1. Customer Service: A Practical Approach, 5th ed. By Elaine K. Harris
Chapter 1:
What is Customer Service?

2. What is customer service?
Anything we do for the customer that enhances the customer experience.

3. Customer satisfaction:
The customer’s overall feeling of contentment with a customer interaction.

4. Customer expectations:
Our personal vision of the result that will come from our experience.

5. Customer perceptions:
The way we see something based on our experience.

6. Examples of customer service
Free car wash with fill-up
Calling the customer by name
Easy return policy
Updated map of the area or GPS in rental cars
A doctor calling you back to see how you are feeling after a professional visit
On-time delivery
Courtesy
Enthusiasm
Showing the customer that you care
Excellent follow-up
Empathy in handling customer complaints and questions
Well-explained instructions
Illustrations of encouragement
Suggesting a less expensive option
Package carry out

7. Why is excellent customer service so rare?
Customer service is rare because it requires two things that the average person and organization are unwilling to commit to:
Spending money
Taking action

8. The five needs of every customer
Service
Price
Quality
Action
Appreciation

9. External customers:
Customers we do business with outside our organization.

10. Internal customers:
The people we work with throughout our organization.

11. Customer Attributes:
Characteristics that allow customers to be categorized according to demographic, psychographic, or firmographic information.

12. Demographic information:
Characteristics such as:
age
income
marital status
education
stage in the family life cycle
home ownership
sex
ZIP code
occupation
household size
mobility patterns
ethnic background
religion

13. Psychographic information:
lifestyles
modes of living
needs
motives
attitudes
reference groups
culture
social class
family influences
hobbies
political affiliation
etc.

14. Firmographic information:
Characteristics about a company such as:
how many employees they have
the kind of business they are in
whether they are retail, wholesale, or a service provider
their hours of operation

15. Cost of Losing a Customer
We lose the current dollars that our business relationship created.
We lose the jobs that our clients provide.
We may suffer from a loss of reputation.
We may lose the intangible variable of future business.