Customer Service: Questions According To The Team Performance Plan

Stage 2- Team Performance Plan

Question 1

Identify any specific areas of non-compliance that you have identified in the Customer Service Policy and Procedures based on the scenarios in Stage 1.

There are some areas that the Righteous Bean’s staffs did not comply with

• Staff did not apologise to a customer when customers received their food for 20mins waiting time or when customers received half of their food and another half after 7mins;
• Staff did not communicate or inform customers of when they can expect completion or delivery of their order, and any delays that may arise in the process;
• When there is a delay and wait time in service delivery, staffs did not keep customers informed;
• Staff did not offer customers a choice of refund, exchange or repair where the food is not of the quality standard;
• Staff did not provide ‘on-site’ support while customers are waiting

Question 2

What strategies would you put in place to promote and communicate the organisation’s policies, procedures and standards to staff, to help ensure future compliance?

The organisation’s policies, procedures and standards provide a clear guidance to staff on how to communicate and serve customers, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to deliver customer service to the quality standards of the business. If staffs are not following these policies and procedures, this may directly impact customer satisfaction with the organisation.

There are some strategies that can put in place to promote and communicate the organisation’s policies and procedures to staff to help ensure future compliance.

• Staff training is a way to ensure future compliance. Organisational policies and procedures may require intensive and extensive trainings so that staffs can understand the requirements of these procedures. Trainings can be scheduled periodically or as needed. For example, trainings on how to communicate with customers when their products are delayed
• Reminding staffs regularly of organisational standards, policies and procedures as this can consolidate learning. These reminders can be done informally when manager is observing negative behaviours.
• When the business has new staff members, it is important to develop an induction process to ensure they understand the expectation and standards in the organisation. The induction can include training on staff members’ role and job description, current organisation’s standards, policies and procedures, etc.
• Another strategy is using pictures and photograph to show customer service standards. For example, show food size in a picture to help staffs understand the portion of each plate. Photos of Latte art to assist staff learning.

Question 3

Team Performance Plan

Team Performance Objectives

• Performance Measure (description of what quality performance looks like)
• Monitoring Plan (How and when performance will be measured)
• Reduce the customer waiting time to 12 minutes or less
• Acknowledging customers who enter the premises immediately;
• Achieve at least 90% positive customer feedback on the waiting time;
• Apologies to customers when the waiting time is more than 10 minutes;
• Customer satisfaction Survey to be completed in December;
• Collect customer feedback on waiting time on a quarterly basis;
• Food serving size is consistent to all customers
• Provide trainings to staffs to achieve the same size of each plate of the food;
• Positive customer feedback regarding the size of food served;
• Customers Satisfaction Survey to be completed in next food truck festival;
• Randomly weight the food on the scale before serving to customers and ensure it meets the standard
• Customer services should be courteously and professional all the time
• Always greeting to customers in a professional manner and use respectful language;
• Acknowledge return clients by name;
• Apologise on behalf of the business when customers are inconvenienced;
• Customers Satisfaction Survey to be completed after next food festival;
• Regular observing face to fac encounters
• Provide on-site support when customers are waiting
• Providing Wi-fi for waiting customers;
• Interacting with customers when they are waiting;
• Reviewing customers feedback on social media on weekly basis;

Question 4

Scenario- One of your food truck Supervisors is struggling with the changes to portion sizes. In the past, he was very generous in his portion sizing, but he is now preparing portions in line with The Righteous Bean’s standard consistency measures. This is creating a lot of issues with regular customers who are accustomed to more generous portion sizes. Some of his regular customers are complaining about the new portion size or asking for an extra helping. He doesn’t want to lose some of these customers, and he needs to manage some of the dissatisfaction this is causing to his own team members.

Question- What should you do to help this team member to overcome these problems?

As a team staff, it is important to have mental support to staff members to overcome their customer service difficulties. It can be difficult for the food truck Supervisors to understand and recognise the problem when he is in the midst of this situation. It is important to identify and explain the problem to the Supervisor of serving generous food size. I will explain to the Supervisor that serving too generous in food size will probably or a threat to increase our cost and food shortage and will turns to a negative impact in our food truck profit. Also, customers may waste the food if the portion is enormous. Therefore, it is important to keep the portion in line with our food truck’s standard consistency measures.

