A
provision of service to a
prospective customer before purchase and to a customer during and after the purchase can be termed as
customer service.
These services are important to improve the
feeling of satisfaction in the
customer. This will ensure the customer’s expectations are met with. The type and importance of customer service varies greatly. This variation is basically dependent on the
product,
industry and the
customer profile. While a
novice customer requires more of
pre-purchase service an
expert customer would need more attention
during and after purchase.
The
importance of customer service increases many folds for the service industry when compared to a product based industry. The customer service may either be provided by a person like a
sales representative or an
automated system like a website. Technology has advanced to an extent where the customer service has many tools to support them. While a support website helps a customer find the answers to his query, a
live chat with a
technical staff could be of a much bigger help in cases where the customer is not able to make decisions based on the limited knowledge of the product the customer has.
Help desk is another customer service tool which is found to be very effective. The customers are provided with a toll free number which they can dial when they need any technical assistance for the product they purchase. Software like
incident tracking system assists in running the help desk in an efficient manner.
In most cases today the customer service before and after purchase is
outsourced to another agency because it is not considered as a
core operation. Some of the
advantages of outsourcing include
cost saving,
improved quality,
less staffing issues and in today’s global market the most significant advantage is the
freedom for worry of time zones.
Some useful Links on Customer Service are:
Customer Service
Customer Service Training Customer Service Skills Training Service
Adobe - Support : Customer service
Source: iGuides.org Business Talk