Inside Pellissippi 062804

New book teaches exceptional customer service practices

“Smile on the telephone—customers can ‘hear’ it. This is just one ‘best practice’ that makes a difference to the bottom line,” according to Anne Swartzlander, professor of E-Commerce/Marketing. “Research shows that exceptional service leads to customer retention and loyalty and, ultimately, to business success.”

Swartzlander, who has taught a customer service course for the past 12 years, understands this better than many. She spent three years researching and writing an undergraduate textbook, “Serving Internal and External Customers,” published this year by Pearson Education/Prentice Hall.

In the book, Swartzlander emphasizes learning and rehearsing best practices that go beyond good customer service, to exceptional service. For example, she recommends that a customer service representative ask a customer, “Can you hold while I check on that?” Then, a critical step, the representative waits for an answer. When returning to a customer on the phone, service providers should say, “Thank you for waiting,” instead of apologizing for the time on hold.

The customer relationship management (CRM) approach of the text integrates marketing, operations, and human resources to help businesses provide customer-oriented service and survive intense competition. Swartzlander provides information on creative problem solving, teamwork, challenging customers, and win-win customer problem resolution and recovery. Chapter by chapter, she covers building skills in such forms of communication as verbal, nonverbal, listening, telephone, automated telephone systems and e-mail. Exercises and cases give students the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience, broaden their perspective, and build confidence.

"Inside Pellissippi" is a bi-monthly electronic publication produced by the Community Relations Office for the faculty and staff of Pellissippi State Technical Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, P.O. Box 22990, Knoxville, Tennessee 37933-0990. All suggestions and comments should be sent to Julia Wood (jwood@pstcc.edu).

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