A Paper, Prepared for The 5th Customer Services Conference, Saudi Electricity Company, The Eastern Region, Alhafuf
25 / 11 / 1428 - 5 / 12 / 2007
Pioneer corporations use one of the most important successful factors between the corporation and its customers which is called "Customer Services Language", this has been confirmed by many recent studies and researches. They arrived to the most important reasons of pioneering and leadership of these corporations which are as follows:: They give a big attention to their marketing performance generally, but they give a special attention to their customer services. (Kotler, 2005) (Abdulhameed, 2006)
In the beginning of the 21st century, most corporation leaders believe in the importance of customer service quality (CSQ). They plan and achieve many customer services, but a lot of them still don't recognize the main importance of CSQ control. So, they depend on the classic type of direct control without any objective standards or suitable methodology.
This paper refers to one of the objective methods for control. This method is called Numerical Control (NC). It depends on statistic observations which explain CSQ level in a numerical form, that will help to achieve the following:
- Depending on numerical indicators, not on subjective and random factors.
- Determination of CSQC standards for gaining periodical systematic control reports.
- Taking the advantage of preparing compared studies and researches about CSQ among different geographic areas, periods or other differentiation factors.
- Supporting the strategic decision makers with numerical factors which are more comprehensive than the classic methods.
What is Numerical Control?
According to the opinion which considers control as a management function, control is defined as one of the management functions which aim to discover and cure deviation of performance according to targeted standards.
NC has the same definition of control, but there are some differences between NC and Classic Control (CC) includes the following:
- Types of used standards. NC depends on objective and numerical standards, while CC depends on subjective standards which may be different among persons.
- Kind of the control method and its degree of dependence on direct communication, which is higher in CC methods than NC method.
The differentiation between NC and CC is just for Research and scientific analysis purposes, but on the practical stage, successful corporations gather both of them. They depend on NC with its objective standards. In addition to CC which helps in supporting the relations between customer service employees and CSQ auditors.
NC is not only being prepared upon quantitative observations like numbers of customer complaints and types of customer services, but also including un-quantitative observations, like customer satisfaction and effectiveness of CS employees. Control upon quantitative observations needs high special skills for laying down the numerical standards and designing and executing the objective control process without subjective partiality.
This paper aims to design a scientific framework for NC upon CSQ, through control upon both quantitative observations and un-quantitative observations by just one model. Also, it contains the elements, stages and advantages of the proposed model. It gives special attention to the control upon Un-quantitative observations, because they need many special skills.
Numerical Control Stages
- Phrasing the Control Standards.
- Measuring the Performance.
- Determination of deviations.
- Introducing the recommendations and solving Suggestions.
Control upon Quantitative Observations
The first stage of NC upon the CSQ is determination of quantitative observations and the targeted standards. Corporations could choose among many of these observations according to their positions. The followings are some of the important quantitative observations for this reason:
- Numbers of Customer Service Users.
- Numbers of Customer Complaints.
- Numbers of Introduced Customer Service.
- Total Cost of Customer Services.
- Number of Employees in Customer Service Departments.
Auditors should be different among negative Standards like customer Complaints, and positive standards like customer service users.
Control upon Un-Quantitative Observations
NC Model upon CSQ includes evaluating the references, These are Customers, Employees, Internal Marketing Auditor and External Marketing Auditor.
Also, there are many elements for the control process. According to the position of each corporation, it should choose suitable elements from the following suggested control elements: (Lovelock, 1996)
- Voice Service on Telephone.
- Customer Service on the Web.
- Guest Service.
- Car Parking.
- Information Service.
- After Selling Service.
- The Sufficiency of Customer Services Employees.
- Behavior of Customer Service Employees.
- Receiving Service.
- Delivering Service.
- Insurance and Maintenance Services.
- Consulting Service.
- Caring Service of Customer.
- Invoicing Service.
- Requests Fulfilling.
The AIDA method is one of the most well known methods which are used recently by corporations for many analyses. One of the most modern uses of AIDA method is measuring and adapting the image of international corporations and their main and auxiliary services.
