Category: Case study

Personalized Customer Service Essay

Introduction

To seize more market share, personalized customer service has become popular in all industries. Personalized customer service makes the voice of customers heard by inviting them to come up with novel ideas, which would be materialized by service providers. This practice can make customers better served for their specific needs, abilities, and expectations. Different from the traditional model in that businesses decide what kind of products and services to supply, companies now aspire to tailor offerings to meet the diverse and specific needs of customers. In this research paper, the researcher, using personalized customer service in the local catering industry as an example, will discuss what personalized customer service is, how it is offered, its profitability and weaknesses, and its prospects with recommendations.

Main body

Personalized customer service

The quality of service cannot be emphasized too much when it comes to the factors affecting the competitiveness of businesses (figure 1). Currently, many businesses go to extremes by inviting their customers to voice out their particular needs and expectations to win customer retention, customer loyalty, and then market share (Viviani, Bennani, & Egyedzsigmond, 2012). That’s the background for the origination of personalized customer service. Simply speaking, personalized customer service means the efforts made to tailor products and services to meet the specific needs, expectations, and underlying aspirations of customers (Shamdasani, & Balakrishnan, 2000). It is a feat because it can make customers perceive their importance and values and be treated humanely.

Personalized customer service aspires to be tailored to customers’ specific needs, abilities, and expectations. Instead of forcing customers to accept their established service model, businesses tend to be responsive to the capricious and diverse needs of customers (Ding, et al., 2017). The foremost objective that personalized customer service can help businesses achieve is customer loyalty. Being satisfied and cared for, customers will repeatedly choose certain products and services even at higher prices (figure 2). That’s because personalized service adds value to their professional or personal lives. What’s more, loyal customers can be free brand ambassadors by sharing their fantastic experience with a brand among their circle of contacts (Kasiri, et al., 2017). Compared with ad campaigns, their genuine endorsement rings truer and can bring many followers with WOM.

Delivering personalized customer service means adding a familiar and human touch to every transaction. Customers should be served in an atmosphere of respect and cordiality beyond mere utilitarianism (Franke, Schreier & Kaiser, 2010). Their concerns should be addressed, and all their seemingly unrealistic dreams should be satisfied to the greatest extent. This requires businesses to be constantly personalized to earn customer retention, customer loyalty, and market share. However, the more personalized the businesses, the higher the risk will be. To be specific, some customers will likely put up many obstacles to service providers with their capricious ideas, and then defame the company for failing to meet their needs. In addition, they refuse to pay the price on the pretext that they are not well-served. Therefore, rules and regulations should be developed accordingly to protect the rights and interests of both sides.

Personalized customer service in the local catering industry

The catering industry is highly competitive and providing personalized customer service can help small businesses shine. The personalized service popular these days is cooks preparing meals for customers at their homes in case they are unwilling to dine out because of illness and handicap, bad weather, traffic congestion, or for a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere at home. There is also a group of people who miss the meal prepared by their long-past relatives and are suddenly seized by the impulse to relish it again. The ingredients can be prepared either by the cook and his restaurant or by the customers themselves.

The following aspects are the reasons for the development of this personalized service. First, meals in restaurants are usually prepared by following formulas with minor changes in the amount of ingredients and seasoning to cater to customers’ specific needs. This is personalized but to a little extent. In addition, it is often the case that cooks fail to bring out the genuine taste and flavor of cuisine for time limit and lacking ingredients and seasoning. Therefore, they want cooks to spare due time for a complex dish. Second, customers have become far more demanding with their improved financial conditions. They have their unique requirements in flavor, smell, and taste, and want cooks to teach them how to prepare some dishes at home. Third, there is also a segment that relies on the magic power of cooks to revive the taste in their memory. Due to the high mobility of working people, they have to change their dietary habits, but hometown food is the thing they constantly long for. All these demands contribute to the development of this personalized service in the local catering industry.

Critical analysis of this personalized customer service

Strengths

This kind of personalized customer service can add competitiveness to restaurants in terms of customer retention, customer loyalty, and retention rate because it aims to meet the specific needs and expectations of customers. The reasons are presented below.

