs of customers and ways to make improvements. There should be no more than 12 slides. The presentation will be shown to management, staff, and other interested parties with the aim of promoting strategies to improve customer service.
Arrange with management, staff, and other interested parties to attend the presentation on customers’ service needs and strategies to improve customer service.
Design a presentation feedback form (of at least five questions) to gather comments from your audience on customer service needs and your proposed improvements. Provide your assessor with a copy of the feedback form.
Task 5
Gather and analyse the presentation audience feedback on customer service needs and your proposed improvements. Explain your findings in a report, e.g. did the audience agree with, disagree with, or support your findings and ideas; did they reflect concern to change; etc.
Deliverables required
You are required to submit:
Task 1 A- your questionnaire with 10 questions (blank)
Task 1 B- At least ten copies of your questionnaire completed by ‘customers’
Task 2 – A short report (questionnaire feedback findings)
Task 3- A short report (customer service issues)
Task 4- PowerPoint presentation (12 slides), and presentation feedback form
Task 5 –Report on presentation audience feedback
The submission upload on My eCampus can only accept one file so if you have more than one file to submit, zip them together. See the instructions link in the Assessment Submission requirements PDF on the assessment page.
