Customer Service planning and managing

One of the key areas of concern for every corporate organization is customer service. Among many other advantages, the solution aids firms in enhancing their reputation by increasing client happiness. Typically, providing good customer service involves putting in place the business's mechanisms to make sure that it provides its customers with a valuable product or service (Morgenson and Petrescu 2011, p.452). To provide clients with the finest customer service possible, several different strategies are used. Mostly they revolve around monitoring of the customer issues as they arise and handling them immediately to prevent risk occurrence and respond to them quickly and appropriately (Ramsey 2009, p.14). Therefore, the customer service is critical to the success of every business organization.

This report focusses on the customer service implementation at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (also called the HM Revenue and Customs or the HMRC). The HMRC is a UK government’s department that holds the obligation of collecting the tax, making the payments for the state support and also overseeing the regulatory regimes within the organization. The paper explains the functions of the business that is in line with the customer service, which is useful for the operation of the HMRC. The paper also provides a PowerPoint presentation that is to be used for the training in the organization about the link between resources and the customer service.

Task 1

Why Customer Service is Important to HMRC

The customer service forms one of the critical aspects of the business at HMRC. The HMRC as one of the departments of the UK nation, has the responsibility of delivering the best services to the public, an aspect that is best achieved through an efficient customer service. Through an efficient customer service, the HMRC will attain publicity in the UK. An excellent service will spread by itself to all the people in the nation. Gaining publicity is one of the best ways of promoting services of the company. Also, the clients of the HMRC have a right to better customer service (Randall 2010, p.11). The customers form one of the major stakeholders in the operation of the HMRC. Therefore, the public as the primary customers of the government department of the UK, are worthy receiving the best customer service from HMRC.

A well established customer service at the HMRC will enable the organization to gain trust from the public. It will make it easy for the organization to deal with the clients because they will develop willingness from the trust of the operation of the HMRC. Also, a good customer service system will help the business to prevent many other different issues that may arise from within the organization’s operation. It provides a clear way of identifying and solving the problems that exist in its operation. By so doing, the organization will manage to improve its efficiency and customer’s satisfaction, a factor that increases profitability and sustainability of the business. Therefore, customer service is critical for the running of the HMRC (Kaul and Pandit 2008, p.11).

Contribution of the Customer Service to Achieving Goals

The customer service is one of the key elements that significantly contribute to helping the organization s achieve its goals and the objectives. Usually, the business goals and objective revolves around the customer as a stakeholder. Businesses set their goals with the main focus on the customers. The approach helps the companies to get a better understanding of the customer needs to attain the best services for the client which helps to reach the business goals. Therefore, client satisfaction is critical to the business because it helps the company to win more customers and retain them, among other benefits that are critical to the organization (Vijaya and Tiwari 2010, p.30).

The customer care is one of the significant aspects of concern at the business of the HMRC. As a body tasked with the responsibility of serving the public, an efficient public service will significantly contribute to the achievement of the goals and objectives of the organization. The department has many strategic objectives which include satisfying the public, a factor that is achieved through better service for their client. It also has the goal of an effective collection of the revenue. The customer service greatly aids the business to attain trustworthy in its operations by the clients. The public will gain confidence in the body, a fact that in turn helps the business to increase the revenue collection from the people because they are likely to corporate in the exercise due to a high trust in the services. Therefore, the customer service significantly helps HMRC in different ways to attain its goals.

Integration of Customer service with the Mission, Values and the Reputation of the Company

One of the best ways of implementing the customer service in every business organization is through the integration of the customer service into the organization's mission, values and the reputation. This is because the corporate culture forms one of the most valued aspects of the business. Through the integration, the company will be in a better position to enforce all the goals and objectives that it needs to achieve regarding an excellent customer service. The culture provides direction of the people in the company, through the definition of what should be done and what should not (Kurokawa 2007, p.15). Culture smoothly moves the people in the organization by culture. Therefore, it is important for every business organization that dreams of a better customer service, to consider integrating their goals into its mission, values and reputation.

