Over the past few weeks i have been learning the relationship between Public Relations and Customer Service. In all internet based company it is very important to have a strong, well informed and well functioning customer service for the simple reason that all communication between your organization your key publics,both existing and potential, goes through customer service. Customer service needs to be in the loop on company news, as they are the ones who will have to deal with and answer to all the angry calls and e-mails coming through.
The two main things which e need Customer Service for are, relationship management and issues management. For every organization which relies a lot on its customer service it must insure regular training o its staff on these two areas.
When it comes to Relationship Management customer service should be thought of as an investment and not simply a cost, therefore, objectives need to focus on customer satisfaction, not turn-over speed. Too much focus on the number of customers handled does not build good relationships but its rather the focus on happy customers that helps you grow as an organization, you have to have the user at the top of your mind.
Representatives responses to queries need to have an eye on issues management. Customer service benefits from sitting within, or having a direct line to the communication function and organizational structures need to reflect this role. If the customer service which is at the core of communicating with all external publics is uninformed and has to go through too many channels to gain information, then their responses are unnecessarily prolonged and very vague which leavs unsatisfied customers thus reflecting badly on the organizatio.
Just like Public Relations, customer service plays a large role in the organization as far as building and maintaing relationship is concerned and that is why it has to work closely with Public Relations. They both need all the information and resources available to make their job easy especially during times and crisis and building and maintaining the company's reputation.
2 comments:
Your post reflects exactly what has been in my mind all along. To me Public relations has to use customer service to its advantage and companies should take this serious because its one way jst like you said that build the relationship between the company and the stakeholders. Where i work am mainly on to customer service,we are looking into customer satisfaction and i have discovered something.
Some companies don't take seriously the role of PR for example they just get anyone and place them on the customer service desk, the person does not even know hw to handle customers and some dont even know much about the company in the first place. This affects the relationship between the company and the customers as the customers will not be happy with the service they get.What happens if clients are not happy? they obviously go to where they can be better serviced.
So am 100% agreeing with you whn you say customer service is at the core of communication with external publics.keeping your clients happy at all times will give your company a good image thus helping in times of crisis.when you have a good relation with your clients its easier to deal with them in bad times as you have long proven that your company can do well when given the chance.
Lastly i would say companies should always train their personnel in the field of customer care even if they are not in the Public relations units. This will come handy in many ways
I personally don’t want to disagree with your interesting topic,” Is customer service a new public relations” this is an important area in any organization or company since it contributes significantly to the company. During my internship I and the lady for administration officer discussed on how we can help improve our customer service, so we designed a suggestion box and then I formulated questions that can be asked to clients or customers and I made the questions to be very simple and interesting.
So the Lady for adimin is also the floor manager and she made show that every time the office opens everything it’s up to date and during office hour clients are helped accordingly. The aim of customer service within our departments to improve our services so in our suggestion box questions we asked questions that would necessarily help our Department improve. Example of questions include: were you satisfied with the help given, does our staff dress accordingly and Do you think they is any corruption done in this Department. (I just mentioned few questions.)
In conclusion I would say customer service is a very important area in any Nature of business, either be it profit or non profit organization, and I think it would be much interesting if a Public Relation Practitioner in any company, is working hand in hand with the team that is aiming to improve customer service, within the department.
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