In the more and more competitive service industry, it is no longer enough to promise customer satisfaction. Today, customer "delight" is what companies are trying to achieve in order to keep and increase market share.
It is accepted in the marketing industry, and confirmed by a number of researchers, that customers receiving good service will promote business by telling up to 12 other people; those treated badly tell tales of woe to up to 20 people. Interestingly, 80 percent of people who feel their complaints are handled fairly will stay loyal.
New challenges for customer care have come when people can obtain goods and services through telephone call centers and the Internet. For example, many companies now have to invest (投資) a lot of money in information technology and staff training in order to cope with the "phone rage" -- caused by delays in answering calls, being cut off in mid-conversation or left waiting for long periods.
"Many people do not like talking to machines," says Dr. Storey, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at City University Business School. "Banks, for example, encourage staff at call centers to use customer data to establish instant and good relationship with them. The aim is to make the customer feel they know you and that you can trust them -- the sort of comfortable feelings people have during face-to-face chats with their local branch manager."
Recommended ways of creating customer delight include: under-promising and over-delivering (saying that a repair will be carried out within five hours, but getting it done within two) replacing a faulty product immediately; throwing in a gift voucher (購(gòu)物禮券) as an unexpected "thank you" to regular customers; and always returning calls, even when they are complaints.
Aiming for customer delight is all very well, but if services do not reach the high level promised, disappointment or worse will be the result. This can be eased by offering an apology and an explanation of why the service did not meet usual standards with empathy (for example, "I know how you must feel"), and possible solutions (replacement, compensation or whatever fairness suggests best meets the case).
Airlines face some of the toughest challenges over customer care. Fierce competition has convinced them that delighting passengers is an important marketing tool, while there is great potential for customer anger over delays caused by weather, unclaimed luggage and technical problems.
For British Airways staff, a winning telephone style is considered vital in handling the large volume of calls about bookings and flight times. They are trained to answer quickly, with their names, job title and a "we are here to help" attitude. The company has invested heavily in information technology to make sure that information is available instantly on screen.
British Airways also says its customer care policies are applied within the company and staff are taught to regard each other as customers requiring the highest standards of service.
Customer care is obviously here to stay and it would be a foolish company that used slogans such as "we do as we please". On the other hand, the more customers are promised, the greater the risk of disappointment.
小題1:We can learn from Paragraph 2 that _______.
| A．complaining customers are hard to satisfy |
| B．unsatisfied customers receive better service |
| C．satisfied customers catch more attention |
| D．well-treated customers promote business |
小題2:The writer mentions "phone rage" (Paragraph 3) to show that ________.
| A．customers often use phones to express their anger |
| B．people still prefer to buy goods online |
| C．customer care becomes more demanding |
| D．customers rely on their phones to obtain services |
小題3:What does the writer recommend to create customer delight?
| A．Calling customers regular. |
| B．Giving a "thank you" note. |
| C．Delivering a quicker service. |
| D．Promising more gifts. |
小題4:If a manager should show his empathy (Paragraph 6), what would be probably say?
| A．"I know how upset you must be." |
| B．"I appreciate your understanding." |
| C．"I'm sorry for the delay." |
| D．"I know it's our fault." |
小題5:Customer delight is important for airlines because ________.
| A．their telephone style remains unchanged |
| B．they are more likely to meet with complaints |
| C．the services cost them a lot of money |
| D．the policies can be applied to their staff |
小題6:Which of the following is conveyed in this article?
| A．Face-to-face service creates comfortable feelings among customers. |
| B．Companies that promise more will naturally attract more customers. |
| C．A company should promise less but do more in a competitive market. |
| D．Customer delight is more important for air lines then for banks. |
