Customer Service Excellence

1. Introduction

Customer service excellence has always been and will always be one of the critical competitive advantages for any business. Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Since consumer satisfaction is by and large accepted to significantly decide repeat sales, consumer loyalty has ended up a standout amongst the most basic marketing priorities, in this highly competitive hospitality industry. We considered an issue of “customer service” from Bunnings warehouse stores as our case study for change management. The objectives of the presentation are to make recognition with the present group situation to the management, to propose them a sensible response for the present issue, to illuminate qualities and shortcomings of the new methodology, to give an execution procedure of advancement in the group, to anticipate potential issues of the usage technique finally to propose answers for those potential issues.

Organisational context

As I have worked in retail sectors for almost 3 years, I can understand the need of good customer service to make a standout in the market. We have all felt the developing disappointment of holding up unnecessarily, being overlooked or facing inefficiency when shopping. In this highly competitive market, clients are increasingly liable to reject bad service when a competitor can offer the same items and cost without the hassle. Retailers can no longer view customer service as an alternative and giving a positive retail customer experience is vital. A coherent and successful retail benefit model is the separating variable between an effective and unsuccessful business. Primary data was collected through online customer reviews and also observation at Bunnings store. This provided us platform to start our project.

1. Problem and Key issues:

As stated by the Bunnings Warehouse in their mission statement “Our goal is to satisfy our clients with a widest range of home improvement items at the least cost and supported with the best customer service”. During our research and going through online reviews, we came across many such issues where no service was provided to the customers , rudeness in the staff behaviour, discrimination among customers, less product knowledge among staff and not last but the least price guarantees acclaimed by Bunnings warehouse

The below calls attention to all the issues we need to address in the change system.

1. Training program for the employees to provide and maintain better customer service.
2. Changes in sales culture to increase organisational sales.
3. Staffs are unaware about the products and the location of the product knowledge is also weak.
4. Huge difference between TV ads and customers experience when they visit the store.
5. Customer service needs improvement
6. ‘Price’ differentiation between advertisement and in-store.

1. Research/Literature Review

This part of the essay elucidates the examination and investigation done by our gathering to think about the methodology.

1. Research Methodology

According to Wellman et al. (2005) the procedure of examination is acquiring exploratory data by method for various target procedure and methodology, where the word objective imply that the procedure chose and the strategies took after are not affected by individual feelings or contemplations and that specific techniques are picked in every fragment of the procedure of exploration. To distinguish the reason for the research undertaken for this study, descriptive approach was adopted. Descriptive research approach is the research, which tries to clarify reliably a circumstance, challenges or uncommon events, program, or bolster learning about, for instance, the living circumstances of a general public, or depicts state of mind towards an issue (Kumar 1996).

In this research qualitative approach is suitable because the research is not appropriately organized and the exploration is going to depend for the most part on examinations, case study and meetings with insider personnel at the Bunnings Warehouse. As the data gathering of this research is regarding the customer service to gain competitive advantage. Customer online reviews gathered from productreview.com.audit were the main resource for gathering secondary data, which was significant for the study.  

In this report researcher has used descriptive qualitative research method as it facilitate in getting in depth knowledge of the particular issue chosen.

1. Literature Review

According to Armstrong (2006) “An awareness of the need for change is the beginning of the whole change process”. Cummings, T and Worley, C (2014) explained in his book that Change is essential for any organization on the grounds that, without change, organizations would likely lose their competitive edge and neglect to address the issues of what most plan to be a developing base of faithful clients.  Change management enables employees to adopt a change so that organization goals are understood. It is the scaffold amongst arrangements and results, and it is in a general sense about individuals, and our collective role-play of transforming change into effective results for our organization (Mehta, Maheshwari, & Sharma 2014).

After gathering our information and understanding the niche of change, we did our research and developed the familiarity with Kotter’s 8 step change model during our workshop and how it can bring the desired change. Kotter’s model (1996, pp. 133-145) advocates eight steps in the change process: ‘creating a sense of urgency; change coalition; form a vision & strategy; communicate the vision; enable actions by removing barriers; create & reward short-term wins; consolidating improvements; and anchor the changes’. It was chosen because, it has the benefit of being a regulated model, which is easy to implement and also it keeps the focus on the issue. For the model to be effectively actualized, the greater part of the eight phases must be worked through all together, and to finish (Appelbaum et al., 2012). Kotter's model is a basic model to execute in a few organizations and it could completely set up the employees of the organization for change before the vision brought in notice. Additionally, no doubt there are fewer shortcomings to this model than various models of advancement. Kotter and Cohen cited in Brisson-Banks (2010) bring up the explanations behind achievement are "on the grounds that their most focal action does not fixate on formal information gathering, investigation, report composing, and presentations ... rather, they compellingly indicate individuals what the issues are and how to determine the issues". It is this sort of procedure that goes far into making effective desired changes. Great customer service begins at the underlying purpose of contact and closures when the purchaser is totally fulfilled by the item, services and behaviour of the employee as they are in front of the house.  Farkas cited in Carter (2014) that kotter’s model also emphasizes on changes in behaviour as a way to transform culture, instead of tending to a social shift to change behaviour. Kotter (1996) points out "the biggest mistake leaders make when trying to bring change is to dive ahead without setting up a sufficiently high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees".  Kotter (2007) states " his basic goal has been the same: to roll out basic improvements in how business is led keeping in mind the end goal to adapt with a new, in more competitive market". As it has been mentioned before and discussion made above the reason behind choosing kotter’s model was that it best addresses the issue and can attempt to bring the desired change in the Bunnings warehouse. This model gave us idea to think outside of the box of to bring the change in customer service of the Bunnings warehouse. The Kotter’s change model strategy is something which has been implied before in many organizations and can explain this to senior management in a language that they can understand.