Retaining Customers Essay

BT is one of the largest communications companies in the world. one and only(a) of the services they offer is residential or personal communications solutions. horizontal though they now have competition from other companies offering consumers substitutes for their service, they unflurried implement the largest grocery sh be of providing residential nodes with telephone lines. For BT to maintain this market sh be, they must conduct the guests they have. I go out be recommending how they crapper retain their node base as well as winning refreshing guests. I lead be looking at several models and theories in crop to do this.* Making Customers into Champions* The case of the complaining client* The gratuity of the Iceberg ModelFrom BT a client receives a core service. Telephony. The customer expects the telephone in their home to be working when they pick it up. They are not going to be wowed by the service if it is just working. However, when the customer makes contact w ith BT to enquire, change or add some(prenominal)thing they will use this chance to form a perception of BTs Customer Service. Most pile who move to a diametrical telephone provider do so because they perceive indifference in the masses they do business with at their current comp whatsoever.Customer feedback tells BT that one of the biggest drivers of dissatis occurrenceion is the difficulty in indicateing their electric charge with BT. A large part of this dissatisfaction stems from a lack of promised yellbacks and an initial difficulty in escalating their issue. This feedback has been substantiated by OFTEL in that the number of customers contacting them to complain that they have not accepted a promised c every(prenominal) back has been increasing. OFTEL have addicted BT a really clear indication that they expect this situation to be addressed and wherefore it is paramount that the following recommendations are utilize immediately.* Own, Decide, Do Training to be r olled out to all Customer Service Advisors. When a complaint is received in the 150 call centres the individual must hold the complaint, make a decision about what to do with it and follow some(prenominal) promised action up with a call to the customer to let them hunch forward what happened.* Keeping the customer informed With some complaints resolution whitethorn not be speedy. There may be some technical difficulties, which hold resolution up. The customer does not know this and will perceive any periods of silence as the indifference of BT to their complaint. Keeping the customer informed of come or newborns (good or bad) will enhance the customers perception of BT* EDCSMs (E way out Driven Customer Service Measures), the service that BT offer customers must be analysed in order to measure its success. Through BTs sophisticated briskness datatbase, every contact with the customer is logged with the id of the advisor who took the call. This way trends can be spotted as wel l as training areasThe barriers for the customer to successfully register their complaint are as follows* The BT shunt BT is a grand business with over 20 large call centres taking in the freephone 150 (customer service) calls. It is very easy for complaints to get lost in the system.* The call steering system. There are many divers(prenominal) numbers to water closet for different departments. It is difficult to speak to a human* The Call discourse Time that advisors are encouraged to adhere to. This measure the amount of clip they are talkng with each customer in order to keep the character of calls answered as high as possible.* Poor training and coaching localize based coaching instead of skills based coachingIn the time-consuming term there are some other changes that should be implemented by BT over a period of time in order to instil enhanced behaviours in all employees.Traditionally employees of a caller-out see a complaining customer as being a nuisance. BA chall enged this when they introduced the Making Customers into Champions Model.This model can be directly utilise to BT, who is, itself, striving to provide World Class Customer Service.This model labels different sectors of the customer base and how likely they are to contact BT with any dissatisfaction they may have and how easy it is to register this dissatisfaction. If the customer has a complaint and they cannot register this in any way, they may feel tempted to try a different provider. If the complaint is not registered then BT has not had a chance to reason out the complaint. If BT has a chance of resolving the issue, if it is resolved skilfully and well, research suggests that this could real enhance the customers perception of BT. So, in short, a customer complaint can turn in to a glowing narration for BT. Further more(prenominal), if we make BTs customers in to champions, BT can learn from the mistakes they have make that might have caused complaints in order that they d o not give-up the ghost again.* A dissatisfied customer will tell between 10 and 20 other people about their problem* A customer who has had a problem resolved will tell 5 people about their situationThe case of the complaining customer is a invaluable study that BT should already have taken heed of. The problems experienced by Mr Shelton almost mirror the experiences some BT customers have when things go wrong and customer relations are tested to the full. It may be tempting for some employees working for such a huge cash cow as BT to believe that BT can afford to lose difficult customers. This study shows that whilst fewer customers actually take the time and energy that Mr Shelton did to complain, there are actually many other dissatisfied customers (Mr Shelton is just the exploit of the Iceberg).These customers are the missing in action group and will just gently take their custom elsewhere and thus impact significantly on BTs profit margins. The article points out that whil st it would be easy for us to read Mr Sheltons contacts with the company as neurotic, in actual fact Mr Shelton has responded very emotionally to the way he feels his complaint has been directt with. Customers should be allowed to vent their feelings, feel listened to and valued before their problem is resolved. They are experiencing feelings of powerlessness and this will be compounded if they feel that an advisor is not listening to them. Paraphrasing can be a useful tool here, to show empathy and check for understanding.tarp published a graphic representing the Tip of the Iceberg Principle. It indicates that consumer complaints to a tierce party are only a small portion of those that exist. Theyre just the visible portion and reflect the much broader picture. This demonstrates how important it is for BT to be proactive in gaining feedback from customers at every possible opportunity. It was not the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, and it will not affect the business gr eatly if just those visible customers were dissatisfied with BTs service. Those that leave quietly will have the greatest impact and BT will have little or no information as to why they left.BT must strive to deal with any customer requests the first time every time. Here is a list of my recommendations for BT for implementing across the board over the next 12 months in order to retain customers.* A review of the training process all training should be underpinned with updated balance scorecard and appropriate coaching given by line managers* Quality must come before quantity. If all customers were dealt with the first time they called, there would be less calls* Approach customer complaints as a chance to dazzle and delight customers and enhance a customers perception of BT through a training programme* Work together with different departments and not as adversaries. Promote teamwork* Introduce an incentive stratagem for teams and individuals who achieve excellent customer rela tions* Use customer feedback more effectively (EDCSMs)- find out what customers want/expect then return this* Give staff more responsibility and authority to deal with complaints. put up then to be flexible when it comes to procedural rules. Stop quoting BT policy.* endure a measure of redress such as goodwill payments and stipend paymentsIn implementing the above and re-training staff, BT will retain greater numbers of customers. live customers (especially those we have information about) are an ideal group to market new products to as well gain information from about how to improve on the products and services BT has.