The HMRC can implement a good customer service system in its business through a well-incorporated customer service aspects in the organization’s mission, vision and reputation. The senior management of the department needs to determine and set the mission of the company to reflect the priority granted to the customer service in the business. The HMRC values should also consider listing the critical aspects of the organization's expectations on the excellent customer service. Besides, the management should also come up with strategies that will help create a good name in the eyes of the customers that will enable the organization to gain popularity in the nation. Therefore, an emphasis of better customer service at HMRC through a definition in the mission, values and reputation will significantly impact on the culture of the HMRC, which will, in turn, make it easy for the company to embrace better customer service.

The Influence of Customer Needs on the Needs and Expectations of the Organizational Functions

The customers form the main stakeholders for every business organization. They are key, and without them, no business can take place. Therefore, they need to be valued and considered for effective business. Customer oriented services always give the best results in the company. Thus, the product design within the organization should always focus on the customer satisfaction (Cook 2011). The customer influences the product design and development in every company. The characteristics of the client regarding the earnings, the willingness and other features have a direct impact on many kinds of services or products offered by the organization. Some of the factors influenced by the customers include the pricing, the delivery mode, the after sales services, production and the product or service development t among many others. Businesses that want to grow will always ensure that they offer customer-oriented services (McLean and Lewis 2010, p.30).

The operations of the HMRC are significantly influenced by their customers. As a public service body, the nationalities are among the main stakeholders in the business, and thus, their satisfaction is critical. This shows that the national department has its operational activities dictated by the customers. For example, the amount of tax collected per individual is determined by their financial ability, the mode of tax collection is influenced by their convenience among many other factors (Khatri 2009, p.2). Also, the mode of communication to the customers of the HMRC is influenced by the customers whereby the company can only apply a channel that is more convenient to the customers for passing the information.

Task 3

Customer Feedback Exercise

Introduction

The survey was conducted to establish the quality of services at the HMRC through their customer feedback. The sampling quota consisted of twenty people in the UK who are eighteen years old and above. They were selected randomly to give their feedback on the service of the organization. The questionnaire was administered to nationalities from different geographical areas in the UK who pay tax to the government or have ever had the transactions with the HMRC national department. The distribution of the survey ensured that there is no bias in any way whatsoever, such as gender bias, financial status bias or the geographical bias (Conchie and Burns 2008, p.142).

The main aim of the survey had the primary objectives of establishing the quality service level of the HMRC's services in the UK. It achieved the primary goal through handling the other purposes which focused on the performance or satisfaction level of the UK citizen's with the customer service of the HMRC department. Some of the key areas that were considered include the service delivery speed, organization’s communication, the degree to which the staff are informed, how rude they are, the client service level and the possibility of the false promises in customer service at the HMRC. Therefore, the survey played a critical role in the establishing problems or issues that face the customer service at the HMRC (Ferrante 2010, p.40).

Survey Result Analysis

The survey yielded different results from the customers regarding the customer service quality at the HMRC according to questions asked (See appendix 1.0). When the clients were asked on the speed of service delivery, it was clear that out of the 20 people examined 5 felt satisfied with the services, 15 of them depicted that the organization service delivery was slow. Regarding communication, all the 20 respondents confessed that they have never received communication from the organization unless requested by them. Concerning the staff performance ratings, 12 customers said that the employees at the HMRC seemed to lack sufficient information about the services offered in the organization, eight clients said that the staff were rude on them when they requested for the services. Also, regarding the staff service, five employees claimed that the employees gave them promises which have never been fulfilled up to now.

From the results above from the survey, it is clear that HMRC is making a lot of efforts to offer better services to the customers. However, there still exist some customer service issues in operation. The survey outcome reveals that the body faces poor communication with the client, a slow service delivery, the uninformed and rude staff, poor client service and false promises to the clients. These are some of the major customer service issues facing the organization that needs to be addressed (Bidya 2009, p. 27).

