Developing customer service at fast-casual restaurant sector : case Friends & Brgrs

Abstract

This bachelor’s thesis was commissioned by Friends & Brgrs Oy Ab. The objective of this thesis was to create a customer service handbook on excellent customer service for the use of the commissioner. Excellent customer service is one of Friends & Brgrs key strategies in gaining competitive advantage amongst the competition. The importance of good customer service in any field of business has kept on growing in the recent years and customers give high value to companies which offer exquisite customer service experiences. The customer service handbook will provide Friends & Brgrs aid in training excellent customer service practices to new employees and sustaining the excellent customer service level with old employees too. In addition to this, the thesis discusses recommendations as a way to enhance customer service and the handbook offers concrete tips on how to succeed in additional sales in a mutually beneficial way both to the customer relationship and the profitability of the company.

For this thesis 25 randomly chosen people were interviewed to obtain comprehensive insights on what customers perceive to be excellent customer service and how customer service personnel should act in different situations which are custom to Friends & Brgrs.

The current thesis relies on the broken windows theory, the theory of adding emotional value and the five-step mistake solver as the theoretical background for improving customer service at Friends & Brgrs and creating the customer service handbook. The main points of the handbook deal with offering personalized service to the customers, giving the employees the freedom to execute customer service based on their own judgement and paying attention even to the smallest defects.