1. Customer satisfaction and why it is important.
Customer satisfaction is a marketing term that measured how products or services supplied by a company meet customer’s expectation. As the result of survey by 200 senior marketing managers, 71 percent responded that they found a customer satisfaction metric very useful in managing and monitoring their businesses.
Customer satisfaction is very important in company because high level of satisfaction of customer could leading customer repurchase and keep their royalty. Besides, company can retain customer instead of acquiring new customer all the time. Word of mouth is one way make customer knowing about company so that customer satisfaction will reduce negative comment and feedbacks. 2. John Lewis 3.1. Introduction about John Lewis
John Lewis is the UK’s largest department store retailer. It was established in 1864 at 132 Oxford Street, in London by John Spedan Lewis. Nowadays, John Lewis Partnership is one of a growing number of businesses with an employee-owned structure that means the employees known as Partners have enable to running business and get share profit which addition to their salary each year.
Waitrose is a part of John Lewis Partnership which is a supermarket combine with expertise and service of a specialize shop. They supply customer the best possible food and drinking to help them to live healthier by building a long-term relationship with their farmers and suppliers. 3.2. John Lewis customer service
John Lewis always find a way to know and understand what customers want and expect. They constantly finding opportunity to listen what customer think about their products and services then if there are something wrong, they would fix it immediately. Therefore, company could provide the best possible choice, value and service to customers. None of 70,000 people work at John Lewis is an employee, all of them are called Partners or John Lewis Partnership who jointly own the business. Many Partners have worked for many years with high skill and excellent products knowledge because they had trained carefully for long time before working. They will get profit share based on total profit of company so they will feel as a part of business, constantly they will try their best to give dazzling service and support to customers to improve customer satisfaction as their own business. To monitor levels of customer satisfaction, they usually use formal methods of research and feedback such as customer survey, panels, focus groups, online feedback form and regular mystery shopping. Besides, talking about their service, executive chairman Charlie Mayfield said: “We are based on the notion that if we treat about partners well, it will lead to good customer service”. 3.3. John Lewis’s awards.
In 2010, John Lewis Partnership was voted Britain’s favorite retailer for the third year running through the survey by retail analyst. Customer were asked where they shopped frequently and rate those store o term of range, price, convenience, quality, service, ambience, facilities and layout. John Lewis has been ranked first for service for nine years and Waitrose also in top ten for many years. Waitrose also voted as “favorite supermarket” in and online poll of 36,000 viewers of BBC1’s Watchdo program. In UK Consumer Satisfaction Index which pegged “ world class service” , John Lewis come first with scored 90.0 and Waitrose come third with 87.1 out of the maximum 100 rating. 13 sectors was suggested to rate , considering factors such as professionalism , quality and efficiency, ease of doing business , problem solving and timeliness.
John Lewis also has their credit card which is Partnership card use to earn voucher when customers shop at John Lewis and Waitrose. Their card is recognized as the top UK credit card when it comes provide service to cardholders. Partnership Card won “The Best Achievement in Customer Service’s Award at The Card Awards 2009 in London and Best Credit Card Provider in June 2008. 3.4. Acting on customers’ feedback
Significantly, John Lewis is always improve their business base on customers’ feedback. They listen carefully all issues and respond to all business offer from customers. In some cases, customers’ thought driven company more develop. For example, the development of Waitrose’s By Invitation and Waitrose Deliver services and Quick Check – a tool to quickly scan your product without unpack at checkout. Moreover, in John Lewis, they introduced name badges for selling Partner to make customer service more personal. Partners and customer can know each other clearly to return for further help if needed. 3.5. Building accessible shops and services.
Moreover, John Lewis start to take step to develop their building to make it easier for disabled people to access. They want to ensure all customers can access their products. They integrate the principles of accessibility into the design, construction and operation of their shop and service. They improve their building and serve more service to fulfill disabled people need whether if they need assistance due to hearing , sight or mobility or difference format or languages. From 2004, according to the Disability Discrimination Act, both John Lewis and Waitrose ‘building start to improve to help disabled people to access.
Company worked with an Accessibility consultant to figure out what is need to improve such and entrances and exits, customer catering facilities, fitting room and toilet. For example, in both John Lewis buildings and Waitrose building, they start to create parking nearly entrance, installed accessible lifts, toilets and till points and mobile fixed hearing loops. Light and signage are changed to make them easier to get around. All the information are designed in alternative format such as large print, Braille and audio CD. Through internet, company serve home free delivery and purchase collection point is helpful. There are multi-channel approach internet site that customer can choose product without visit shops. Furthermore, Waitrose supply wheelchairs, specialize trolleys, all equipment for disable people and Quick Check which help them self-pay check out. Company also trained their partner to communicate to disable customers. 3.6. Offering Value
Never Knowingly Undersold is the commitment of John Lewis since 1925 until now. Their aim to provide the best value on high street by offer high quality product, responsible sources with high standard. They work with all supplier to ensure they pay attention to well-being of employees, the communities and environment of them. This include using sustainable materials and methods wherever possible and trading ethically at all the times. They also have program of benchmarking products against the competitor. There will be a checking team which used to checking and matching the price of their competitor. If there is competitor have a better price with same individual product than John Lewis, they will lower their price to lead their price are most competitive on high street even during sale. Partners always offer impartial advice and excellent support even after purchase. They commit to bring these value messages to their customer by strengthened their Never Knowingly Undersold promotion.
