Managing customer service

Citation

Rowley, J. (1999), "Managing customer service", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 58-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.1.58.15

Managing Customer Service is intended as a hands‐on′′ guide which is written for those involved in the management of customer service. After a concise introduction to the business reasons for building good relationships with customers and the key management issues for customer service, the main body of the book covers a range of specific skills and competences that contribute to effective customer service. The first four chapters of this second part consider aspects of communication, including face‐to‐face meetings, telephone use, and letter‐writing. The next chapter explores issues concerned with the use of e‐mail and Web sites. Two chapters deal with the issue of unhappy customers, including complaint handling and dealing with angry customers. The final two chapters focus on the use of customer service to respectively increase sales volume, and the need to promote customer care as a mission for the whole organisation.

Does this book achieve its objective? As one who has spent too much of her time in the depths of academic textbooks, it may be difficult for me to formulate what should reasonably be expected of a hands‐on′′ book. I think that such a text should be easy and enjoyable to read, include checklists, good advice and case studies, with reference to customer service in different environments. Unfortunately, the book does not exhibit all of these characteristics. The style is informal, but that does not make the book a light and easy read; specifically, it does not lend itself to dipping into. The book does include many checklists which could be used to focus training or discussion on aspects of customer service. Perhaps a major weakness is the lack of sufficient case study material. This absence of case studies means that the book gives few clues as to the real nature of customer service in different environments. This context would also have offered a context for application and reflection on the practical ideas that are offered elsewhere in the text.

How useful would this book be to library and information managers? Library and information managers have always been concerned with customer service, and customer care training has long been recognised as important for assistants and others who come into contact with users or customers. Much of this book covers well‐trodden ground; it might be useful to refer to a handbook which draws together a range of skills and techniques. The chapters that do merit special mention are those on customer service on the Internet and dealing with angry customers. The content of the book refers to surveys and offers the occasional quotation from other authors, but does not reference these in the formal style. Nor is a list of further readings offered, which might indicate the basis for the concepts that the authors propose, and indeed might provide a framework for the structuring of these concepts. Another reservation derives from the title. The core of the book is concerned with communication skills and competences in a customer service environment. The content does not justify the title Managing customer service′′ since little attention is paid to how these competences might be developed. In addition, although a nodding acknowledgement of the relationships between customer service, service quality, effective operations and marketing is implicit, or even explicit in places, the book fails to give a sufficiently strong message about the relationship between these concepts.

In summary, the academic in me is looking for deeper links between concepts or frameworks both within the book, and between this book and the extensive literature of the service experience. The practitioner would be entertained and challenged by more uses of examples and case studies. All in all, this book is a useful collation of ideas in this area, but, apart from one or two chapters, offers nothing new. It may be useful for those who are new to the skills and competences associated with customer service, and some of the checklists and other lists of points, could be used as the basis for further discussion and exemplification in training sessions and seminars.