CUSTOMER

SERVICE
DEPARTMENT

Your Name
 Department Structure and
Significance
• In customer Service Department, there is one manager, one team lead and 4
customer service representatives.
• Customer service representatives are the front end and handle most of the
work related to complaint handling and contacting customers. However,
escalated contacts and calls are handled by team lead.
• Manager oversees the whole department and ensure compliance with
organizational policies while achieving departmental objectives. He acts as
linking point to other departments of organization.
• Significance of this department is prevalent from the fact that it is the only
department that is in direct contact with customers which are vital asset of
organization. It differentiates between the average and premium customers
according to number of dollars spent and deal them accordingly.
 Problematic scenario
• Only a few months ago, my department had to face a difficult
issue which was directly affecting efficiency of overall
organization.
• We faced an upsurge in number of complaints and a significant
rise in customer dissatisfaction.
• Detailed analysis of situation revealed that the main problem
was the lack of alignment between sales and customer service
department.
• Sales department blamed and accused customer service for not
handling the clients professionally, whereas, customer service
blamed sales for making fake promises with customers.
Employment • In order to resolve the issue, I employed
a mix of smoothing and collaborating
of best technique.

conflict • First of all, I conducted a detailed

resolution analysis of my own department which

revealed several loopholes. It was
technique identified that call hold time was too
long and one complaint had to pass
through different levels before getting
resolved.
• Sequence Oriented Problem
Identification approach was utilized to
rearrange the sequence of steps and
minimize the call hold time.
 Smoothing • Afterwards, a meeting was called and
employing a smoothing technique,
and loopholes existing in own departments

Collaborating were not only identified but a time line

was given to resolve all those issues.
technique • This gesture built a positive
environment when sales personnel were
also asked to make some suggestions.
In turn, they also highlighted some
issues prevailing in their department.
Main issue was the lack of adequate
training of new sales staff due to which
they unintentionally raised the
customer expectations.
 Solution to • A simulation training was suggested for
both departments to overcome their
resolve the issues and a joint training session was
decided to let them understand how to
inter- work in collaboration.

departmental • Another remarkable decision was made in

the meeting to permanently resolve this
conflict conflict and prevent its reoccurrence.
• Meeting enabled both sides to know
limitations of each other. Instead of two
separate teams, sales and customer
service were joined into a big team,
sharing same room.
• It not only minimized the conflict, but also
enhanced the mutual understanding,
consequently declining the number of
customer complaints.
Leadership • I employed an activator leadership style
where I explored the problem in a
Style greater detail, identified its root cause
and presented an original solution to
the problem
• It was a transformational approach as it
brought a change in organizational
structure which was never made before.
• Positive and encouraging leadership
style has positive impact upon customer
service team (Aryee, Seidu,
Sacramento, & Martinaityte, 2015)
References • Botschen, G., Bstieler, L., & Woodside,
A. G. (1996). Sequence-oriented
problem identification within service
encounters. Journal of
Euromarketing,5(2), 19-52.
• Aryee, S., Seidu, E. Y., Sacramento, C.
A., & Martinaityte, I. (2015, January).
Proactive Customer Service
Performance: Test of a Team-Level
Model. In Academy of Management
Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 11002).
Academy of Management.