Unit 11

Unit 11

Customer Relations in Business

P1 - I will describe three different types of customers and their needs and expectations.

Restaurant - 1 internal, 2 external

Waitress - this is an internal customer, because it is a member within a business. They still get the same service as an external customer even if in organisation.

Their needs:

- Good equipment provided within a restaurant - e.g. uniform, shoes, pen, paper, so she/he will be able to provide the best customer service and will be a happy employee

- Number of shifts related to the part time or full time job (part time at least 2 shifts in a week)

Their expectations:

- Good wages - the same amount of money which is wrote on payslips, honest employer

- Rewards - may expect to be rewarded for their good job

Tourists - this is an external customer because does not work within organisation and not related to the restaurant, people from other countries, usually does not speak English.

Their needs:

- Be understood - English language might be not their first language or they do not speak English at all, translator should be provided

- Patience - Customer service have to be patient and listen carefully to the customer requirements

Their expectation:

- Excellent service - customer is expecting an excellent customer service, quick food for a good price.

Disabled people - people with special needs and requirements. 

Their needs:

- Easy access - ramp should be provided by a restaurant or a security guy to help a person.

Their expectation:

- Excellent service - customer is expecting an excellent customer service, quick food for a good price.

P2 -  I will explain the benefits of good customer service.

There are 3 beneficiaries to good customer service:

To customer 

- Customer need to be well informed, menu should be provided, price, availability of product, if its fresh, needs and expectation of customer have to be met, customer need to be treated with respect and that will give me happy and satisfied customer with the purchase they made.

To business organisation 

- Reputation is very important for every business, if all the employees are satisfied with a job there will be less number of sickness, low turnover of staff is a benefit for a business, which means the employees are very well trained and everything they need was and is provided so they do not need to change the staff they have because is well experienced.

To the employee 

- Positive feedback from customer or employer will be highly motivating for an employee, this will make him/her feel satisfied and happy, they will know that the job they do was well done; promotion for employees is provided and they could get a higher job position by their good job, positive attitude etc.

P4 - I will explain what contributes to consistent and reliable customer service.

Internal customers should:

- be aware of the scope of their job - it is important that employees know what do to, what are their responsibilities in particular job, they should not step outside of the area of their authority.

- have good product and service knowledge - staff should provide an advice and right information about the product they sell.

- be aware of the types and quality of the business's products and services - sales person should have an ability to advice on product by using their personal knowledge, customers feedback.

- a positive attitude or behaviour - the staff should behave with a good manner to every customer, will to help and smile.

- timing is important in a customer service - should have a knowledge when to approach a customer, not be late for meeting and appointments, returning calls, be on time for delivery.

- lack of accessibility/availability of a business's products and services - knowing how to handle with customer disappointment, be able to find alternative product to not lose the customer.

- meet the customer's needs - listening to the customer to know about their requirements, find a product that they are looking for, find out if everything that customer needed was found.

- how to work under pressure - stay calm and not panic when it's busy time in a store, do not over-task yourself, tasks should be done in kind of order and try to work as quickly as possible.

- how to deal with customer's problems - listen to the customer carefully, do not interrupt while customer talks, check if you got all the point of customer's problem, be able to help in a good manner, if the problem is bigger than your limit refer it to manager.


P5 - I will describe how customer service can be monitored and evaluated.

Monitoring customer service means that you need to be ensured about positive attitude of your staff, ensure if your staff work effectively and be sure that customers are satisfied about the customer service provided.

Evaluating customer service means to review the information and evidence before a conclusion.

There are couple of different ways of monitoring customer service. I will list some of them below:

- Fromal customer feedback - the organisation should provide questionaries or comment cards for customers so they can write a feedback about a seller and about an organisation, how they were treated etc.

- Informal feedback - some of customers may not want to give written feedback, so company should expect the different ways of reaction of a customer about a seller, how they were treated etc, you would expect different comments from customers.

- Mystery shoppers - some organisation hire mystery shopper to check if their customer service is well provided by sellers.

- Complaints and compliements letter - this could also be a way of written feedback, compliement letter is the positive feedback which owner of organisation is expecting, complaint letter is the negative way of feedback which owner want to reduce.

All organisations should monitor these areas in a business:

- price of products

- speed of service/delivery

- the way the service is provided

- range of products

- product features

- packaging

- catologues/websites information

- return procedures.

P6 - I will outline how improvements to the customer service in an organisation could be made.

You need to be able to use all of the positive and negative feedback to identify customer service improvements. Be ready to make changes to your customer service provided. Company reputation is the most important thing for an owner.

Staff turnover and managers turnover would be necessary of feedback from customer still coming up negative. Experience of staff and manager is vital. Analyse all customers feedback, check questionaries and customer cards.

You can also hire a mistery shopper to find out how you customer service is provided. They may also check your competitor's customer service.

Set new aims and objectives for new staff.

