Customer Care &Fault Management

UOW IACT418/918 Spring 2001

Bob Brown

Overview

Service success and customer satisfaction comes from the benefits that the enterprise is constantly able to provide to its customers, including design and features of its products and services, quality, service-courtesy, friendliness, having what the customer needs when needed – and image. Value is real, and hard-won: it is not created by advertising campaigns or hype…

Hilmer (1989)

Customer NeedsService should be determined by customers’ wants & needs. Therefore, all enterprises must research and understand: Which products, services and service characteristics are

important to the customer The relative importance of these customer wants The level of performance on each product and service

characteristic which will meet customer expectations

Without a clear understanding of these, there will be a ‘gap’ between customer expectations and the products/services delivered by the enterprise

Cost of service failureCosts much more than the loss of just one customerTechnical Assistance Research Program (TARP) (Clemmer 1992) results indicate that a dissatisfied customer tells 16 others, whereas a satisfied customer only tells 8 others!

The original customer who wont return 1Potential customers lost because the original customer told them how dissatisfied they were 16Potential customers NOT gained because the original customer didn’t tell them how satisfied they were

8Total customers lost from ONE unhappy customer 25

Clemmer 1992

Customer service gaps

CompanyCustomer

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

Gap 1: Customer & Company expectations of service

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

CompanyCustomer

Gap

1

Gap 1: Customer & Company expectations of service

Inadequate marketing research orientation Insufficient market research Research not focussed on service quality Inadequate use of market research

Lack of upward communication Lack of interaction between management and customers Insufficient communication between contact employees and

managers Too many layers between contact employees and upper management

Insufficient relationship focus Lack of market segmentation Focus on transaction rather than relationships Focus on new customers rather than relationship customersSo

urce

: Zei

tham

l (1

996)

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

CompanyCustomer

Gap 2

Gap 2: Customer & Company standards of service

Gap 2: Customer & Company standards of service

Absence of customer-driven standards Lack of customer driven service standards Absence of process management to focus on customer

requirements Absence of formal process for setting service quality goals

Inadequate leadership Perception of infeasibility Inadequate management commitment

Poor service design Unsystematic new service development process Vague undefined service designs Failure to connect service design to service positioning

Sour

ce: Z

eith

aml

(199

6)

Gap 3: Customer standards & delivered service

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

CompanyCustomer

Gap 3

Gap 3: Customer standards & delivered service

Deficiencies in human resource policies Ineffective recruitment Role ambiguity and role conflict Poor employee / technology job fit Inappropriate evaluation and compensation systems Lack of empowerment, perceived control & teamwork

Failure to match supply and demand Failure to smooth peaks and valleys of demand Inappropriate customer mix Over-reliance on price to smooth demand

Customers not fulfilling roles Customers lacking knowledge of their roles and responsibilities Customers negatively impacting each otherSo

urce

: Zei

tham

l (1

996)

Gap 4: Delivered and ‘advertised’ service

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

CompanyCustomer

Gap 4

Gap 4: Delivered and ‘advertised’ service

Ineffective management of customer expectations Failure to manage customer expectations through all forms of

communications Failure to educate customers adequately

Overpromising Overpromising in advertising Overpromising in personal selling Overpromising through physical evidence cues

Inadequate horizontal communications Insufficient communications between sales & operations Insufficient communications between advertising & operations Differences in policies and procedures across branches or units

Sour

ce: Z

eith

aml

(199

6)

Gap 5: Expected and perceived service

Source: Zeithaml (1996)

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-drivenservice designs and

standards

Company perceptions of Customer expectations

External communications

to customers

CompanyCustomer

Gap 5

Gap 5: Expected and perceived service

The ‘gap’ between the service which the customer expected and that perceived by the customer to have been delivered.This ‘gap’ is directly attributable to, and results from any and all of the other four ‘gaps’.Addressing each of the other ‘gaps’ (which the enterprise can control) will narrow the all-important “service gap” which is not itself directly within enterprise control.

Sour

ce: Z

eith

aml

(199

6)

Service quality in telecomsIn telecommunications, there are four principal areas where customer satisfaction can be gained or lost

Technical Performance

Network response time Signal to noise ratio Call completion rate Fault clearance time

Customer Interface

Busy signal Wrong numbers Timed out before call completed

Service to the Customer

Call answered promptly problems dealt with on first contact

Service Comparison

Range of products ‘Spread’ of network

FAULTS are a large factor in customer satisfaction!

Who are your customers?What is the product/service of a network?The Users of your network are your customersSometimes the Users are internal members of your organisation …

ie: STAFF & EMPLOYEES

Fault ManagementHelp desk Single point of contact with users Staff trained to contact help-desk for any problems with

communications equipment Standardised procedures & questions

Trouble ticket For large organisations Allows multiple operators to action the fault

Automated fault tracking systems Registers trouble-tickets in a database Fault details can be made available to managers, help-desk

staff, technicians and even users

Levels of support

Level 1: Operator who takes the call can quickly resolve 80~85% of faultsLevel 2: technicians with higher skills/training can resolve 10~15% of faultsLevel 3: communications technical specialists or vendor specialists resolve the 5% most complex issues

Fault Escalation

Network management plan must include procedures for escalating the status of a fault How long has the fault remained unsolved? How critical is the fault? The more critical the fault,

the faster it is escalatedPrinters can be down for a day or moreCritical servers shouldn’t be down for more than a

few minutes

Escalation procedures I

Two approaches Deploy additional technical resources to

assist in finding resolution Advise users and management of the actions

being undertaken to resolve the problem

Escalation procedures IIa generic technical approach

1. Level 1 (help-desk)pass to next level after 15 minutes

2. Level 2 (technician)after 1 hour, advise supervisor and continue working

3. Level 3 (appropriate network specialist)called in after no solution in 4 hours.Level 2 still “owns’ the fault and monitors progress keeping user & supervisor updated every 2 hours

Escalation procedures IIa generic managerial approach

1. After 1 hour level 2 technician advises help desk supervisor

2. After 2 hours help desk supervisor advises network operations supervisor

3. After 4 hours network operations supervisor advises telecomms manager (who contacts manager of the user’s dept. to discuss any extraordinary actions)

4. After 8 hours telecomms manager advises appropriate senior manager to discuss longer range plans & possible involvement of vendor management

ReferencesCarnegie, R. & Butlin, M. (1993) Managing the Innovating Enterprise, Business Council of Australia, MelbourneClemmer J. et al (1992) Firing on all Cylinders: revised edition, Piatkus, LondonHilmer, F.G. (1989) Work in Competitive Industries: New Games, New Rules, Angus & Robertson, SydneyRowe, S.H. (1999) Telecommunications for Managers 4th Ed., Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJZeithaml, V. (1996) Services Marketing, McGraw-Hill, New York