3 Practical Ways To Assess Your Service Quality
As a business entity, it is necessary to take proactive steps to learn about the quality of service you render. Without it, your business and workers may have no idea of your customer satisfaction level. Furthermore, you may be operating at very high risk, especially when you have no clue about the experiences your business is offering the target market. Considering that the UK customer satisfaction index recorded its lowest with 76.9 points, there is the need to measure your service quality. Here are some pointers.
- Post-service ratings
This service evaluation method is one of the favourite approaches used by businesses worldwide. Its immediate nature allows the customer to carefully assess the service they experienced and provide appropriate ratings. Because the memory is still fresh in the customer’s mind, it is convenient, comfortable, and easy to recollect. You can be sure that the customers who gave their post-service ratings will base their marks on how your business entity made them feel during the transaction process.
Apart from asking the customer to provide ratings using alphabets or numbers, you may want to consider making provisions for explanatory feedback. For example, in addition to the 1 to 5 rating, customers need an opportunity to give brief remarks on what pleased them most (or not) with your service. Post-service ratings can be done online or via text messages immediately after a service has been rendered.
- Mystery shopping
Reports indicate that mystery shopping began in the 1940s, and since then, companies and corporations have continued to value it as one of the most authentic ways to assess service quality. The origination of this service delivery assessment is attributed to entrepreneurs JW Marriot and his wife, Alice. Mystery shopping relies primarily on how well your business handles customers either on the phone, online or in person. The overall objective is to look for loopholes that may become the bane of your establishment in the short to long term.
Working as a mystery shopper may be exciting for the people behind the assessment because it thrives on the concept of undercover customers. And in the end, the results can reveal business deficiencies that targeted companies probably knew nothing about. If you own or run a business, you can also work as a mystery shopper to evaluate your company’s treatment of customers. If you’re conducting the assessment by phone, you may want to be mindful of whether your employees can make your voice out. Otherwise, use a new email account to carry out your mystery shopping enquiries.
- Analyze team-wide data to assess service quality
When you work with a team, it is vital to have in-depth information about their work activities and how their actions contribute to the company’s overall success. Your team’s actions and inactions can impact customer satisfaction. Getting detailed information requires having knowledge of the bigger picture. For example, do you know about any knowledge gap hindering the team as a whole? If yes, you can start implementing training support to beef up their deficiencies in those identified areas. By understanding the feedback given and received, the impact can be felt in your business’s service delivery.
