Developing a Customer Care Operating Model for a Company in Service Business : Engineering Services Delivered as Projects
Vinho, Mika (2019)
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201904296728
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201904296728
Tiivistelmä
The thesis focuses on developing a customer care operating model for a company in service business with the focus of one service context; the engineering services delivered as projects. The purpose is to have better understanding on how the company should take care of its customers in general, and to build the basis for further development of defining the customer care processes in more detail. Any company that is in the service business and aims for increased growth needs to take care of their customers, therefore a systematic way of taking care of the customer that aims for increased positive word of mouth and loyalty is required.
The study is based on three data collection rounds that included case company internal interviews and documentation, but also key customer interview and key stakeholder workshops. The thesis is conducted by first looking for existing knowledge from literature, then conducting a current state analysis for primary research, and continuing with the acquired data to conducting workshops together with case company key stakeholders that focus on creating a solution to the business problem, and finally validating the solution with different functional levels within the case organization.
The results of the study indicate that customer care is mainly related to three categories of activities: the proactive activities, the reactive activities and the voice of the customer. The proactive activities aim to ensure execution, quality, communication and partnership, but also business development during an end-to-end customer journey in a way that negative customer experiences are avoided. The reactive activities are required for situations where the customer has questions or problems that need to be solved. Additionally, the voice of the customer is required for collecting, processing and utilizing customer data, but also operational internal KPI’s to support decision making on how any issues can be proactively avoided, or where to focus on improvement initiatives.
A customer care operating models usually exist in every successful company; however, they may be implicit. The thesis delivers a proposal for taking care of customers, but also tools are introduced for continuing the work in other contexts. Together with the thesis outcome and employee training, the case company can start to take care of the company customers systematically to achieve increased positive word of mouth, and customer loyalty, and thereby, the customers spread more positive word-of-mouth and return to the service provider for more services which can lead to increased growth.
The study is based on three data collection rounds that included case company internal interviews and documentation, but also key customer interview and key stakeholder workshops. The thesis is conducted by first looking for existing knowledge from literature, then conducting a current state analysis for primary research, and continuing with the acquired data to conducting workshops together with case company key stakeholders that focus on creating a solution to the business problem, and finally validating the solution with different functional levels within the case organization.
The results of the study indicate that customer care is mainly related to three categories of activities: the proactive activities, the reactive activities and the voice of the customer. The proactive activities aim to ensure execution, quality, communication and partnership, but also business development during an end-to-end customer journey in a way that negative customer experiences are avoided. The reactive activities are required for situations where the customer has questions or problems that need to be solved. Additionally, the voice of the customer is required for collecting, processing and utilizing customer data, but also operational internal KPI’s to support decision making on how any issues can be proactively avoided, or where to focus on improvement initiatives.
A customer care operating models usually exist in every successful company; however, they may be implicit. The thesis delivers a proposal for taking care of customers, but also tools are introduced for continuing the work in other contexts. Together with the thesis outcome and employee training, the case company can start to take care of the company customers systematically to achieve increased positive word of mouth, and customer loyalty, and thereby, the customers spread more positive word-of-mouth and return to the service provider for more services which can lead to increased growth.