Customer Services at Tesco Essay

I am doing a project based on Customer Services for Tesco. I am doing research into the company and with my findings I am going to provide recommendations to improve Customer Services at Tesco. The areas that I am going to be covering are: * What Customer Services does there company provide. * How do they measure Customer Satisfaction. * How do you know that their customers are happy. * What legislation affects their customers at Tesco. * How do they segment their target market. And * What is their Customer profile. From the above I will provide recommendations for improvements. Theory Of Customer Services. Customer Services is the overall activity of identifying and satisfying customer needs. â€Å"Most people entering a shop or contacting a firm by letter or telephone, have suggested that by this action they have a need†1 I think that this suggestion is true because people go to the shop and need somewhere to park and what kind of parking they need, if they need to use the toilet facilities, also just going into the shop buying the products. The customer must be treated and advised accordingly, and the advice that they are given must be accurate. â€Å"After sales service is an essential element of customer service in any type of organisation, it may cover faulty goods, refunds, exchange of goods, complaints about goods, service or hygiene.†2 Many customers go back to the store in which they have received something and have a query about the service or product in which they have received. Sometimes it may be food things but other times its not. A lot of good will be refunded or goods exchange will take place. It requires a salesperson to be aware of the consumer’s charter and the relevant laws on the sale of goods trade descriptions. Many shops/stores have a â€Å"customer service department† to deal with queries which certain people might have. Measuring Customer Satisfaction. It is important for Tesco to measure how satisfied their customers are so that if they need to they can make improvements to products or the service in which they provide. The ways in which Tesco measure Customer Satisfaction is by: * Sending out questionnaires to customers through post or email. This shows if Tesco need to make any improvements to their service or any of their products. * The Tesco Loyalty card- This is provided by Tesco and it has the customer’s details. Tesco can use this to see how often the customer shops there and to see if there are any product/products in particular that they buy. If they see that that customer has not shopped in Tesco for a few months they might post them some product vouchers (e.g. money off coupons) to bring that customer back to the store. If Tesco do this it makes the customer see that Tesco’s are willing to help the customer in all sorts of ways to bring there custom back. This helps Tesco measure the satisfaction of individual customers. * They record some of their calls that are made by customers for training purposes. * On the spot questions from staff. * Observation (e.g. mystery shoppers.) * Customer panels or interviews. * Customer comments on the web site or in store. From this they can analyse the sales performance e.g. sales levels, number of customers, records of products brought and from the loyalty card records. All of this is part of market research and they get the feed back from their customers. What Customer Services Tesco Provides From my findings at Tesco I have found out the following: Products: Most of the products that are sold at Tesco are of good quality (apart from the food that looks untidy on the shelves, and that it looks like it has been thrown in.) I think that most of the products are reasonably priced. No complaints have been made from customers and from myself asking a few customers their thoughts on the prices. The products are safe to use, on the packaging they give detail about what the product contains and on some products they suggest how to use/cook the food product. Most of the goods are packaged safely but some of the goods may have fallen on the floor and may have been spilt open, which some people/some staff then just pick up and put it back on the shelf. This does not good for Tesco as a whole. Some of the prices on the shelves are covered up by other product prices. The sale signs cover up the original prices so you cannot really see if it is an actual sale. This is like it for some of the products in the store. These are some of my findings as an example to what I have wrote above: * The meat that was displayed looked like it had been thrown in. * All the reduced things looked like they had been hidden away in the Bacon, Fresh pasta and ready meals section. * Salad in meat section (moved.) Staff: I think that the people that I saw that where working in the Tesco in Hertford where correctly dressed and it was suitable. You could clearly see whole was higher than others (meaning the managers compared to the till staff.) I think that most of the staff are helpful but some of them may talk rudely to you if you ask where something is. On my visit I had this happen to me. The staffs that have been working in the store for quite a while know where certain products are in the shop so if you were to ask they would be able to point you in the right direction or even take you there their