First, it can save the trouble of customers dining out caused to distance, bad weather, traffic congestion, and handicaps. It enables customers to enjoy both a delicious meal and a harmonious domestic atmosphere. Preparing at customers’ homes ensures the time required for a complex dish and can better satisfy the specific needs of customers in taste, smell, and flavor. Consequently, this type of service can help expand market share. It is frequently seen that cooks in uniforms drive motor to go to serve customers. It is said that a cook can serve 3-5 customers per day with a price much higher than the retail price, including an out-visit fee, fuel cost, processing charge, and cost of possible ingredients and seasoning.

Second, the novel ideas developed by customers can give birth to popular dishes. R&D has become a major concern of restaurants in recent years, and a large share of restaurant expenses has been allocated to developing new dishes, formulas, and recipes and finding the right menu mix. It is argued that restaurants even do not need a research team in place, and customers are the best R&D personnel restaurants can ever put together. They are always on time; they pay the price by inviting cooks to do experiments at home; and most importantly they know exactly what customers want (Ottenbacher, & Harrington, 2017). Small restaurants cannot afford a research chef who may work as a chef, head cook, or food scientist, analyzing and experimenting with cuisine to find ways to improve it and make customers like it. Therefore, to reduce costs from R&D activities and personnel, the optimal choice for small restaurants is to mobilize customers to come up with novel ideas. The newly developed products and recipes can be named after customers after they have become popular in the market.

Third, small restaurants are very cautious in controlling their scale because of the highly risky market. To be specific, new entrants are always successful in attracting customers because they are ready to try something new at an affordable price. Economic depression can weaken consumers’ purchasing power and make many employees redundant. This personalized customer service can give flexibility to restaurant owners by allowing them to maintain their current business areas and developing a team dedicated to such personalized customer service.

Shortcomings

Despite the strengths this kind of personalized customer service brings to small restaurants, its shortcomings are also inevitable and have to be considered.

First, since cooks can prepare meals at customers’ houses, the market demand would be huge since many customers are ready to try something new. And the huge demand for this personalized service can challenge the business at physical stores. Consequently, their newly expanded market can be offset by the lost customers.

The risk of extreme customization can be high because customers would be reluctant or even refuse to pay the price if the experiment turns out to be a failure even if an agreement between two sides has been signed in advance. The participation and decision-making of two sides in the preparation can make them shuffle responsibility to each other, and there is no third party to determine the cause of failure.

Some customers tend to consume wildlife for nutrition and rarity, which goes contrary to the Law of Wildlife Protection. Due to strict legal restrictions, restaurants are afraid of cooking endangered, vulnerable, and near-threatened species for fear of severe punishment. However, offering such personalized customer service may give opportunities to people who possess such food either from a hunt or from a gift or trade. This may put the cook in a dilemma because refusing customers can arouse their dissatisfaction, poor ratings, and defamation of the restaurant on the pretext of poor service while satisfying their capricious needs can result in the violation of the law. It is also likely that cooks are bribed to conduct illegal activities at consumers’ homes.

In addition, theft, violence, harassment, and other criminal activities may come together because of seclusion. These threaten the life and property of customers and restrict the popularity of this personalized service.

Its prospect and recommendations for better development

Despite the shortcomings of this personalized customer service, it is still safe to predict its bright prospects because people always have specific dietary needs to be met. The frequent visits of cooks seen on the streets can prove its popularity and profitability. However, to ensure sustainable popularity and healthy development, proper measures should be taken.

First, all cooks should be trained in terms of, in addition to culinary skills, professional ethics. They should be good at communication to avoid conflicts with customers. They should not covet customers’ property, accept customers’ offerings irrelevant to the assigned task, and accept bribes for illegal activities (Akabanda, Hlortsi, & Owusukwarteng, 2017). To prove innocence, a camera should be installed temporarily to record the whole process.

Second, to protect the wildlife that might be endangered by this personalized customer service, cooks have to register at a local wildlife protection agency in terms of the detailed address of the customer, phone no., the assigned task, and the main ingredients covered. It is feasible for the agency to pay random visits to customers for a DNA study for the possible use of protected wildlife (Stern, et al., 2017 ).

