No business is probably as dependent upon customer service as hotels. Most large hotels generally depend on a high level of customer service to attract and retain guests. In many countries, hotel employees depend on tips from satisfied customers for a large part of their income. This means that hotels could be the perfect example of a customer service business.

Therefore anybody that wants to understand customer service should take a close look at the hotel business. Indeed one renowned hotel chain, Ritz Carlton, is often held up as an example of an exemplary customer service business.

Types of Hotel Customer Service

• Basic hotel customer service. This service is often provided at motels in the United States. It usually just involves a desk clerk that checks customers in and maid service in the room. Customers have to carry their own bags and meals are only provided in restaurants. Instead of service such hotels offer amenities such as television, coffee in the rooms, bars in the rooms, exercise areas, swimming pools and a free breakfast.

• Traditional hotel service. These are the services that travelers historically get at larger hotels. Examples of this include room service (delivery of meals to rooms), bellhops to carry bags to rooms, on call laundry service, a concierge (customer service manager) to arrange for sports tickets, taxi cabs and other services, checked baggage and more. Many of these hotels feature businesses such as barbershops, hair salons and bars in the hotel. Another traditional service is a van that takes guests to and from the airport or the train station to the hotel. Such hotels often cater to businessmen and tourists.

• Luxury or five star hotels. These are luxurious hotels that generally cater to the wealthy and leisure travelers. The services provided are similar to traditional hotel service but the staff is often much more attentive. Managers will reserve favorite rooms for regular guests. Concierges will go to a great deal of trouble to meet guests’ demands. Special service is often available for wealthy guests that pay extra. Many such hotels will prepare special meals for guests.

• Resort hotel service. These hotels are often designed as a retreat from the world and maybe associated with a casino, skiing or a beach resort. A resort hotel will often have a spa and other recreational facilities on site. Many resort hotels are in isolated and exotic locations and emphasize peace and quiet.

Developments in Hotel Customer Service

Traditionally hotel customer service has not been very sophisticated for example many hotels don’t train employees. This has begun to change in recent years. Some hotels now have training programs and rely upon surveys and customer service software.

Since the hotel business has always been very competitive these trends will continue. The biggest trend is the paying special attention to customers and creating customer service packages aimed at specific customers (for example dog owners). This is often done by hotel chains in an attempt to get customers to always stay at their hotels.

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Something to remember is that it is what is in your resume that will bring you jobs and job interviews not what you write your resume on. This means that fancy resume paper and other gimmicks are usually a waste of time. A good resume written on plain white typing paper should suffice for most customer service positions.

Also you don’t need to spend your money on a resume writing service in order to get an effective resume. The average person should be able to write such a resume on their own.

The Process of Writing an Effective Customer Service Resume

1. The first step in writing an effective customer service resume is to sit down and review your job history. Think about past customer service jobs and how you did on them. Try and identify your skills and greatest job accomplishments.

1. Try and create a resume that lists your skills and job accomplishments. You will have to list your employment but there are ways to make your accomplishments stand out.

1. Create an accomplishments section on your resume and place it above your job history. List your accomplishments here and your job history below – that way perspective employers will read about your accomplishments first.

1. If possible try to leave jobs where you had bad experiences off of your resume. In particular eliminate short term positions and don’t list temporary work.

1. Leave off jobs where you had no customer service responsibilities. For example warehouse or office work that you’ve done.

1. List as many customer service positions as possible including summer or part time jobs that you had in high school or college. Many employers look with favor on those who had direct customer service experience in fields such as restaurants or retail stores.

1. Place an emphasis on sales jobs because these are often customer service intensive.

1. Try not to list a former employer on a reason unless you’re sure they will give you a good recommendation. A good suggestion is to have a friend call the employer posing as a hiring manager and ask about you.

1. Make sure you list all former employment that might come out in a background check on your resume. Many employers view those who don’t disclose past employment as trying to hide something.

1. Definitely consider listing volunteer work, internships, apprenticeships, coursework and other unpaid activities that involve customer contact on your resume. This shows that you are a people person.

1. Listing community activities and non religious groups that you participate in is a good idea. This makes you look like a people person who likes dealing with others.

1. Avoid listing political and religious activities because this is actually illegal on resumes. Some employers also don’t like having overtly religious people or individuals with passionate political beliefs in customer service positions because this can offend and drive away some customers.

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Therefore it is important to distinguish between the types of customer service. Entrepreneurs definitely need to learn the different types of customer service so they can decide what kind of customer service they want to provide.

