Customer Service Excellence (BUS541) Reflection Report - Level 5

This report provides a reflective analysis of customer service excellence, drawing on case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of training and development programs. The student examines the importance of employee engagement, customer-focused thinking, and the role of external consultants in improving service delivery. The report explores various scenarios, including a call center's efforts to increase sales, an automotive company's challenges in meeting customer demand, and a data solutions company's high employee turnover. The student reflects on the application of these case studies to a PeoplePerHour training plan, emphasizing the need for updated content, understanding diverse situations, and adapting to business needs. The report concludes with key takeaways on the use of case studies for assessment and the importance of continuous improvement in customer service.

Running head: REFLECTION
Customer Service Excellence
[Reflection]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Why reflection is important?...........................................................................................................2
How to reflect?................................................................................................................................2
Concluding remarks.........................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Why reflection is important?
According to the study of Eaton (2016) doing a reflection on a piece of work by using
suitable tools or models, or case studies can help to assess the quality of the work accomplished
and identify the areas of improvement. There are high possibilities for missing out on certain
things due to the lack of focus in accumulating useful facts, concepts, theories and examples
related to the subject area. A reflective piece of writing may help us realize those missed areas.
By discussing those missed areas and grabbing more understanding of the same, we can learn
broader ways of dealing with a situation. A reflective piece of writing as according to Trelfa
(2016) also increases one’s capability to think more about a particular situation and accumulate
enough resources to do an excellent piece of work.
For instance, we, a group of 4 people recently worked on PeoplePerHour Company to
devise a training and development plan for their new hires. The department chosen for the
training module was its 'Customer Support Agents’. By doing a reflection of the work, as done
by us, we may get to know our weak areas. Moreover, this could also help us learn a few
important tips for preparing a good training and development programs. I expect that this
reflection work will help me groom my subject-related knowledge.
How to reflect?
In this reflection report, case studies will be used to carry out the reflective practice of
my work on PeoplePerHour. This will strengthen my knowledge of the training and development
programs. Moreover, this will further boost my understanding of customer-focused thinking.
Case Study 1:

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‘Company X’ is one of the biggest call centers for selling insurance package. The
company had wanted to increase the number of customers for package solution instead of one
type of insurance. What they did to address this problem was really remarkable and had
produced good results. Company X hired a team of consultants to take care of the issue. A team
of consultants interviewed call center agents of Company X. The calls of these agents listened
carefully. The interviews and listening of the calls of the agents of company x produced some
useful findings. Those findings helped consultants conclude the reason behind the problem.
Eventually, the consultants could identify a list of knowledge and skills that were missing from
the system and are required to master the ability to sell IT solutions. The findings, when
submitted to Company X, went through further processes of problem-solving action. The content
creation team employed in Company X created a gap list to identify the knowledge and skills
each customer support agents already knew and those they still needed to learn (Lucas,
Pinnington and Cabeza 2018).
In this way, they could identify the areas of improvement and accordingly the relevant
training and development program to address the concerns identified. With a new training
program in place, Company X could allocate new guidelines of actions to be used in the purpose
of the sales to each of its sales representatives. The problem-solution strategy of Company X
wasn't over with just allocating a new training kit to its sales representatives. Indeed, they closely
monitored each one of their sales representatives to see whether changes have been effectively
followed.
What I learned from this case study is I can begin with assessing a situation whenever
there is a need to device a training and development program. Considering my work on
PeoplePerHour, I randomly choose the customer support department of the company and

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prepared a training and development program for the new hires in the department. However,
before I began working on the company I was pretty much aware of the industry and the way
business survives here. Having no physical connection and interaction with the clients and
freelancers, it is difficult to keep things right. It was, therefore, important to develop customer-
focused thinking and identify the areas where they can create problems for freelance sites such as
'PeoplePerHour'. This was also the reason why I identified 'customer query understanding
capability' as an important work skill for the new hires. The way Company X handled their
problem helped me understand the importance of outsourcing the issue to an external consultant.
External consultants may provide some dynamic solutions to problems, which can be
implemented later on through training programs.
Case Study 2:
Popular and major automotive retail and manufacturing companies such as ‘Company Y’
faced a strong challenge constantly in fulfilling the fast-growing demand in the Chinese market.
There could be many reasons for why Company Y had struggled to satisfy the changing
customer demand. However, Company Y with its thorough research activities in problem
identification work could identify the actual problem. It was the traditional Learning
Management System (LMS), which was affecting the work efficiency of the sales team (Al
Amoush and Sandhu 2018). As a result, many automotive manufacturing and retail companies
like Company Y struggled poorly in producing a measurable and sustained increase in sales.
The learning management system was not the only problem faced by the company;
rather, there were other problems as well. Company Y had a very diverse workforce each
representing a different community and the culture. One group was different from the other with
respect to language efficiency and process understanding capability. As a result, few of the sales

