Customer service is a subject addressed by many scientific disciplines, among which logistics and marketing occupy a special place. One should focus primarily on these when seeking to fully understand the mechanisms that cause the customer, as the final recipient, to decide on the level and range of production in today’s market economy, where free competition reigns, and, to some extent, whether a given company will achieve market success or suffer failure. The customer themselves decides how customer service is ultimately understood; therefore, one should always adopt the customer’s point of view and listen to their arguments and opinions regarding how they want to be served and what they understand by the term “service”. For this reason, companies should formulate their own definitions of service, which must be consistent with customer opinions.
The importance of customer service in the business and logistics of modern companies is constantly growing. This is due to several very important premises:
– the necessity of maintaining high logistical efficiency in customer service, which cannot be achieved without costly monitoring and a system for controlling logistical processes
– the adaptation of specific customer service philosophies, sometimes costly to implement, and their corresponding strategies
– discrepancies between the offered level of service and customer expectations, which can have negative economic consequences for companies. This refers to companies offering both too high and too low a level of service. If the level of service is higher than the customer is financially prepared for, the company also incurs serious losses, just as it does when a level that is too low misses the expectations of buyers, giving opportunities to competing companies
– changes in international markets (globalization of the market and production), forcing companies to engage in strong competition and provide a high level of services.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2003/4.