CHALLENGES TO PROVISION OF QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE IN

BUSINESS ORGANIZATION

Ungku Shahirah Ungku Shaharudin

Faculty of Information Management
Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)
Puncak Perdana Campus
ungkushahira@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges faced by the business organization in
order to a provision of quality customer service. The concept of service quality influence by
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty to the success of a business organization. This paper
presents the challenges faced by customer service and the solution that might help the
organization.

Keywords: service quality, customer services, challenges of customer services, customer

satisfaction, business organization

INTRODUCTION

In this 21st century, all business organization has been focus more on customers than
any other things to compete in today’s global economy since many of the organizations are
seeking their marketplace and profit margins. The increasing power that the customer has in
this century has made the challenge for business organization move from product oriented to
customer oriented. To accomplish this requirement might become difficult because customers
nowadays are well informed, educated and classy. They always put high expectations on the
service provided. They want the service provided to have a greater choice and will make sure
to not be manipulated. The customers feel their needs are more important and the business
organization should be the one to hear them out not to sell things are not needed. Service
organizations constantly strive for the higher level of customer services.’ (Sarah Cook 2002).

The increased competition in all industries has made customer service become an
essential part of every company. In order to deliver best quality product and the best quality
service, the organization should ensure that their customer service serves a great service and
can compete with others. A good customer service needs to meet customers’ expectations and
needs which influenced by such factors as competitive pricing, good product and value, service
quality and many more. The most important thing is a good employee will try with heart and
mind to ensure the best possible service for the customer. The ultimate challenge that
organizations face and addressing it becomes a very tedious task for everyone around.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customers have played an important part in the business organization. This is support
by Zairi (2000) in his article stated that customers are the purpose of what the organization do
and the organization had fully depended on them. Meanwhile, customer service could be
defined as an organization’s ability in order to meet the needs and desires of its customers. It
begins before the customer arrives and ends after the customer left the organization. An
excellent customer service is a vital part of marketing in every business organizations because
of the ability that one organization have to consistently exceed the expectations of their
customers. According to Newby & McManus (2000), excellent quality of customer services is
based upon not just the knowledge and skills of the individual but also upon the way that the
organization as a whole, from top management downwards, pulls in the same direction and
presents a clear, positive message to customers.

Customer service can also be described as a system of activities that comprises customer
support systems, complaint processing, the speed of complaint processing, ease of reporting
complaint and friendliness when reporting complaint (Kim, Park and Jeong, 2004). The
satisfied customers will open many doors for business opportunities but the dissatisfied
customers could ruin the whole business. According to Hansemark and Albinsson (2004),
satisfaction is a common attitude from customers towards a service provider which sometimes
includes an emotional reaction to the difference between customer’s expectation and what they
receive. Customer satisfaction is customer’s reaction to the state of satisfaction, and customer’s
judgment of satisfaction level (Kim, Park and Jeong, 2004). Customers always have their own
expectation of the service or product they want to purchase. If the condition of product or
service that has been purchase meet the customer’s expectation, the comment and feedback that
will be received turn out to be good. However, if the condition of product or service does not
meet the expectation, the feedback will be negative and the customers will not be satisfied. The
level of customer satisfaction might turn out to be different because everyone has their own
personal needs and demands. According to Deng et al., (2009) the ability of a service provider
to create a high degree of satisfaction is crucial for product differentiation and developing a
strong relationship with customers as customer satisfaction is very important in today’s business
world.

SERVICE QUALITY

These days, quality of product and service is more challenging than before because of
the demands from the customers. In business organizations, the service quality needs to be
approached from the customer’s perspective because different customers have different needs,
values, circumstances and demands (Chang, 2008). This service quality has widely been
discussed since the 20th century and its idea is still relevant to help today organizations in
creating differentiation and gaining competitive advantage in an era of borderless world and
globalization (Ali et al…, 2016). In service quality, the production and delivery process should
be involved including the employee involvement in order to produce good product and services
in final process (Kumra, 2008).