We will show empathy to customers and remain professional by acknowledging customers’ difficultly and showing concerns for their feelings on the change of portion size. The food truck can post on their social media by apologising the change of food size.

By considering the Supervisor’s personality that he always gives large portion of food to customers and want to build a good relationship with them. I will also suggest and discuss with him to create membership and loyalty programs such as creating punch card for customer every visit. If he accepts my suggestion, I will work with him to create this program.

If the Supervisor still finds that it is difficulty to do with how customers feel about the level of service standards, then it is important to overcome these by professional development and job rotation to increase skills. A more experienced mentor can be assigned to assist training until the he is retrained effectively to overcome this problem. Both professional development and rotating enable the Supervisor to reach his full potential.

To prevent serving customers with too large or different food portion size in the future, it is important to providing trainings to all new and old staffs on the Righteous Bean Policy and Procedures. This enables staffs to follow the same strict standards to maintain a consistent experience each time when customers visit our food truck, as well as help to build our business on quality and consistency.

Question 5

Scenario- One week later, Michael Mayer, a regular food truck customer, makes a formal complaint about the serving size of his meal. The serving size was consistent with your new process; however, this customer had previously been served a much larger sized meal in the past (prior to your consistency measures).

To resolve this complaint, you explained Pig Rig’s serving portion size standards. You also apologised that there had been inconsistent portion sizes in the past and sent the customer a $15 gift voucher.

The business is committed to ensuring consistent sizing across the organisation. After talking to the customer, and some of the Food Truck Staff, you have come to the conclusion that there is a lack of communication to customers about the standard portion sizing.

Question- Suggest strategies that Pig Rig could put into place to communicate serving sizes so that customers are better informed about the Pig Rig product.

It is important to communicate with customers when there is a change of food serving sizes so that customers are better informed about products.

• Pig Rig can post photos of the food in their food truck menu or show a display model in front of the counter, so that customers who come to order can understand the actual size of the food;
• Pig Rig can post information in the business social media to inform customers that the food truck has decided to change the standard of portion size, as well as some photos of the food. Also, the food truck should apologise on the changes of standard.
• The food truck can provide special offers to customers for “extra costs for extra servings” if customers would like to upgrade their food size.

Question 6

Develop a one-page report to management that outlines this service issue, including the feedback from staff and the customer complaint. Include your recommended adjustments to the existing Customer Service Plan aimed at ensuring customers are better informed of standard portion sizes.

Most of customers have positive feedback in relation to the friendliness of staffs and the quality of the food. The main service issue is that staffs lack of communication with customers. Staffs did not communicate with and inform customers when there are delays in service delivery. There are some negative comments regarding food which identified some issues with some of the desserts and the presentation of food. Also, customers expect the food truck and staffs should provide more ‘on-site’ support while they are waiting.

There are some gaps between current service deliver and customer expectations, in order to improve customer service delivery, it is important to consider following strategies. First is to provide creative and tasty food, including organic food options. Second is to standardise the service process to ensure each customer receive same quality of service. The business should consider different personalities in different roles. On-going staff training is a method to improve staff communication and interpersonal skills. Additional infrastructures such as wi-fi and chairs can improve the atmosphere in the food truck. These strategies can be taken into account to improve current service.

To ensure staff future-compliance with food truck’s policies and procedures, it is important to determine some plans to communicate the current business standards. Some strategies such as staff on-going or as needed training, induction program for new staffs, reminding where there some negative behaviours. Also, during the training process, the business can use photos and images to make staffs better understanding on current standards.

Customer loyalty occurs when they have confidence in a business’s products and services. When our customers trust they have a consistent experience each time they deal with a business, they will stay loyal to our business.

Lack of communication with customers of the standard portion sizes will bring problems to the business such as customer compliant, loss customer loyalty etc. The business must communicate with customers the standards of portion size.

The business can post photos of the serving size in their menu and show display a model in front the counter, so customers can understand the actual food size. Also, the business can post information and photos in relation to their food size in their website or social media such as Instagram or Facebook. This allows customers who follow their social media can be informed about the food size.