About the Price Commitment of Waitrose, this is the promise to give customer quality food with excellent value. There are thousands of everyday items Waitrose need to buy as bread, toothpaste, milk… They need to price check with others supermarket to ensure that they give customer a good price. The commitment is keeping price for customers as low as possible but not at any cost. To reinforce this commitment, the new “ Essentia Waitorse” was launches in 2009 which provide easily recognizable brand of product with same quality standard and responsible sourcing as customers expect from Waitrose. 3. Vietjet Air – Bad customer service. 4.7. Vietjet air and description of the case.
By contrast with example of brilliant customer service, Vietjet Air is a company has bad customer service that many customer had complained about. Vietjet air is cheap airline with many promotion tickets.
When Vietjet air has launched in 2013, they have use many model wore bikini to give customer awareness about their company. We could not deny that this campaign attract many people and become a hot topic on social media at that time. Huge comment of topic had increased dramatically at an album launched. However, only 54% comment about Vietjet Air branding, the rest is comment about models, colors of bikini or design which used in photos. Although create attention from customer, the company received many negative reviews. Many people said that it is ridiculous to hiring bikini model for promotion campaign and giving customer disgusting and cheap image about company. They neither increase their reputation nor impress customers from beginning.
Cheap airline means their ticket will be cheap than premium airline as Vietnam Airline. They always give many promotion to customer if customers want to book ticket a few months before departed day. However, Vietjet Air often delay 1-3 hours after check-in time. It makes customer feel uncomfortable and inconvenience. In some cases, customer’s planning have to change and they do not know when they could depart. Some flight have been move to other time but company did not notify to customer until customer come to check-in. If a flight sooner, some customer have to buy a new ticket which is irrational to them. There is a case that the flight of Vietjet air delay 2 days after a day had booked. Customer had try to contact with hotline of company but they said the day after did not have enough ticket so they have to move 2 days after. Therefore, customer have to buy a new ticket of other airline or wait 2 days which is unacceptable to customer. 4.8. The cause and recommend for improvement
The cause of problems belong to the management of company. They always did not give customer a reasonable answer to customer. They also do not have resolution for their mistake and only respond customer by saying sorry. Managers of company should directly deal with customer when they have a problems. All supervisor and managers have to listen customer’s feedback to realize their mistake to fix it. Some comment about the managers of Vietjet air that Vietjet air managers are unprofessional and unfriendly with customer. This is the worst thing about the company that should be improve as soon as they can. Company should training manager and crew on airplane carefully before they start to work. When customer have problems, staffs should explain clearly to customer to avoid misunderstanding about the case. They should be enthusiastic to help each customer to make customer feel comfortable if the flight have been delay or cancel.
Sometime, premiums airlines also had been delay but they solve the problem is quite good. Thus, people who do not care about the price said that they will never use cheap airline service because of bad service of staffs while a flight have been delay. Otherwise, some people choose cheap airline as Vietjet Air because they can book cheap ticket and spending short time to move to other country than using bus, car or train. When people use cheap airline’ services, they determine that they have more free time and would be acceptable if the flight have any problems. Vietjet Air has to know their strength to more attractive people then solve their mistake through customer feedback. If they could use modern plane and developing services while still keeping cheap ticket, they might attract more customers and get their loyalty. Moreover, company should keep their promise as they said on their commit or their promotion to increase customer satisfaction. 4. Conclusion
In conclusion, customer satisfaction is an important key of success in any company. A business should know what customer wants and expect to improve their company in right way. If a firm did not get customer satisfaction, it is a failure business. John Lewis is one of most well know company about perfection customer service that others company should learn from. 5. Refferences ( ten tac gia , ngay viet , ten bai viet , web viet , link , ngay access) * Ross Beard, 20 January 2014,Why-customer-satisfaction-is-important, Clienthearbeat. Available from: http://blog.clientheartbeat.com/why-customer-satisfaction-is-important/[ Accessed on 25 October 2015 ] * Five Lessons In Customer Service From John Lewis (2015), Smarta [Online]. Available from: http://www.smarta.com/advice/sales-and-marketing/sales/five-lessons-in-customer-service-from-john-lewis/ [Accessed on 25 October 2015] * Our company, Waitrose [ Online ]. Available from: http://www.waitrose.com/home/about_waitrose/our_company.html[ Accessed on 25 October 2015] * Peter Nguyen,21 October 2014, Dieu gi thuc su khien khach hang bay va khong hang khong gia re,Buzzmetrics. Available from: http://buzzmetrics.vn/dieu-gi-thuc-su-khien-khach-hang-bay-va-khong-bay-hang-khong-gia-re/[ Accessed on 25 October 2015 ] * Bizlive, 21 June 2014, chuyen bay tai tieng cua vietjet air, Baomoi. Available from: http://www.baomoi.com/Chuyen-bay-tai-tieng-cua-VietJet-Air/c/13121188.epi [ Access on 25 October 2015]