self. They also know about the deals etc that are going on in the store at that moment in time which is also good because if you go to the till and there is a deal on a precise product you have brought they will say â€Å"did you know its by one get 2nd half price† (made up example) Premises: Some of the store is not safe e.g. * Trolley in way. * There’s a pillar in the middle of the isle (obstruction to customers) what did not help the matter was the fact that Tesco food trolleys (that they stacked the shelves with) was in the way too. * Slippery floor with no sign to say so. On the ceiling they have posters hanging off to show where each section of the store is (e.g. fruit and veg.) From my visit I saw cleaners cleaning whilst people where shopping, so they do keep clean but then again the floors are left wet and maybe slippery and the cleaners may get in the way of the customers. In the Tesco store they did have disabled parking and a toilet for disabled people and also trolleys for disabled people. The layout of the premises was good and easy. I think that they keep it easy and simple so that the customers can find the products that they want without fail. The facilities that I saw that where provided for the customers where the toilets/baby and changing rooms, the photo-boof and the pay phone. Delivery: There was no information that I could see in the store about delivery but I did find the following information on the Tesco website (http://www.tesco.com/help/page.asp?choiceA=groc&choiceB=9&page=/termsandconditions/termsconditionsgroc.htm) â€Å"Delivery will be made to the address specified by you on the completed order form. We will deliver your order to the main entrance of the delivery address. At your request, our driver may carry your order into the delivery address, for example, to a particular floor in an apartment block or into your kitchen but only if: a. the driver has your permission and b. our driver believes that it is safe and practical to do as you request. We always reserve the right to deliver only to the main entrance of the delivery address. Please note that we deliver goods only to specified regions within the United Kingdom. To check that the online Grocery service delivers to your area, please enter your postcode at http://www.tesco.com/register/signup.asp. Delivery times will be agreed with you at the time of placing your order.† Payment: The different ways of paying at Tesco are: 1. Cash 2. Credit/debit card. 3. Cheque Field Research Findings. Notes Based On Tesco In Hertford I carried out some field research at a Tesco near me. Here are my findings:- * Bigish car park but not big enough. Plenty of disabled parking but people not disabled parking in them spots. Same with parents and child parking. * Vegetables nicely laid out. * Prices cover up over prices. * Isles labelled * Trolley in way. * Lots of leaflets. * Salad in meat section (moved.) * The meat that was displayed looked like it had been thrown in. * All the reduced things looked like they had been hidden away in the Bacon, Fresh pasta and ready meals section. * There’s a hot deli selling hot chicken of different sorts. * Certain isles crowded more than others. Some isles empty. * There’s a pillar in the middle of the isle (obstruction to customers) what did not help the matter was the fact that Tesco food trolleys (that they stacked the shelves with) was in the way too. * Slippery floor with no sign to say so. * Car equipment at the end of food isle. * Empty cardboard boxes on the shelves. * Posters not really explaining what’s on each isle. * About 10:45 am on Tuesday morning just the old people doing shopping and a few moms with toddlers or babies. * Christmas things already displayed on shelves. * Fresh mean, raw meat, diary products in separate counters but with the diary products they are all bundled into one counter. * Ticket service for meat and diary products. * Tesco brands on bottom shelves. * Labels over CD’s covering up the names of the CD’s (e.g. â€Å"Security protected†) * The books on the shelves in a mess (the ones on bottom shelf) but the ones nearer the top look in order. * Cat and dog food etc clearly laid out. * Cleaning things all nicely laid out. * Tablets, shampoo, deodorant etc all down one isle. * Baby things all down one side of the isle. * With the frozen food all the weight watchers items in one compartment. * Ice cream section is pretty empty. * Vegetarian food all in one section. * Halloween things all in one section. * Buy one get one free posters hung from the ceiling. * Loads of Christmas things displayed more than the Halloween things. * Community news posters. * Photo vision right in the corner of the shop near the tills. * Batteries all displayed together. * Champagne And Sparkling drinks are all together. * Spirits, Liqueurs, Malts etc all separated into different sections but with the name of what consists in that section. * There is a time limit in which to buy alcohol (which it 8am until 10:55 pm) * Promotional things displayed on every section of the shop (meaning top of every isle) * I saw 3 fire exits. * Not many seats at the end of the till for the customers. * There was one customer pay phone. * There was a magazine section and a section for the different newspapers. * There where toilets for the men, disabled, baby changing and for the girls. * There’s