Customer Relations:
Managing for a Customer-Focused Organization

Course purpose

Providing customer service and achieving customer satisfaction has become the competitive edge separating outstanding organizations from average ones. Management plays the crucial role in achieving and maintaining a customer-focused organization. This course clarifies what management must do, and how they must do it, to assure profitable customer relations. The seminar will explore the management attitudes, systems, and communications required to stimulate employee commitment and enthusiasm about meeting customer's needs, delivering quality service, and building superior customer relations.

Target audience

• Executives, managers, and supervisors wanting to improve relations with the people they are in business to serve, whether those people are from the public or are internal customers
• Staff responsible for policy formulation or service systems design
• Members of work teams focused on improving service and customer relations

Participant outcomes

Participants will gain an in-depth understanding of the central role management plays in building and maintaining a successful customer focus. They will be able to focus organizational attention and generate employee commitment to customer service excellence. Through lecture, group discussion, and exercises, they will gain insights into the challenges they face in providing the highest quality service or product. They will leave with action steps formulated to begin immediately addressing these challenges. They will also receive a specially designed manual containing a review of the seminar content, guidelines, and check sheets, as well as valuable additional reading material on providing excellent customer service.

Organizational benefits

Your organization will benefit from having:

• A customer focus that permeates and energizes all levels of your organization.· Systems throughout the organization designed to consistently meet or surpass customer needs and expectations.
• An on-going dialogue with customers to monitor your continued effectiveness.
• Management practices that lead to outstanding front line customer service.

Presentation options

This workshop can be presented in a 1, 2, or 3-day format. The one-day version is a dynamic, intensive presentation. The multi-day format allows more time for participation in exercises and discussion groups designed to reinforce new skills and apply newly learned material to circumstances currently present in your organization.

Topics covered

• How managers can reach customers
  The critical role of management attitudes and values. Changing good intentions into customer service reality. Overlooked service issues that require management attention.

• Analyzing customer expectations
  Defining who your customers are and uncovering what they really want. Asking, listening, and responding to customer needs and customer expectations.

• Linking service and profits
  Who depends on whom - recognizing the importance of the customer. Providing what people will pay for. Elevating service to the competitive edge - not an extra cost.

• Communicating a service vision
  Creating a customer-oriented organization with purpose, direction, and meaning. Giving definition to the business and clarity to the "service package."

• Giving support to customer service
  Going beyond "The customer comes first" slogans. Crating a customer-driven culture through communication, resources, and action. Integrating all the efforts.

• Achieving customer satisfaction
  Designing service systems that really serve and delivery systems that really deliver. Identifying and managing the service cycle. Handling complaints when things go wrong.

• Generating employee commitment
  Providing direction, training, and recognition to frontline people. Supplying the guidelines and freedom they require to satisfy the customer. Building pride in service.

• Avoiding common service mistakes
  Working on the right problems and in the right order. Putting it all together so the customer responds.

Praise from executives, managers, and supervisors

"A challenging and enjoyable presentation - never boring - full of very useful ideas I can implement. I plan to review our current procedures to ensure customer vision in every decision." - Executive Director, Family Services, Portland, OR

"This seminar is a very worthwhile, cost-effective course for small and medium size businesses. It should particularly be attended by the owner or top person in the organization, the person who doesn't have day-to-day customer contact." - Branch Manager, Columbus Bank & Trust, Columbus, IN

"This seminar taught me new ways to use my authority to reach the customers and make them feel like they matter." - Supervisor, City of Walla Walla, WA

"Excellent. This seminar helped me to continue to work towards establishing and maintaining a customer-focused organization, and it gave me some tangible resources to use." - Manager, Pennfield Corp., Millersville, PA

"Exciting without being overwhelming. This seminar reinforced familiar concepts in a dynamic way and reminded me that change is possible and worth the effort. I especially liked the good, practical examples used to illustrate point." - Office Manager, Coelho Job Center, Janesville, WI

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