Third, policies should be in place stipulating the rights interests, and responsibilities of both sides. Particularly, the cook should be dressed in uniform, and produce a certificate and Letter of Authorization signed by the restaurant owner. An agreement should be signed before the assignment is conducted.

Fourth, to ensure the popularity of small restaurants and thus win the favor of more customers, social media marketing can be used for promotion, building and maintaining customer relationships, and receiving orders (Naylor, Lamberton & West, 2012).

Conclusion

Based on the critical analysis of the personalized customer service that is currently popular in the catering industry, it is concluded that it is highly feasible for its profitability and popularity. It is profitable because it mainly aims at the middle and upper class and can charge much higher than the retail price. It is popular because it can meet the specific needs and expectations of customers. In addition, it can save the cost of small restaurants in R&D in terms of culinary skills, the use of ingredients and seasoning, and cooking techniques. As for the shortcomings, policies, and regulations should be stipulated to ensure the rights and interests of both sides and to protect stakeholders.

References

1. Akabanda, F., Hlortsi, E. H., & Owusukwarteng, J. (2017). Food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices of institutional food-handlers in Ghana. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 1-9.
2. Ding, S., Wang, Z., Wu, D., & Olson, D. L. (2017). Utilizing customer satisfaction in ranking prediction for personalized cloud service selection. decision support systems, 1-10.
3. Franke, N., Schreier, M., & Kaiser, U. (2010). The “I Designed It Myself” Effect in Mass Customization. Management Science, 56(1), 125-140.
4. Kasiri, L. A., Cheng, K. T., Sambasivan, M., & Sidin, S. M. (2017). Integration of standardization and customization: impact on service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 91-97.
5. Naylor, R. W., Lamberton, C., & West, P. M. (2012). Beyond the ‘Like’ Button: The Impact of Mere Virtual Presence on Brand Evaluations and Purchase Intentions in Social Media Settings. Journal of Marketing, 76(6), 105-120.
6. Ottenbacher, M. C., & Harrington, R. J. (2007). The Culinary Innovation Process: A Study of Michelin-Starred Chefs. Journal of Culinary Science & Technology, 5(4), 9-35.
7. Shamdasani, P. N., & Balakrishnan, A. A. (2000). Determinants of relationship quality and loyalty in personalized services. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 17(3), 399-422.
8. Stern, D. B., Nallar, E. F., Rathod, J., & Crandall, K. A. (2017). DNA Barcoding analysis of seafood accuracy in Washington, D.C. restaurants. PeerJ, 5(4).
9. Viviani, M., Bennani, N., & Egyedzsigmond, E. (2012). G-Profile: A Hybrid Solution for Extended Identity Management in the Field of Personalized Service Provision. Information Resources Management Journal, 25(3), 61-77. 

 

Customer Service Skills Essay

When a company gives assistance and advice to those who purchase or use products or services from the company it is called customer service. But customer service is when the customer’s complete experience from when they enter the business or even when they visit the website to the after-sale service. High-quality customer service means keeping customers happy and providing services that they didn’t even know that they would have preferred. Customer service involves intensifying customer needs to satisfy or fulfill them.

Tesco is a multinational grocery business. This means that it serves 12 countries across Asia and Europe with its market leader in the UK. There are many useful areas within Tesco for example marketing, finance, production, Human Resources, customer service, and administration. However, for this assignment, I will only focus on the following. Tesco has different customer service roles including:

• Checkout operator- provides transactions for goods and services
• Receptionist- deals with customer complaints and problems
• Contact center workers- help customer’s residence in time and helps load the goods
• Customer assistant- helps customers shop around the store by helping them by giving them information if they require assistance to get what they need.
• Customer delivery driver- delivers goods to the customer’s residence on time and helps load the items.

The National Health Service, which is known as the NHS, is a not-for-profit organization in the UK that offers health services. As in many other businesses, this business has different roles for its customer distribution.