a small customer services desk. * 1 Cash machine * Parking clearly labelled Legislation Acts for Tesco. The Consumer Protection Act is a consolidation of consumer protection legislation. Parts III and IV of the Act are the former Consumer Products Warranties Act and Unsolicited Goods and Credit Cards Act. Part II of the Act offers protection to Saskatchewan consumers from unfair and unscrupulous marketplace practices. The Act also sets out consumer responsibilities, such as attempting to resolve a dispute with a supplier before taking further action. * Unfair practices * Remedies * Warranties * Unsolicited goods and credit cards * Consolidation of The Consumer Protection Act * Consumer Protection Branch Food Safety Act Under the Food Safety Act 1990, you: * Must not sell (or keep for sale) food that is unfit for people to eat. * must not sell food that isn’t what the customer is entitled to expect, in terms of content or quality * must not cause food to be dangerous to health * must not describe or present food in a way that is false or misleading It’s important to be able to demonstrate the positive steps taken by your business to ensure good food hygiene. If you were prosecuted under the Food Safety Act 1990, you would need to convince the court that you had taken all reasonable steps to avoid the offence you had been accused of . Health and safety regulations of 1974 Act It states that all employers have a responsibility to ensure health and safety requirements of their employees. All companies regardless of their size must have a written safety policy ensuring implementation of Health and Safety Act and indulge themselves in carrying out the risk assessment on all their activities. Risk Assessment included: * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Noise Assessments under Noise at Work Regulations. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Control of Substances harmful to health and safety regulations. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Display Screen Equipment Regulations. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Workplace Welfare and health safety requirements. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Manual Handling Regulations. Trade Description Act. This Act has offered protection to consumers and legitimate traders for over three decades. It is an extremely versatile piece of legislation which has been used to tackle all manner of different forms of unfair trading eg.: * car clocking * misdescribed holidays * distribution of counterfeit goods The Act makes it an offence to: * Apply a false or misleading description to goods (e.g. by writing it down, making a verbal statement or by turning back a car’s odometer); or * Supply or offer to supply goods to which a false or misleading trade description is applied. A person exposing goods for supply (e.g. in a shop) or having them in his possession for supply (e.g. in a storeroom) is deemed to offer to supply them for the purposes of the Act. These offences are strict liability offences i.e. it is possible for a trader to commit an offence without intending to do so. Recommendations From studying my company Tesco I have got to know the business quite well. From this I have provided the following recommendations: Disabled People: Disabled people are not able to reach the high shelves which makes things difficult for them, because the majority of the products are high on the shelves. I would recommend that there should be a sign for disabled people to go to get staff help. Also with disabled people there are not many trolleys and the trolleys could be hard to use for them, I think that maybe they should lower the trolleys so that life would be made easier for the disabled people. Staff: I think that there should be more staff to give a helping hand to there customers. Most of the staff are on tills, packing shelves or on the go to do something else and it seems that some of the staff have no time to actually help the customers with there queries. The customer services help desk is meant to be there to help but there was one case where my dad had a complaint and one of the staff members was trying to tell my dad that he was actually in the wrong but actually he was in the right. This was soon resolved when I higher member of staff came to help sort out the situation. Also with the staff I think that they should check that the food is in the right place and not on the floor or damaged etc. Signs: The signs that are hung from the ceiling don’t really explain what are on each isle. On one isle it says pasta but in that same isle it has biscuits etc. I would recommend that the signs should be a lot clearer to help customers find there way around the shop then maybe staff would not have customers coming up to them asking where things are. Isles: A suggestion that I would make about the isle is that they do get really crowded, so if Tesco know that that certain isle is popular then maybe they should widen the isle. Also they should not put a pillar in the middle of an isle because it is an obstruction to customers and even more so little kids who may be running around and might run into it because there might be a slippery floor etc. This would make Tesco a more safer environment.    1 Taken from Advanced Business Osborne Books. 2 Taken from Advanced Business Osborne Books