Your Company has been product driven for many years. You have not had a culture of customer service outside of providing a good product on the market. Due to competition, you now must change that focus. How would you approach going from a product driven to a service driven culture?
Establishing a service driven culture concentrates on client satisfaction. For over thirty years, the primary needs of clients were usually related to the quality of products (Day, 1994, p. 38). However international competition grew to meet and eventually exceeded the standards of quality measures and has become crucial in building quality assurance in many elements of production process so as to remain competent.
The first step to shift from product driven culture is to formalize the needs of clients as individual client needs increase in complexity. These way suppliers are reorganized and their internal processes are adjusted to meet the critical skills and create new standards that commit to continuous improvement (Day, 1994, p. 38). The more complex the needs of clients are, then more pertinent it becomes to make formal mutual accord that details the expectations of clients and supplier dedication to offer product/services that are value added (William & Arvinder, 2000, p. 330).
Second is to establish a transactional quality management strategy that addresses client needs. This means that there will be continuous improvement rather than meeting the daily expectations. The process of ensuring culture will demand that ongoing assessment is implemented. The process of production works to satisfy the needs of the customers (Day, 1994, p. 43).
Sharing risks and savings will concentrate on selectively creating client relationships. In active business model sharing with suppliers in production is critical to customers. This will ensure cost saving as transactional charge will be waived. Therefore service delivery will be established.
A strong leadership that focuses on improvement of the client results is essential. Removing representatives enable the organization to support the administrative needs of clients directly (Day, 1994, p. 43).
Educating workers on technical and application skills to contribute to the firm’s service productivity; this means that workers have to be trained so that they can be able to analyze a problem, to integrate it and to be able to conceptualize the solution and aid in the process of implementation (William & Arvinder, 2000, p. 330).
As the production shifts from product driven and service driven culture, meeting the needs of clients is very critical. Service delivery then becomes the real strategy for success. This is because customers are the main reason why companies exist. Without the clients appreciating the services, it’s very hard to develop corporate values. Customer attraction, offering service satisfaction and retaining is all determined by the perception of the clients whether the services meet their needs and are value for money or not (William & Arvinder, 2000, p. 330).
Dedication to the clients is critical for building a good relationship with them and this will enable the organization to anticipate the specific needs of clients and better make preparation to have new and unique products and services that really benefit the users.
Reference List
Day, G. (1994). The Capabilities of Market-Driven Organizations, The Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58, No. 4 pp. 37-52.
William, E.Y. & Arvinder, P.S.L (2000). “Service-driven global supply chains”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 11 Issue 4, pp. 329 – 347.