• Ambulance service team- enables the hospital to assist people who are far from the facilities.
• Receptionist- provides guidance and advice to customers who require help
• Doctors and nurses- help people to deal with their problems and illnesses

Customer service

Different businesses approach customer service in numerous ways. A business’s customer service plays a giant part in whether customers will come or not. If your customer service isn’t up to scratch, then that may show in whether people conceive to return to your business or not. for instance, if they weren’t proud of their purchase but they were pleased with the way it had been treated. Then they’re quite likely visiting come. it’d have just been a faulty product but if things were addressed well then, they must come and buy from them again. Normally people tend to look at online reviews before purchasing something online. This is often because people tend to look at other people’s experiences before trying the company themselves. However, the matter is people tend to put in writing bad reviews and not good ones. This doesn’t help because people who have had an honest experience wouldn’t share with people what it was like.

A few businesses manage customer service better compared to other businesses. As an example, some offer their cash back or like gift vouchers. In any case, some don’t give some thought to customer service. this may affect the business since if the customer service isn’t up to plain this can affect who returns to shop for again or have anything to try and do with the business. An example is TUI they

An example is TUI they’d awful reviews from a pair of individuals. they’d said that the hotel package was advertised differently online after they had arrived there. It wasn’t nearly as good face-to-face because it was advertised. This now implies that people are visiting deliberately before booking with them since this is going on on multiple occasions.

Five ways Tesco has strengthened its position | YouGov

Skills and knowledge needed by staff

In both businesses, the staff will need a set of skills that might be needed in their various roles. However, they will all need communication skills because to provide their service and help assist customers daily, the employees will also need to be able to adequately communicate with the customer to resolve any problems they might be facing. A skill that is usually found in customer service is teamwork. Being able to work in a team can be essential in different situations and to be successful during customer service deliveries. Another skill that every customer service assistant will need is being able to learn and remember the product they are selling. Knowing everything about the product being provided to customers will enable the employees to help the customers get a clear understanding of the product being provided to them. This will enable the employees to help the customer fully understand the functionality and the benefits they will be getting from the product they are purchasing. A manager, on the other hand, will have to have good organizational skills as they are responsible for organizing their department in the business. Also, they will have to have delegation skills as they will need to distribute tasks to the different members of the organization to get the job done at a quicker pace.

Importance of teamwork and co-operation

Providing good customer service can’t be done by one person it requires teamwork. If a customer were to come into the store or institute to complain about a certain aspect of the product service, then it may be necessary to communicate with another member of the team or team leader to provide the solution to the problem this will be providing excellent customer service. Assistance between team members is critical and that can be the difference between excellent customer service and poor customer service. Collaboration between departments is essential when a receptionist needs to direct customers or even visitors from different businesses. It’s essential between businesses when a customer returns a faulty product or has a problem with a product and this means that the business will have to contact the manufacturer to report the problem and help give an idea to fix the situation.

Essay on Nestle and Child Labour

What is the challenge?

Child labor has been occurring for many years, especially in cocoa harvesting in the Ivory Coast, where according to a report commissioned by the US Department of Labor in 2015, over two million child workers were found in the Ivory Coast and Ghana (Revesz, 2016). Child labor is defined by the International Labour Organization as ‘work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.’ (International Labour Organization, 2019). Nestle is one of the world’s largest companies within the food and beverage industry and having been established in 1866, the empire of the brand has seen both successes and controversies within its time. Nestle diversifies in many areas and owns many brands, including those within the confectionary industry, where many of their products include the use of cocoa beans. Over the years companies, including Nestle, have outsourced their cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast in Africa (also known as the Ca´te d’Ivoire), an area extremely rich in this raw material. It has been found that four of the Western African countries, one of which includes the Ivory Coast, produce around 70% of the world’s production of cocoa beans (Shahbandeh, 2021), proving just how attractive it is for Nestle to source cocoa beans from.