Different Types or Levels of Customer Service

• High level or luxury customer service. This is customer service at a very level. It is usually only available at five star hotels, top restaurants and fancy department stores because of the high cost involved. Generally this kind of customer service involves professionals to each customer or small groups of customers.

• One on one customer service. In this kind of customer service each customer has a customer service professional to meet their needs. It is very rare because of the expensive involved.

• Tip based customer service. In this kind of customer service which is common in the United States and Europe, customers pay employees directly for extra customer service. The payment is in the form of a cash tip. Most customer service in restaurants, hotels, taxi cabs, bars, casinos and similar establishments is on a tip basis.

• Basic customer service. This is the level of service customers have come to expect from a business. For example most motorists now expect to pump their own gasoline. This would be basic customer service.

• Better than average customer service. This is a level of customer service slightly above the industry norm. It often comes as pleasant surprise to customers an example of this would be a fast food restaurant with table service.

• Helpful employees. This is often found at retail stores in this kind of customer service, employees doing another job are positioned in such a way as to help customers. For example a person stocking shelves could direct a customer to a product. Or carry a customer’s purchase to the car.

• Bare minimum customer service. This is often found in discount stores or other establishments which try to provide as little customer service to keep costs low. Examples of this would be customers bagging their own groceries and using self check out lines.

• Customer relationship management. This is a kind of customer service where a business tries to build a long term relationship with customers. It is very common in the auto business and other industries that involve large purchases. Usually this customer service is based on a specialist who handles all relations with customers. All contact between the customer and the business is through this individual.

• Unrealistic customer service. This occurs when either the customer or the business has unrealistic expectations of what customer service can do. An example of this would be customer service employees making promises they know they can’t keep. The popular motto “the customer is always right” is a perfect example of this delusion.

• Realistic customer service. In this state of affairs the business or customers does not promise more than they deliver. Instead they work hard and try to deliver more. That way if their delivery exceeds their promises they look good and the customer is pleasantly surprised.

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This means that every organization should strive to provide great customer service. Raising customer service to a great or exceptional level should be one of the main goals of every business and every employee.

The benefits of great customer service are too numerous to mention. Yet we will try to list a few so entrepreneurs can know what to expect when they improve their customer service.

Top Benefits of Great Customer Service

• Perhaps the biggest benefit of great customer service is that it generates good will. People will look favorably upon a business that provides good customer service and employees that provide it.

• Great customer service generates word of mouth advertising. This is the most effective advertising because it is based on the recommendations of friends, family and others that people trust.

• Great customer service and the positive feedback it generates, makes employees happier. This increases job satisfaction and often increases employees’ level of production and level of commitment.

• The positive work environment created by great customer service is a much better place to work. Both employees and managers have a better attitude and more commitment.

• Great customer service often generates more income for employees in the form of increased tips.

• Great customer service generates more revenue for the business in the form of increase sales.

• Great customer service increases employee loyalty which translates into increased future business.

• Great customer service often reduces the rate of crime such as vandalism and theft at a business. These crimes are often motivated by anger or resentment against a business on the part of employees or customers. Such attitudes don’t exist in an environment of great customer service.

• Great customer service will often encourage customers to go out of their way to do business with a particular firm.

• Great customer service will often encourage employees to spend more and to tip more.

• Great customer service builds up a great reputation which is the best advertising any business can have.

• Businesses with great customer service can often reduce their advertising budget and still attract customers.

• Great customer service builds good will and popular support in the community. This makes relationships with government, community groups, labor unions and other organizations much easier.

• Companies that provide great customer service can often charge slightly higher prices for products and services.

• Customers are often willing to pay a slightly higher price for an identical good or service that comes with great customer service.

• People are more likely to apply for jobs with companies that provide great customer service.

• Companies with great customer service often have a higher rate of employee retention because people like working at them.

• Great customer service often lessens the need for buying new equipment, upgrading technology or changing industry which can cut costs.

• Great customer service will not make up for bad or ineffective products.

• Customers are often willing to forgive a company for selling an inferior or ineffective product if it provides great customer service.

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Something that most of us fail to recognize is that we will have to be proactive to get good customer. Customers who are passive and fail to work for better customer service will get lousy customer service.

Good customer service is everybody’s responsibility: both customers and businesses have an obligation to work to improve customer service. Fortunately there are many things that the average customer can do to improve customer services.

Things That You Can Do to Get Better Customer Service

• Follow the golden rule treat customer service employees as you would like to be treated. This means treat customer service employees with respect, politeness, courtesy and common.