In 1988, Parasuraman and several researchers develop a gap analysis model to measure
the influence of service quality based on the integrated view of the consumer-company
relationship. Five dimensions of service quality were provided in this model known as
SERVQUAL dimensions which are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and
empathy. The dimension has been used by customers when they evaluating the quality service.
If the organizations manage to find out the right dimensions, customers will hand over the
answers to their loyalty because they will receive excellent service.

Based on this model, several studies have been conducted in order to examine service
quality in a different service organization (Azman Ismail and Yusrizal Yunan, 2016). The result
of these surveys stated that the ability of service providers to properly practice tangible,
responsive, reliable, assured and emphatic in carrying out daily job had improved positive
customer outcomes, especially customers’ satisfaction. The quality of this service can make
customer intention to use the service provided by the same organization again. These results
will bring the loyalty of the customer to the business.

The loyalty of the customers is often related with their willingness to repeatedly
purchase a product or service provider which is always accompanied by physical bond and hold
positive attitudes towards the organization to provide more good product and service [Deng et
al. 2010, Wong & Sohal 2003, Gede Mahatma Yuda Bakti & Sumaedi, 2013, Prakash, 2011;
Yeo et al. 2015]. Meanwhile, according to Kumar and Shah (2004), customer loyalty appears
based on a collection of factors. The first factors are trust. Without the customer’s trust, the
product or service might not be sold. Seconds is the transaction or relationship that have a
positive value is greater than having competitors around. Thirdly is, if marketers build on the
first two factors, they may be able to create a level of positive customer emotional attachment.
That emotional response may be a commitment to their brands that are hard to change (Pitta, et
al, 2006).

The good quality service will bring customer intention to repeat the service again. It will
show how customer’s behaviour towards the service provider which can bring the loyalty of
the customers to the business. This intention will make customers' favourable inclination a
service relative to other firms offering the same service [Kaura, Prasad & Sharma, 2015].
Customers’ loyalty is show as an important outcome of the relationship between service quality
and customers’ satisfaction in further studies.

CHALLENGES OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

Nowadays almost everything comes handy but customers still difficult to please. One
day they would brag about how they come to love this product offered by that company.
Suddenly, if the treatment they received from that company were bad, they would ultimately
hate all the brands come from that company. This is one of the biggest challenges in customer
service which many business organizations believe that a customer service team could manage
their customers and demands. The top management should provide a proper training for
customer service team so that they would be able to face and handle the customers without any
problems. A proper training would make the team be able to integrate feedback and complaint
they receive from customers.

Next, the advances technology has made the customers become less patient with the
phone calls to customer service. We often hear the customers used to insults and get angry to
the customer service. That could be on how long the phone call will hold the customers until
they reach to the customer service hotline. Since the technology has changed so much, the
process to connect with the customer service become easier, faster and more convenient. There
are still some of the customers who prefer to use old-fashioned phone calls but almost every
business organizations today have other channels to connect with them like email, live chat and
social media. Technology could enhance customer experience throughout the entire process
 In order to improve customer service and experiences, it would be impossible for the
business organization to not receive feedback and suggestions from the customers. Through
feedback and suggestions, the company would be able to understand what the customers need
and expect because hearing it directly would be the best way to know. Despite that, it would be
a challenge for customer services to use the feedback effectively and efficiency. The customers
expect that if they told the company what they want exactly, the company will hear them out
and do that. So the organizations should use the information given to improve the product and
services to ensure that their customers will stay and loyal to them.

Last but not least, in order to cope with this challenges in customer service, the
organizations can structure and organizing their strategy and effort to not let this challenges
arise in the future again.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the business organizations should focus on quality because this is the
reason to make customers satisfied with the company product and services. Although
customers’ satisfaction does not give the company guarantee that the customers will repurchase,
it still plays an essential part in ensuring customer loyalty and retention. This statement
supported by Gerpott et al. (2001) in their study stated that “customer satisfaction is a direct
determining factor in customer loyalty, which, in turn, is a central determinant of customer
retention”. So, the organizations should always attempt to make sure that their customers are
very satisfied. Though there might be challenging to be the best, the strategic ways of doing the
marketing could always win the competition to compete.
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