It became increasingly obvious Nestle was purchasing cocoa from farmers who used child labor, having children working in unsafe environments, and handling dangerous equipment (Fair Labor Association, n.d.). As a result of the criticism Nestle received, in 2001, the company, alongside eight other multinationals, including the likes of Mars and The Hershey Company, signed the Harkin Engel Protocol, a voluntary agreement aiming to eradicate the worst forms of child labor within the West African cocoa industry (Clarke, 2015). Within this protocol, solutions were explained as to how companies could combat the ever-growing issue and set a deadline for 2005 to create a system for multinationals to adhere to (Slave Free Chocolate, n.d.). This deadline was never met and has since been extended to 2025 when child labor will aim to be reduced by 70% (Huff, 2021). In 2011, ten years after the Harkin Engel Protocol was initially signed, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) investigated Nestle’s supply chain and found incriminating evidence of the multinational firm still using child labor (Clarke, 2015).

The governmental branch of the United Nations known as the International Labour Organization (ILO) governs 187 Member States, including the Ivory Coast. The ILO aims to encourage employees’ rights in the workplace (International Labour Organisation, 2019).

The body outlines guidance to which all member states will adhere, including following the Forced Labour Convention 1930 (No. 29) and the Minimum Age Convention 1978 (No.138). This Convention sets out the minimum age of 13 to 15 for the employment of light work which will not affect the child’s education (International Labour Organization, 2017).

Furthermore, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) plays a key role in this issue as it is a collective group that monitors companies, including those within the cocoa industry. Reports are carried out which investigate a company’s supply chain, and suggestions are made by the FLA on how to combat any issues found (Fair Labor Association, n.d.).

Interestingly, Nestle asked the FLA to investigate their supply chain in 2011, becoming the first multinational food company to collaborate with the Association (Nestle, 2011).

The use of child labor in Nestle’s supply chain is a concern to many stakeholders, mainly children who directly face the repercussions. In 2016, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey found over 20% of children between five and seventeen were engaged in hazardous work on cocoa plantations (Bureau of International Labour Affairs, n.d.). Young children working on plantations on the Ivory Coast are deprived of education, are overworked, operate dangerous equipment, and sometimes suffer abuse by supervisors (Hawksley, 2012).

These conditions ultimately lead to both physical and mental trauma and a deprivation of childhood. An ongoing legal case (from 2005), regarding human trafficking and slavery on cocoa plantations to which Nestle has allegedly been linked, claimed children were forced to work a 14-hour day, and faced physical abuse as a result of attempted escape. Nestle has denied the company’s involvement with this plantation in question (Stohr, 2020). However, it is clear child labor remains a prominent and severe issue within the cocoa industry and subsequently, Nestle’s supply chain.

What is the Principle?

The issue at hand is children’s human rights, and therefore the focus must be on how a firm should protect and uphold human rights. This principle falls under non-consequential ethics, also known as deontological ethics, which is defined as ‘the moral worth of an action is determined not by its consequences, but instead by the nature of the action of practice.’ (Snelson-Powell, 2021). This addresses how it is not the consequences of an individual’s action, but rather the action alone which ultimately faces judgment.

Within the non-consequentialist approach, ethics of duties and rights can be found. Immanuel Kant, a pioneer of the ethics of duties believed morality is a question of certain eternal, abstract, and unchangeable principles: that humans should apply to all ethical problems:’ (Crane and Matten, 2007). Kant believed individuals should determine the ethical value of duty through personal judgment and created the Categorical Imperative framework to assist in this. This consists of three key principles (maxims); consistency, human dignity, and universality, all of which must be consistently fulfilled by individuals within society for an action to be considered ethical (Crane and Matten, 2007). If disregarded, these actions of the individual will come into conflict with others in the individual’s society and ultimately will be deemed immoral and unethical. (Crane and Matten, 2007). The second principle (human dignity) highlights the necessity to treat individuals with compassion, considering their wants and needs, rather than merely a means to an end (Crane and Matten, 2007). The final principle in Kant’s framework is ‘universality’ in which Kant addressed the need for the individual to consider how an action would be perceived by greater society i.e., whether or not it would be viewed as ethical and partaking in an action deemed as immoral is essentially condoning said act (Crane and Matten, 2007).

Philosopher John Locke described ethics of rights as ‘certain basic, important, inalienable entitlements that should be respected and protected in every single action.’ (Crane and Matten, 2007). ‘Natural rights’ have since developed into the overarching Human Rights Act of 1998, established by the United Nations, which includes a right to education and freedom from slavery or forced labor (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2018).

