Page 266 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Unit 12: Creating a Service Culture

Your Role Notes
As a new customer service professional with United Booksellers, you are excited about
starting your job, which will require continual customer contact. As a child, you watched
your siblings perform customer service functions at the local Burger Mania Restaurant
and always thought you’d like to follow their lead. Since you like people, enjoy a challenge,
don’t get stressed out easily, and have hopes of moving into management, you anticipate
that this job should be just right for you. In this position, you’ll be expected to receive new
publications from publishers, log in receipts, stock shelves, assist customers, and
occasionally work as backup cashier.
Questions:

1. Are there indicators of United Booksellers’ service culture? If so, what are they?
2. If you were an employee, in what ways would you feel that you could contribute to
the organisational culture?

3. If you were a customer, what kind of service would you expect to receive at United
Booksellers? Why?

12.5 Summary

This unit attempts to give an overview of the functions in as simple manner as possible.

Professional customer service helps highlight and define service culture.

Everything customers experience from the time they contact an organisation in person,
on the phone, or through other means, affects their perception of the organisation and its
employees.
To positively influence their opinion, you must constantly be alert for opportunities to
provide excellent service.

Taking the time to provide a little extra effort can often mean the difference between total
customer satisfaction and service breakdown.

Your role in helping create a positive service culture is to continually think like your
customers and try to decide how you should best proceed in any situation in which you
come into contact with them.
Successful service providers have a plan and have strategies in mind for dealing with
various issues.
Through professional, proactive planning, you can demonstrate that you have your
customer’s best interest at heart while representing your organisation ethically and in a
manner that projects a positive attitude.

12.6 Keywords

Service Culture: A service environment made up of various factors, including the values, beliefs,
norms, rituals and practices of a group or organisation

Attitudes: Emotional responses to people, ideas and objects. They are based on values, differ
between individuals and cultures, and affect the way people deal with various issues and
situations.

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