• Don’t be rude or impolite to customer service employees. Using common courtesies like please and thank you will get you better customer service.

• Don’t be pushy or aggressive. Many people make the mistake of being pushy or aggressive with customer service staff. This offends such people and gives them a reason not to give you good service.

• Never get angry with customer service staff. If you become angry or upset at a customer service employee walk away. If possible go outside or to another establishment. If you have a complaint or an issue come back later when you are not upset.

• Never fight or argue with a customer service provider. This will simply make the situation worse. Walking out, not leaving a tip or never patronizing an establishment again is a far more effective means of sending a message than fighting.

• Take stock of the situation before complaining. Look around and see what’s going on. In many cases, bad customer service is the result of understaffing, poor planning and other circumstances beyond an employee’s control. Don’t blame someone for something that isn’t their fault.

• Have some patience. In many cases simply waiting a few minutes will resolve a situation such as a long line.

• Frequent stores, restaurants and other establishments when they are not crowded. In many cases the staff of an establishment is unable to provide decent customer service when dealing with a crowd. Going in at off peak hours and avoiding crowded businesses can help you avoid bad customer service.

• Don’t be afraid to complain and stand up for your rights. If you don’t like a situation in a store say so. Don’t be rude about it and don’t take your anger out on employees but be willing to complain.

• Take advantage of complaint processes, many businesses have suggestion boxes, e-mail addresses, online forums for customers’ comments etc. Businesses do monitor these and respond to feedback.

• Talk to the manager. Do not waste your time talking to employees, if you have a complaint ask to see the manager or assistant manager. If a manager isn’t available ask if there is an e-mail or voice mail where you can leave her a message.

• Reward good customer service. The best way to ensure good customer is to reward those that provide it. Tip or pay extra tips when you get good customer service. Thank employees that provide good customer service. Ask if there is a way you can commend those who provide good customer service. Above patronize businesses with good customer service.

• Finally, don’t patronize businesses that give bad customer service. The best way to send such establishments a message is to not give them your money.

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The Basic Goal of Airline Customer Service

The basic goal of airline customer service is to ensure the safety of the passengers. This is the main function of airline customer service personnel who are called flight attendants, stewards or stewardesses. These individuals see to the needs of the passengers but their main goal is the passengers’ safety.

Indeed one of the main functions of flight attendants is to keep passengers from interfering in the crew’s operation of the plane. The stewards work to make sure that the pilot, engineer and copilot are free to fly the plane.

In the early days of air travel nurses were often employed as flight attendants so that they could handle passengers that got sick or agitated. Today many airlines are employed retired police officers, paramedics and firefighters as flight attendants in an attempt to make air travel safer.

Air travel is much stressful because of the dangers of terrorism, cramped plays, flight delays and other factors. Today’s flight attendants often have to deal with irate and upset passengers. They also have to be alert for terrorism and irrational passengers.

Minimal Service

They do this by responding to the passengers’ needs, ensuring their comfort and making sure the passengers are calm. This has to be done because airliners are rather small and cramped.

The services provided by airline attendants are much more minimal than those provided by train porters and conductors. They may serve meals at a certain time, dispense snacks and sometimes provide drinks.

Unlike the crews on trains and ships, flight attendants can not take tips. This means that they are generally better paid than persons in similar positions in other modes of travel. Unfortunately the job is much more stressful.

Airline Customer Service Careers

Those who are not prepared to deal with large numbers of people, cramped quarters and a lot of stress should not become flight attendants. An airline attendant has to be disciplined, relaxed and capable of dealing with both dangerous situations and irrational passengers.

There are some advantages to airline customer service in particular such positions are paid more than similar jobs. Flight attendants also get to travel a lot and have free travel.

Persons that don’t like to travel and hate staying alone should definitely go into this career. Those who love travel and enjoy other cultures will definitely like some of the aspects of an airline attendant’s job.

Tips for Airline Customer Service Jobs

Those interested in an airline customer service job should definitely spend some time traveling. They should also spend some time around airlines, airline personnel and airports to see if they like the environment.

In some cases a person can get some of the perks with airline customer service jobs on the ground. There are many customer service positions at airlines that don’t involve air travel. These involve receptionist positions, computer work and greeting passengers at the airport. Such customer service representative jobs are good way to experience airline customer service without working on the planes.

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The most basic function of a customer service representative is to take calls, chat requests, e-mails and other communications from customers and respond to them. This means that a CSR could end up doing anything from telling a customer the company’s billing address to helping a customer locate a technical manual for a product.

