RESEARCH FOCUS  -  CUSTOMER CARE IN TELECOMS

Customer Service

In response to today's competitive climate, where commerce continues to change at very fast pace. Organisations are facing increasing pressure to differentiate themselves from other companies in the marketplace. The traditional products, services and prices, no longer appear to be sufficient for customer loyalty and retention. Customer service has therefore become a major consideration. Good customer service can provide a number of benefits:

	Effective use of resources
	Increased customer loyalty
	Increased market share
	Increased profitability
	Strengthening customer relationship

Efforts to improve customer service have already forced changes in most industry sectors. Now some telecom companies are beginning to set customer service expectations. When considering other factors, such as external perspectives and today's pressured society, customer expectation levels are increasing rapidly. Organisations that fail to respond to this may suffer an unrecoverable diminishing market share. To achieve the maximum benefit from quality customer service, organisations should concentrate on a number of elements including:

	Establishing ultimate customer ownership
	Exploit their customer knowledge and awareness.
	Offer personal services to each customer,

In addition to customer service, there are many expectations around the handling of telephone calls. Statistics demonstrate the damaging effects of engaged lines and poor telephone manner.  Customer service improvements can also be made by providing additional call volume, as well as using automated call handling technology and reducing the number of lost calls.

Research has shown there are many benefits associated with using dedicated Call Centres to improve customer service. The research has also identified a number of key elements which are needed in order to deliver consistently high levels of customer service: 

	Connect with the right call agent
	Encourage callers to use the service
	Make the conversation relevant
	Make the service convenient
	Provide customer feedback

Related areas within this Research Focus topic,  include:

Loyalty   CRM    Call Centres   Call Handling   

Additional information is also available on this Research Focus topic, these areas include:

Metrics   Billing    Outsourcing    Systems

Return to the  Introduction   page of this Research Focus topic.