AIDA Analyzing includes four main elements through its process as follows:
- Attention: Corporations study customers' opinions to measure how they came to know about the corporation services. In other words, they measure the knowledge side of their customer and how far they Recognize the services.
- Interest: Here, the corporation studies how its services could meet the expectations and interests of its customers.
- Desire: After measuring the degree of the attention and interest, the corporation should know how their customers have a true desire to use its services.
- Action: Finally, the corporation measure the number of customers who use its services.
The applied experiences about AIDA method show that, usually, the percentage decreases starting from the attention stage to the action stage.
The rule is, the more the percentages decreases between the first stage to the fourth stage, the more insufficient of CSQ is. When the CSQ is perfect, the percentages may be the same, but it is a rare case.
Many corporations use the method of market test through their marketing researches, but this method requires a lot of needs such as special experts and much efforts and money. So, there is a new method called "Test Market". It means a special false market that consists of samples of customers simulated with the true market and its segmentations. This test market is used in the marketing researches of the corporation and is equivalent to monetary or un-monetary rewards.
Electronic Processing for Control Data
In the beginning of the 21st century, the electronic recording became very necessary for NC upon CSQ either quantitative or un-quantitative observations which need many complex processes for gaining correct and exact results of NC according to AIDA method to know sharply the image about the corporation and its services from the point of its customer views.
The degree of transparence of CSQ measures seems different from one corporation to another according to its culture and competitive sensitivity starting from the emergence of the number of its web users till the essential measures of its CSQ.
In addition to the benefits of electronic registration and processing, there are many other benefits like the differentiation of reports and follow up foundations presenting different management levels.
Practical Guide of The Proposed Model
- Determination of Quantitative and Un-Quantitative Observations for Customer Services Performance.
- Estimating the NC standards for the observations which are used as CSQ indicators, and Determination of the targeted numerical standards in a percentage form.
- Measuring the performance for Quantitative observations, then counting in order to prepare the percentages according to the targeted standards form. This measure is the Quantitative indicator of NC upon CSQ because it could explain the deviation size.
- Measuring the performance for Un-Quantitative observations, depending on Likert Measure questioner. This measure is the qualitative indicator of NC upon CSQ because it could explain the deviation o reasons.
- Comparison between targeted and achieved performance.
- Count NC Value for CSQ by this formula ( 1 – Deviation percentage).
- Preparing Scaling Chart for the final CSQ Value and the last values to make a strategic following up to the CSQ degrees periodically.
Numerical Control Reports
The significance of customer service is focused in two areas. The first one is its relation with the customer who is considered the most important part of the corporation. The second is its effect on the final outcomes of the corporation.
The NC upon CSQ processes are summarized in a periodical report including the following points:
- Presenting the numerical standards which are used as indicators to quantitative observations, and explaining the targeted and achievement.
- Explaining the questioners elements for the un-quantitative observations and their foundations in numerical form with explaining the targeted and achieved performance.
- Including the recent and last CSQ values.
- Presenting scaling chart for the final and last CSQ values.
- Suggesting of recommendations for improving CSQ and curing its performance deviations.
Internal Marketing Controller/ Auditor
The topic of marketing control is discussed by many theoretical writings of marketing management just as an element of the management process which is necessary for the marketing manager.
Because of the big and increasing variables in business, the marketing manager will not be able to do all control requirements alone beside his other responsibilities. So, he is in need of many subsystems such as marketing decision support system and marketing control system.
Marketing Audit is one of the objective methods which have practical methodology for marketing control includes its recent reports the necessity of internal marketing controller/ auditor position in each organization for doing tasks of marketing Control/ Audit cooperating with outside experts or Internal Marketing Controller/ Auditor. (Mohamed, 2006) ( Wilson , 2002)
Despite the benefits of classic control methods, they became insufficient to prepare marketing control without the modern manners such as Marketing Observation Center , Marketing Intelligence and Numerical Control. (Mohamed, 1428)
According to the importance of customer satisfaction, control upon CSQ is considered one of the most important processes for internal/ external marketing audit. Also, NC upon CSQ depending on statistic and quantitative direction is the nearest method to objectivity and the most one to be far from random and haphazard work. It is profitable for both quantitative and un-quantitative observations.
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