Proposed Solutions

There are various aspects that the HMRC needs to consider as a way of handling customer service problems that are currently prevailing in its operation. Firstly, regarding the communication, the organization should come up with a system to facilitate continuous communication between the customer and the department. Regarding the customer service delivery speed, the leadership of the group should seek to establish the lead times of the customer services and come up with strategies to reduce them appropriately. The information will give the management a chance to know the weak points and areas that consume a lot of time and thus, work on making them more efficient.

Concerning the staff about their rudeness and lack of information, there is need to come up with a training strategy that educates them to courtesy and the services offered to the customer. Good training will help the staff to understand how to handle the clients and also know the kind of information to tell the citizens. Regarding the client service and the giving of the false promises, there is need to emphasize on the quality and service level expectation from the organization to the customers. An emphasis on quality service expectation from the staff is likely to impact on the service quality (Levine 2007, p.72).Therefore, these solutions are likely to impact positively on the service quality of HMRC.

Monitoring and Time scaling of the Proposed Solutions

The various solutions to HMRC’s customer service problems can be monitored and time scaled through various ways. Firstly, the speed of service delivery can be measured through a periodic observation of the customer service delivery by the staff. This involves establishing of the lead times that are considered at the start and the end of each of the services offered in the organization. These will help to determine whether the implementation to reduce the service time is taking form. Regarding the solution of improving the communication system, the company should monitor the improvements in the criteria by considering the customer satisfaction, which can be achieved through regular periodic surveys to determine the customer satisfaction level in the company.

Also, the staff performance in the customer service improvement system, the management must come up with specific elements to establish if they are improving or not. The performance evaluation of the staff is a useful aspect that must be considered for the better service delivery from the customers. Besides, setting the policies and addressing those who fail to adhere to them provides a good way of establishing and understanding the statistics of the defaulters, a factor that provides information on monitoring performance (Evenson 2011, p. 50). All these factors must be monitored over time span like one year to come up with the annual performance. However, some specific monitoring aspects may be broken down to realize the more reliable results from the implementation.

How the Organization can Improve the Customer Feedback Gathering

There are various aspects that the HRMC can consider to attain a better customer feedback gathering processes. Firstly, it is recommended that HRMC should come up with an email and feedback forms. They will be utilized to collect the feedback from the customers while giving them an opportunity to choose from the range available to choose what seems convenient to them (Nelson 2010, p.9). Also, the organization should apply the customer feedback surveys. They can be implemented through different ways such as those on telephone email, mobile and focus groups among many others. The company should come up with policies that will help the department to implement a regular and periodic system to facilitate the surveys for effectiveness. Besides, the body should emphasize on the administration of questionnaires to ensure that there is no bias in the exercise (Loyarte and Rivera 2007, p.70).

Additionally, The HMRC can improve its services through the employment of technology in its customer feedback service improvement. Utilizing the technological innovations in business is one of the major strategies that yield a better customer satisfaction system in the company. Technology creates convenience, reduces the time and produces many other benefits in the process of increasing efficiency in customer feedback gathering. Therefore, every aspect of the business of HMRC should integrate technology for efficiency.





























Appendices

Appendix 1.0

Questionnaire

a) Have you ever received at one point sought some help from the HMRC?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

b) What kind of help did you seek?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

c) Please describe your experience with the customer service

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

How will you rate the following aspects of customer service from your experience at the HMRC. Will you say poor, fair or good?

Client Services

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Communication …………………………………………………………………………………………

Service delivery speed

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Presence of informed staff

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Presence of courteous attendants

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Fulfilment of promises

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Appendix 2.0

Questionnaire Sample Feedback

a) Have you ever received at one point sought some help from the HMRC?

Yes

b) What kind of help did you seek?

Wanted to have a correction of the erroneous deduction that I received from my salary

c) Please describe your experience with the customer service

I can generally rate the services as fair, because it took me several trips to their offices to face the harsh staff before I was helped

How will you rate the rate the following aspects of the customer service from your experience at the HMRC? Will you say poor, fair or good?

Client Services

Fair

Communication

Fair

Service delivery speed

Poor

Presence of informed staff

Fair

Presence of courteous attendants

Fair

Fulfilment of promises

Poor















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