Chapter 18 – Customer Service
• Most retailers have standard policies for
handling problems, however, in many
cases, the cause of the problem may be
hard to identify, uncorrectable, or as a
result of the customer’s unusual
expectations. In such cases, service
recovery might be more difficult.
A. Listening to the Customer
• Customers can become very emotional
over their real or imaginary problems
with a retailer. Often this emotional
reaction can be reduced by simply
giving customers a chance to get their
complaints off their chests.
Ask students why it is important for an
employee to listen carefully to the complaint.
Why is the best policy always to give the
complaining customer what he or she wants?
Do customers always know what they want?
B. Providing a Fair Solution
• Favorable impressions arise when
customers feel they have been dealt with
fairly. When evaluating the resolution
of their problems, customers compare
how they were treated in relation to
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1. Distributive Fairness
• Distributive fairness is the customer’s
perceptions of the benefits received
compared to their costs (inconvenience
or loss). Customers want to get what
they paid for.
• Customers may want to “let off steam,”
but they also want to feel the retailer was
responsive to their complaint. If
will have an effect in the future.
See PPT 18-29
Ask Students: What is distributive and procedural
fairness? Which one is more important? Why?
2. Procedural Fairness
• Procedural fairness is the perceived
fairness of the process used to resolve
complaints.
• Customers typically feel they are dealt
with fairly when store employees follow
company guidelines.
3. Resolving Problems Quickly
• Customer satisfaction is affected by the
time it takes to get an issue resolved.
• Retailers can minimize the time to
Ask Students: What can retailers do to resolve
complaints quickly? Is it always best to resolve
complaints as quickly as possible?
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resolve complaints by reducing the
number of people the customer must
contact, providing clear instructions, and
speaking in the customer’s language.
1. Reducing the Number of Contacts
2. Giving Clear Instructions
• Customers should be told clearly and
precisely what they need to do to resolve
a problem.
3. Speaking the Customer’s Language
IX. Summary
• Due to the inherent intangibility and
inconsistency of services, providing
high-quality customer service is
challenging. However, customer service
also provides an opportunity for retailers
to develop a strategic advantage.
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emphasis on developing appropriate
rules, consistent procedures, and
optimum store designs.
ANSWERS TO “GET OUT AND DO ITS”
application to increase the speed of the checkout process by enabling customers to scan the
products they want to purchase and pay for them on their smartphones. Visit the company’s
website and review both the application and the provided checkout process. How useful is this
application for retailers? What sorts of retailers seem most likely to adopt it?
There are retailers, like grocery stores and convenience stores, that need to expedite the checkout
process in order to satisfy customers. Many customers at these stores are time starved and in a
web site help you locate bestsellers? How does the customer service offered by this web site
compare to the service you would get at another book retailer’s web site or in a bricks and mortar
bookstore?
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The web page is organized by departments.
Department
First level menu
Second level menu
Third level menu
Books
Textbooks
Book
Advanced Search
Bestsellers in Books
4. GO SHOPPING Go to a discount store such as Walmart, a department store, and a specialty
store to buy a pair of jeans. Compare and contrast the level of customer service you received in
each of the stores. Which store made it easiest to find the pair of jeans you would be interested in
buying? Evaluate the perceived service experience in terms of reliability, assurance, tangibility,
empathy and responsiveness. Does the service quality match the store format? Explain your
response.
Student responses will vary. This could be a good class or team discussion topic. It is also
a good way to review store format from The Types of Retailers chapter.
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ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS
1. For each of these services, give an example of a retailer for which providing the service
is critical to its success, then give an example of a retailer for which providing the
service is not critical: (a) personal shoppers, (b) home delivery, (c) money-back
guarantees, and (d) credit
a) Personal shoppers are critical to the success of clothing department and specialty stores in
that they can help customers find merchandise that might be otherwise hidden in the
2. Both Nordstrom and McDonald’s both are noted for their high-quality customer
service, but their approaches to providing this quality service are different. Describe
this difference. Why have the retailers elected to use these different approaches?
In the chapter, we discuss to approaches for providing high quality customer service—
standardization and customization. McDonald uses the standardization approach. Its service
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3. Have you ever worked in a job that required you to provide customer service? If yes,
describe the skills you needed and tasks performed for this job. If no, what skills and
abilities would you highlight to a potential employer that was interviewing you for a
position that included customer service in the job description?
While student answers will vary. This discussion is a good time to review the Standards gap
and the ways retail employees take part in closing that gap. The retailer needs to ensure that
4. Consider customer service at IKEA. How does this retailer utilize a self-service model
as a competitive advantage strategy versus traditional furniture stores?
The typical furniture store uses a showroom to display some of the merchandise the retailer
sells. Complementing the in-store inventory are books of fabric swatches, veneers, and
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5. Review Retailing 18.2 about customer service at Zappos. How does Zappos create such a
positive culture among its service personnel?
Zappos corporate culture centers on customer satisfaction with a goal of “wow”ing every
6. Assume you’re the department manager for menswear in a local department store that
emphasizes empowering its managers. A customer returns a dress shirt that’s no longer
in the package in which it was sold. The customer has no receipt, says that when he
opened the package he found that the shirt was torn, and wants cash for the price at
which the shirt is being sold now. The shirt was on sale last week when the customer
claims to have bought it. What would you do?
Students’ answers will vary. Potential answers might sound like the following:
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7. Consider a situation in which you received poor customer service in a retail store or
from a customer service provider. Did you make the store’s management aware of your
experience? Whom did you relay this experience to? Have you returned to this retailer?
For each of these questions, explain why you did what you did.
While discussing student responses about poor customer service experiences, review the
concept of service recovery and emphasize the importance of the retailer focusing on the
8. Gaps analysis provides a systematic method for examining a customer service
program’s effectiveness. Top management has told an information systems manager
that customers are complaining about the long wait to pay for merchandise at the
checkout station. Take the role of the systems manager and use the gaps analysis table
below to evaluate this problem and suggest possible approaches for reducing the wait
time.
Strategies to Close this Gap
Chapter 18 – Customer Service
9. How can retailers provide high quality personalized service? Use an ophthalmologist’s
office that also sells eye glass frames and fills prescriptions for contact lenses as your
example. How does this compare with the service provided with 1-800 CONTACTS
online or in-store with their bricks and mortar partner, Walmart?
Students’ answers should consider some of the cues used by customer to evaluate retail
service:
1) Tangibles: appearance of store; display of merchandise; appearance of salespeople;
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Nordstrom is known for their excellent customer service. Based on the book, “Lessons
from the NORDSTROM Way”, by Robert Spector, highlights the main reasons other
companies are emulating the #1 customer service company.
1. Provide You Customers with Choices
2. Create and Inviting Place
3. Hire Nice, Motivated People
4. Sell the Relationship: Service Your Customers through the Goods and Services
You Sell
10. Consider a recent retail service experience, such as a haircut, doctor’s appointment,
dinner in a restaurant, bank transaction or product repair (not an exhaustive list), and
answer the questions below:
a) Describe an excellent service delivery experience.
b) What made this quality experience possible?
c) Describe a service delivery experience in which you did not receive the performance
that you expected.
d) What were the problems encountered and how could they have been resolved?
Students’ answers will likely vary quite a bit here to provide a rich basis for discussion of
Chapter 18 – Customer Service