Customer Service Representatives and Customer Service Advisors

The big difference between a customer service representative and a customer service advisor or customer relationship manager is that the CSR provides only a basic level of customer service. The representative responds to basic questions such as requests for information.

A customer service advisor will take a more proactive role. For example a customer service advisor might try to find out who in the company deals with a particular request. The customer service advisor will often conduct follow ups to see if a customer’s needs have been met.

In many cases the customer service representative will refer a person to the customer service advisor. In some cases customer service representatives will fill orders and help customers pay bills.

Customer Service Representative Duties

The main duty of a customer service representative is to provide an immediate response to customer requests. A classic example of is this is to answer every phone call within ten seconds.

Unlike a customer service advisor a representative does not necessarily have to solve customer’s problems. Instead his major job is to maintain contact with the customer so the company can meet her needs.

Traditionally customer service representatives worked in call centers and were closely monitored by managers. This produced a high pressure environment and high turnover. In recent years the trend has been to hire independent contractors that work at home.

In some businesses only good basic phone skills are required. Some technology and finance companies will require customer service representatives to have some knowledge of the business. Some insurance industry representatives may even need to have insurance licenses.

Generally the main requirements to be a customer service representative are a good phone voice and good basic customer service skills. A personality that doesn’t respond to anger and personal attacks is also a plus.

Training for Customer Service Representatives

In recent years the trend has been to give customer representatives quite a bit of training. This training combines phone and customer skills with familiarization with the company’s products.

It often involved a combination of online training, testing, classroom training, face to face training, and on the job training. Many customer service representatives will need to go through several days of paid training before starting work.

Customer service representatives that work at home often need to go to a formal training session. This is usually conducted at a company’s office or a facility such as hotel. Generally this training session is done so that a company’s employees can evaluate job candidates.

The training combines familiarization with the position with classroom training and testing. Many work at home representatives will also need to go through online training as well.

Something to consider is that most customer service representatives face regular evaluations from their employers and managers. Many customer service calls are recorded so that managers can review them and evaluate an employee’s performance for example. Those who do not want to face such regular evaluations should consider other career options.

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The idea behind this position is to create a person who is responsible for customer service and the relationship with one particular customer or a group of customers. The customers have a person they can go to with concerns and problems. The company has an individual who is supposed to maintain contact with customers.

Customer Service Advisors vs. Sales Staff

The big difference between a custom service advisor or relationship manager and a salesperson is obvious. The salesperson initiates the relationship with the customer while the advisor maintains.

Part of the reason to create a customer service advisor is to reduce cost and free salespeople up so they can go out and seek more new customers. Another reason is to reduce costs because many salespeople are paid by commission.

There is also an ethical dimension to customer service advisors. They do not have the vest interest of a commission. Their role instead is to maintain a relationship rather than sell a customer more products.

Duties of a Customer Service Advisor

The main duty of a customer service advisor is to maintain contact with customers and make sure that they are satisfied with the service or product and the customer they are receiving. For example at a car company a customer service advisor will maintain contact to see how well the car is running and if customers have any problems with it.

A customer service advisor tries to spot problems with goods and services and to correct them. For example the customer service advisor at a software company can alert the technical staff to a problem with the software so they can start working on a fix. A customer service advisor can also monitor customer activity to see how effective training is.

A big part of a customer service advisor’s duties is to bring customer concerns to management before they become a problem. For example a customer service advisor can tell managers that customers are griping about the cost of a product or the length of time they are spending on the phone with the service department.

Training for Customer Service Advisors

The training for customer service advisors generally varies by industry. In some businesses the position is a very technical one while in others it can be more of a relationship role.

Not every customer service advisor will receive training but many well. In the insurance industry such an advisor may have to be a licensed insurance agent. Insurance customer relationship managers may need to get special training so they don’t give out legal advice.

An advisor may try to address special problems for example a customer at an insurance company who is having a hard time filing a claim. They may also refer problems to other departments such as the legal department.

Requirements for Customer Service Advisors

Generally customer service advisors have to be real good with people. They also have to have a strong commitment to an organization and its products. In most cases a high degree of empathy and ethics is required as well.

Persons who do not like dealing with individuals that are upset or angry should not work as customer service advisors. Persons that like solving problems would definitely enjoy a career as a customer service advisor.

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Not surprisingly customer service software is a critical need for these firms. Locating the best and most effective customer service software is often vital to the success and survival of an enterprise.

Characteristics of Effective Customer Service Software

• The first and important characteristic of customer service software is fast response. It must respond to customers’ demands and requests as quickly as possible.