You should have staff meeting every week and ask them for any ideas they have, how they are feeling in the environment.

M1 - I will explain how different customers' needs and expectations can differ.

All over the world we have different customers, with different needs, expectations, habits or different kind of style. Customers I have chosen are waitress (internal), tourists and disabled (external).

Waitress needs to be very patient in order to customer such as disabled or a tourists. Disabled people need more patience and special equipment e.g. ramp to have an easy access to get in or out the restaurant. Staff need to give them an opportunity and help with the access and find them the most suitable table to sit and to have a lot of space around them. Disabled customers need to feel that they are important customers in the restaurant. There also should be a disabled parking provided somewhere near the restaurant or in front of it.

Waitress also needs to be patient for a customer such as tourists. They usually do not speak English or speak just a little bit. They are expecting that there would be someone in the restaurant who will try to translate or understand them. They need to feel happy and waitress should be calm and friendly to them. They always expect high standard food, good price, excellent customer service.

All of customers expect excellent customer service, good food for a good price. They also expect the restaurant to be clean and kept very tidy. Toilets need to be provided for both male and female and special toilet for disabled people. Happy and helpful staff is needed in restaurant. Without a good staff, atmosphere and good food of course, clients will not be happy and the restaurant would not prosper in good condition and would not be rated as a high standard restaurant.

M2 - Role play

M3 - I will analyse the importance of customer service to different businesses. 

There needs to be proper way of communication provided between customer and company which provide the service. Good customer service would give a lot of benefits to the company. It is important that the company would give very good training for all of the employees. The main point is to keep the good customer service to existing customers. The customer need to know that he/she can trust you and need to feel treated fairly. If they feel like that the owner of the business can make sure that the customer will come back for more service. Customer need to be greet when come in, be sure that he/she can ask for help and solve any problem they have, get an advice when customer wants. Not only advertisements can help you to get more money. If good customer service is provided it will get more clients to the organisation. Opinion of existing client is also very important so they could bring friends or family to your organisation. Customer satisfaction is really important for an organisation.

When the business do not offer good customer service, the company will not get more income or profit. A lot of people is claiming about poor customer service or not trained employees in different organisations. It is essential when recruiting a employee when a person look at the small details, they may be really important for the business in the future. Poor training could bring any damage to business that we could not repair in the future. If employee would not be trained properly, he/she would not understand customer's requirements, which could frustrate the customer that they could not find any help in a business. Frustrated customer is lost for ever.

Every business need to encourage the employee by giving them an excellent opportunity in the company. Policy and laws has to be right and provided to the employee as well as quality of a products explained, because some of employees does not believe in products they sell.
D1 - Part of a role play


M4/D2 -  I will explain and analyse how monitoring and evaluating can improve customer service for the customer, business and employee. 


Now I am going to explain how an organisation can make improvements to customer service for customers.

There is a lot of different ways to improve customer service to benefit a customer. You need to make a customer feel very important for your organisation. You need to find out customers requirements and willing to help them as many times as they need you. If they are satisfied with your service they will come back and leave very good feedback for your business and your sales staff.

The organisation can change the following:

- price
- range of products
- packaging
- quality and reliability of service
- speed of delivery


Im going to explain how an organisation can make improvements to customer service for employees by using Frederick Herzberg's management theory to achieve employee job satisfaction.

The theory of Frederick Herzberg tell us what factors in organisation that cause employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction. 

Leading to satisfaction:

- company policy
- supervision
- relationship with boss
- work conditions
- salary
- relationship with peers

Leading to dissatisfaction

- achievement
- recognition
- work itself
- responsibility 
- advancement
- growth

Staff need to be determined and motivated to do the job. They also need to be very well understand and rely on a manager or boss. They need to feel support from an employer. If you can see that the employee is satisfied and he/she is happy about what they do it means that you get on of the best employees. He/she will do the job properly, which means that you should start about a reward or promotion for this kind of employee. But if your employee is not satisfied with the rules and regulations at work and they work in environment they do not like at all you will no get good sales with this person. This will lead to bad customer service, no knowledge about a product. They also might not be happy because they have a problem with communicating with other staff or managers. 

Lastly, I will explain how an organisation can make improvements to customer service to benefit the business.

Organisations can make improvement by providing excellent training for their employees. They need to know what the can do and what they cannot. They need to know all information about the company and the service or products. They also need to know who they need to speak to when they have a problem. They should not hesitate to talk to manager, supervisor or boss. 


Lots of people would not make complaints they will just stay unhappy. But the most important thing of an organisation is to keep a customer happy. Even if they purchase a small item, greet them with a smile, ask how are they feeling. These all would make then feel better and you will gain one more customer to visit your organisation again. It is also important that every employee is happy to work in organisation. There should be good relationship between workers and manager as well as owners. Sometimes business just need to sort out small things and this all will benefit either customer, business and an employee. 

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