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Unit 3: Customer Accommodation

1. Keep the customer occupied – reading magazines, listening to music or viewing TV. Notes
2. Convey to the customer that the service process has began; it will make less fidgety.
Bankers start the preliminary paperwork processes, while doctors shift patients to different
examining rooms.
3. Make attempts to reassure the customers as anxiety makes waiting feel longer.
4. Share all the information possible with the customers, as this will reduce the anxiety level
and give them cues for getting occupied.
5. Do not make it evident that some customers are more equal than others; discrimination
will make customers indignant and restive.
6. Try to encourage customers to interact with each other as this will keep them occupied and
engaged. If they are alone, the wait might seem interminable.

3.1.2 Dealing with Difficult Customers

The quality of service transactions, surprisingly, depends to a great extent also on the
characteristics and traits of the customers:
1. Education and background – like profession, skills, experience, family background, social
circle, etc.
A customer who is a professional, like a chartered accountant, will be in a better position to
understand the savings account opening norms in a bank than an illiterate farmer. The latter
would most probably require detailed explanations, in his mother tongue, and assistance in
filling up all the forms. These would undoubtedly make the service transaction more time-
consuming. In addition, the service delivery would suffer, if the provider was not conversant
with the language of the customer or was incapable of coming down to the comprehension level
of the customer.

Example: An educated housewife could be helpless inside an ATM kiosk, if there was a
“system fault” and would have to resort to ‘manned’ banking procedures.

1. The mood, attitude and personality of the customer, which might prevent a smooth service
transaction.
(a) In a popular restaurant positioned for the family, when some rowdy non-family
group disturbs the peaceful atmosphere, the service provider fails in delivering the
promise.

(b) The demeanour of the ill-mannered group is markedly different from the orderly
behaviour of the rest of the family-type customers, and although they are smaller in
number, they manage to ruin the experience of all other customers. This is also an
uncontrollable factor for the service marketer.
Service transactions and the quality of service delivery depend a lot on both the provider and
the customers carrying out their roles seamlessly as designed by the blueprints of operations.
While it can to a great extent be possible to manage the quality of the performance of the
internal customers, it becomes a challenge to extract compliant behaviour from the customers.
The customers of the same service firm and offer are different from each other due to the
following:
 Differing backgrounds of education, family, occupation, income;

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