• The second and nearly as critical characteristic is real time information collection. That is it must be able to gather data about customers and their activities and make it available to management as quickly as possible.

• Another vital characteristic is that it must be user friendly. Such software should be easy for both customers and employees to use.

• A final characteristic is customer feedback. Entrepreneurs must be able to collect customer feedback and monitor it.

Top Ten Customer Service Software Programs

1. Tender Support – Provides real time support and gives an account at a low price. Very easy to use. It has a very easy virtual installtion.

http://tenderapp.com/

2. UserVoice – This program allows persons to set up public and private forums to collect feedback. Offers a high level of encryption and other security features. A useful aspect of this program is the ability to export data directly to Microsoft Excel.

https://uservoice.com/

3. Get Satisfaction – A web based application that offers a lot of tools at a low price. It emphasizes the creation of communities among customers and social networking. Tries to apply social studies research to online marketing.

http://getsatisfaction.com/

4. Ideaffect.com – This service concentrates upon customer feedback it tries to combine the kind of tools offered by some of the older services. It’s a little newer and quite customer friendly. It easily integrates with a number of other popular apps including Google Analytics.

https://www.ideaffect.com/

5. ZenDesk – A very popular service that provides a live online helpdesk. The price is low but it does provide help over a wide variety of applications including mobile platforms.

http://www.zendesk.com/

6. User Echo – A web based customer feedback tool. The main focus is on gathering customer feedback. It is limited in its scope and what it can integrate with.

http://userecho.com/

7. Zoho Discussions – Like User Voice those service sets up online forums designed to collect customer feedback. It tries to setup a community of customers. It is also designed to reduce costs on customer enquiries.

http://discussions.zoho.com/

8. Idea Scale – An application that provides custom feeding back that also tries to create a virtual community of customers. Its main selling point seems to be the low price. It tries to get users to submit ideas.

http://ideascale.com/

9. Moxie Software (Moxie Soft) – Provides live chat software that allows visitors to company’s website to chat live with customer service. Good for providing instant contact online.

http://www.moxiesoft.com/

10. Issue Trak – Provides customizable customer support software to major corporations such as UPS, RiteAid and Philips. A MicroSoft Gold Certified Partner.

http://www.issuetrak.com

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What a Call Centre Is

A call centre is a facility that contains a phone bank, a phone bank is a series of phones where employees take telephone calls and respond to customer demands. Traditionally such facilities take orders and other requests from customers. Others may handle requests for customer service or complaints.

Most of the phones in a call centre are manned by people called customer service representatives. These people serve as an organization’s first point of contact with its customers. For example they will take requests for service or orders.

These customer service representatives do require a great deal of training. Many companies have attempted to give them training in order to approve effectiveness. Despite this call centers have proven unpopular with customers particularly in the United States and Canada.

Staffing Call Centers

It has proven very hard to fill positions in call centers and attract quality employees in North America and Europe. The work is low paid and can be very stressful. It also has a strong stigma attached to it because the public often associates call centers with boiler rooms – phone banks run by con artists and high pressure salespeople.

In particular it is often very hard to get people work at night and in the evening when call center services often in high demand. Some companies attempted to rectify this by using locating call centers in countries like India and the Philippines. This offended customers because some of the employees at such facilities couldn’t speak English well. Other people were bothered by the loss of jobs to Americans and Canadians.

Call Center Training

The more reputable call centre operators such as TeleTech Holdings (the industry leader) employee elaborate training methods. TeleTech uses regular computerized training, classroom teaching and simulated calls to train employees.

Other companies do regular evaluations of employees that involve the taping of calls. In some cases elaborate methods are made to reward employees that do a very good job. TeleTech holds parties for employees and hands out gift cards for example.

The Future of Call Centre Customer Service

Interestingly enough the future of call centers may be no call centers at all. Several companies in the United States including TeleTech and Republic Airlines are experimenting with home based telephone customer service.

In this solution a person works at home and conducts customer service over an internet phone connection. The main advantage to this solution is that it often attracts a much better quality of employee. Persons who would feel ashamed going to a call center are willing to work at home.

Another big advantage is that it greatly lowers real estate costs which can be high. It enables companies to expand quicker and is often more flexible.

A disadvantage to home based phone service is that it can be difficult to train such individuals. The supervision of home workers can also be very difficult. There are also security concerns because such workers are not under close supervision.

The advantages to home based phone service are so great that it is probably the industry’s future. Indeed call centers could soon be a thing of the past.

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