Customer service is an essential factor in the success of a business. Good customer service can increase customer trust and make them come back to visit your business.
However, to provide good customer service, there needs to be a blueprint, or a clear plan, to ensure that every step you take is always in favour of customer interests and satisfaction.
Please read this article to learn what a customer service blueprint is and the steps for making and implementing it.
What is a Customer Service Blueprint?
A customer service blueprint is a plan or strategy containing detailed steps to provide exemplary service. With a blueprint, you can ensure that every action taken in providing customer service is always in the customer’s interest.
Why is Customer Service Blueprint Important?
Undeniably, Service Excellence is one of the determining factors for business success. Only companies that seriously think about Service Excellence have proven to be able to exist and win the competition in the market.
Service Excellence is needed because your product or service has many competitors. If you only rely on products or services without good service, you might lose out on the competition.
So, to provide the best service, you need a customer service blueprint, which can help companies better understand customer needs.
Companies can develop suitable solutions to meet customer needs by understanding customer needs. In addition, blueprints can also help measure and improve customer service success.
So, to create customized Service Excellence in your company (according to the needs and circumstances that exist in the company), you must create a complete Customer Service Blueprint at all service points. The goal is that all service activities you will carry out are genuinely by the expectations/desires of the customer.
Then, how do you create a Customer Service BluePrint? Continue reading the explanation below:
Steps to Create a Customer Service Blueprint
1. Do FGD (Focus Group Discussion)
FGD is one method of interviewing a particular group.
There is literature that explains the meaning of FGD: “a good way to gather together people from similar backgrounds or experiences to discuss a specific topic of interest. The group of participants is guided by a moderator (or group facilitator) who introduces topics for discussion and helps the group to participate in a lively and natural discussion amongst themselves.”
2. Online Surveys
Apart from conducting FGDs, you can also use the online survey method, namely survey activities through online media, to get criticism/suggestions/input from customers / prospective customers.
Its function is almost the same as the FGD, which is to collect as much information as possible and include it in the Customer Service BluePrint.
3. Customer Service Group Discussion
After conducting FGDs and online surveys, collect all employees involved in the service or customer service process. Show the results of the FGD and online survey.
Then, invite them to respond to the results so you can get complete input. You can use the results later to make a more accurate analysis based on existing data.
4. Map All Service Points
You need to map all existing service points and group them into two parts: service points that are already good and those that still need improvement.
At this stage, make sure you know the customer journey well. What is a customer journey? Learn the full explanation in the following articles:
- Customer Journey: Understanding and Reasons Businesses Need to Understand Customer Journey.
- 6 Stages of Customer Journey and Examples.
- What is a Customer Journey Map and How to Make it.
- 5 Important Elements for Mapping Customer Journey.
5. Make a List of Potential Strategies
Create and compile a list of strategies that have the potential to be carried out to improve service points that still need to be improved. It is okay whether the system will work or not at this stage. Arrange as many as possible to give you a broader perspective on the possibilities.
6. Choose the Best Strategy and Apply it in the Field
The last step, choose the most potential and best strategy to be tested directly in the field. The success or failure of the strategy will only be seen if it has been implemented.
After implementing the strategy in the field, remember to make detailed observations. Is the system you chose correctly, and can it work according to customer expectations?
7. Apply PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
To find out the success or failure of the strategy that has been implemented, you can ask for more input from the customer through the suggestions/criticism form. Then re-evaluate these inputs and start making a new, better strategy.
This is called the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) process. The PDCA cycle must be carried out continuously to create better service standards from time to time. Through the PDCA cycle, better and more focused service innovations are also hoped to be made.
Service Excellence will work and be able to satisfy customers only if you constantly make service plans through the Customer Service BluePrint. Enter the agenda for creating a Customer Service Blueprint whenever a company designs a short-term and long-term business plan.
Remember! The Customer Service Plan is as important as the Marketing and Operations Plan. Oh yes, you are familiar with the term customer in the discussion above. Is the customer the same as the client? Find out the difference between the two here; come on: Get to know what a customer and client are and the differences.