Introduction
Service Management involves something as simple as preparing and delivering a meal to a table in a restaurant or as complex as managing the components of a data center or the operations of a factory. We are entering into an era in which everything is a service, while the art of managing the diverse services is service management.
Step 1
1. Customer is king. That’s the slogan we are all familiar with. In the realm of service management, nothing is truer than this adage. Businesses exist because of customers and clients. The company that literally follows this dictum attracts customers in the long run and eventually survives. The backbone of a successful business is successful service management.
Step 2
2. Be customer focused but that doesn’t mean you play the second fiddle to your customer. Remember, you are not your customer’s door mat. You’re there to create a mutually profitable relationship between you and the customer. It’s a relationship based on mutual advantage. A sound service management approach gives number one priority to the customers from the perspective of equal partnership.
Step 3
3. The focus of service management is customer and the customer relationship skill lies in anticipating the needs of customers. Once you’re ready with customers needs in advance, you’re also planning to have satisfied customers. Every satisfied customer is an added asset to your company.
Step 4
4. When speaking to your customer on phone, your body language still matters. Sit up straight and smile, as if you’re talking to your customer face to face. The customer will feel the difference. Your attitude makes a world to difference to service management.
Step 5
5. The key to successful service management is meeting and exceeding your customers’ expectations. This is not an uphill task. All you need is to ensure a closed-loop communications process between sales, service and marketing. Ensuring unhindered and uninterrupted communication also ensures meeting your customers’ expectations with hassle free and smooth service.
Step 6
6. Customers make a huge impact on service management. They offer enormous data which when carefully analyzed can be turned into business advantage. Therefore, you must remember that every customer interaction is critical to the success of your business provided you are prepared to extract something of value for you from it.
Step 7
7. “Be friendly to your customer”, a dictum every one associated with service management knows, yet are likely to overlook under the work pressure. You don’t want to look bothered by a customer’s call, for your salary comes from them. If you have at all to put your caller to hold, the least you can do is request their permission for doing so. A customer easily gets put off when you ask them to “Hold”. You don’t want your customer to go back with a poor opinion of your customer relationship.
Step 8
8. Service management is in place to make things smoother for your customer and business, not to complicate further. Make sure that customers don’t have to repeat their problems. Avoid transferring customers’ calls from one department to the other when they have to explain their problems again and again. It is a frustrating experience for them as well as for your business.
Tips
In conclusion, it is evident that we are now in an era where everything is service.
Sources and Citations
The service sector is the fastest growing sector with the implication that in our day to day life we interact with service providers in several ways at several levels. Therefore, service management is critical to the success of businesses - small or big.