Recognizing that the actions of corporations have an impact on human rights, the UN established the Three Pillars of Guiding Principles, recognizing the duty of the state and companies to protect, respect, and remedy individuals (Ruggie, 2009). This requires companies to acknowledge and share how they adhere to said principles (United Nations, 2011). The state must protect individuals by implementing effective regulations, and ensuring equality before the law whilst upholding an effective legal system. Companies then must follow these legislations (United Nations, 2011).

Furthermore, in every stage of a company’s supply chain, a duty to respect human rights must be of utmost importance, which requires monitoring the impacts of the company’s ethics on the lives involved in its supply chain. (United Nations, 2011). Finally, when a company is found to have breached a human right, remedies must be provided, and it is the state’s responsibility to have processes in place for this to be legitimately and easily achieved (United Nations, 2011).

What should Nestle have done?

Nestle has stated that ‘child labor has no place in our supply chain’ and therefore has put measurements in place to help combat and reduce this issue (Nestle, n.d.).

Under the rights of ethics, in particular, about the knowing and showing of the UN Guiding Principles, Nestle can be seen to have acted ethically, upholding the human rights of the children, as the company was the first in the industry to implement the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) in 2012 (Nestle, n.d.).

This falls under the ‘Respect’ Principle within the UN Guiding Principles, as Nestle understands it has a right of due diligence to uphold the human rights of all workers including the children. Nestle has direct or indirect communication with 700,000 farmers worldwide, allowing Nestle to be aware of the procedures the farmers use (Nestle, n.d.). Nestle has taken on the responsibility to educate themselves more on the matter satisfying the ‘knowing’ element of the Guiding Principles, as a company must first understand what is unethical to then remediate this. This highlights how Nestle identifies the importance of transparency within their supply chain, educating both themselves and the consumers by producing publicly accessible reports and the continuous process will help to reduce the use of child labor.

Furthermore, still under the ‘Respect’ Principle, according to the ‘Tackling Child Labor’ Report in 2019. visits to the plantations are made to conduct surveys to identify hazardous work children may be involved with, however this is exercised by the local people in the Ivory Coast, not workers from the Western World (Nestle, n.d.), This raises the question as to whether there may be conflicts of interest, therefore despite Nestle claiming to identify when there is an issue regarding child labour, there could be more insinuating Nestle could behave in a more ethical way to uphold the children’s human rights. This could be achieved by Nestle sending their representatives to conduct the surveys so there is no subjectivity, or to help gain complete control of the plantations, Nestle could have potentially vertically integrated with cocoa farms.

Continuing using ethics of rights, in particular the ‘Remedy’ Principle, Nestle may be viewed as behaving ethically as under the Cocoa Plan, they have supported over 40,000 children by providing access to education (Nestle, n.d.). As it was found Nestle used farmers who deprived children of their childhood, Nestle is showing they are trying to combat this issue by providing the required support. Despite this being a vast number of children who have been catered for, considering there were over 2 million children in child labor in 2015, only 40,000 receiving this support seems minimal. Therefore, Nestle should continue to help provide education, but increase their scale, possibly by increasing funding for this. A criticism of ethics of rights and using the UN Guiding Principles is how subjective they are and depending on the company, different outcomes will occur. It does not state how to apply each of the principles in practice, therefore this reduces consistency throughout all sectors and industries.

However, using the Kantian perspective it would state how Nestle is acting unethically in terms of human rights as the Categorical Imperative of human dignity is violated. Only actions of goodwill are ethical, therefore the action of employing farmers who potentially use child labor would be deemed as unethical as Nestle is not considering the needs and wants of the child. Nestle is the only party profiting from the situation and as a company worth over $300 billion can pay farmers higher pay, therefore helping to eliminate the need for child labor (Forbes, 2020). It is important to note if Nestle had goodwill behind putting measures in place, or whether they were reacting to what had been uncovered, rather than taking a proactive stance on it.

There is a assignment needed to be completed, along with instructions and templa

There is a assignment needed to be completed, along with instructions and template
followed both the instructions and template as well the grade rubric.