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representative was far better than many others. Company Y had enjoyed having such people on
their side. However, those who lacked a good language command struggled miserably in
converting a call into potential sales (Mwendwa and Gitonga 2017). Some of the representatives
were highly educated and experienced as well whereas many others were less experienced.
It is really difficult to manage such a diverse team and ensure that the performance is not
affected. As a result, Company Y finally moved to an external consultant seeking a solution to
get rid of these long-standing management issues. The consultant provided Company Y, a pilot
PLS loaded with ‘Power University’ content. The PLS system was made customized as per the
suitability of the Chinese version of Audi. PLS resulted in sustained sales and service
performance of representatives in quick times. Company Y now had more time to utilize their
strength and work on learning new skills. Company Y also started giving 10-15 minutes of
briefing to each representative at the start of a shift every morning.
This case study on ‘Company Y’ also revealed the importance of identifying the
gaps in organizational skills. Company Y had the system in place to train its people; however,
due to not having good content, the training programs failed significantly in meeting the
changing task demands. This also gave me a point to learn that good content should be also
included in the training module to make it more relevant to the current business demands. What I
did to construct a training and development plan for ‘PeoplePerHour’, was entirely based on the
way freelance marketplace behaves. However, I forgot to include a point that contents should be
regularly updated to make it relevant to the rising demands. A freelance marketplace like
‘PeoplePerHour’ should learn to understand the different situations and be flexible with those
(Hossain, Rahman and Rahman 2017). For instance, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak,

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the freelance marketplace should also urge its freelancers and self-employed clients to donate for
coronavirus affected people. This will help 'PeoplePerHour' gain good market recognition.
Case Study 3:
‘Company Z’ enjoys a high rating for providing services on data, voice, network and
cloud solutions to many tops listed Fortune 500 companies. Sustaining an excellent performing
customer support team is a top priority for Company Z. However, at once they had to face a
situation when the turnover rate for its customer service team measured at 35%. They found their
traditional LMS training as no longer suitable to control the rising turnover of employees.
Customer representatives lacked good solutions on many queries of the customers. It did not just
cause frustration for the customers but the representatives as well (Hossain 2017). They moved
to an external consultant seeking a solution to this problem. The consultant did not change the
customer service content; rather worked on the original content of Company Z to devise
customized content. The customized contents helped each of its representatives respond strongly
and confidently to numerous customer queries.
This case study helped me learn that by keeping the original content the same, we
can still do the wonder by making it more customized and suitable to the needs of customer
support representatives. In the context of the freelance marketplace, the call protocol can be kept
the same; however, few changes can be introduced to it overtimes to keep it suitable for the reps
and customers. For instance, refund policy can be changed over time as per the business needs
and the reasons for the same can be communicated to reps to help them deliver good calls.
Concluding remarks

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The use of case studies to evaluate and carry out a reflective practice, as done in this
reflection report, can be useful in assessing a piece of work. Case studies may contain a range of
problems and the solutions as shown in this report. These problems and solutions may not have
been covered in a piece of own work to be assessed. Therefore, these new findings will broaden
our knowledge of a particular topic and help to learn new things. Learning in this way could be
helpful in writing good papers on the same topic in the future.

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References
Al Amoush, A. and Sandhu, K., 2018. Learning Management Systems in Jordan Context.
Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT).
Eaton, C., 2016. “I don’t get it”,–the challenge of teaching reflective practice to health and care
practitioners. Reflective Practice, 17(2), pp.159-166.
Hossain, M.Z., 2017. Building Sustainable Relationships through Customer Support Service in
Telecommunication Industry. Global Journal of Management And Business Research.
Hossain, Z., Rahman, A. and Rahman, S.K., 2017. Impact of Product Support Services on
Customer Satisfaction and Repurchase Intention. International Journal in Management & Social
Science, 5(7), pp.92-102.
Lucas, H., Pinnington, S. and Cabeza, L.F., 2018. Education and training gaps in the renewable
energy sector. Solar Energy, 173, pp.449-455.
Mwendwa, L.U.C.Y. and Gitonga, A.K., 2017. Factors influencing call center agent attrition: A
case of Kenya Power call center. International Academic Journal of Information Sciences and
Project Management, 2(1), pp.415-434.
Trelfa, J., 2016. Whatever happened to'reflective practice'?. Journal of Research Institute, 53,
pp.79-102.