Southern Cross: Ozhouse Clean Customer Complaint Report & Analysis

This report addresses customer complaints experienced by Ozhouse Clean after signing up with group buying websites. The primary issues include expired vouchers, delays in service, and discrepancies in the services offered compared to the coupons. The report provides an analysis of the situation, including the legal aspects of voucher expiry and the benefits and pitfalls of group buying websites for businesses. Recommendations are made for actions to be taken, such as implementing a clear voucher disclaimer and reminding customers about voucher expiry dates. The report also includes a discussion on customer surveys, the different methods of administering them, questionnaire design, and the characteristics of a well-designed questionnaire. The report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues faced and propose strategies for improving customer service and preventing future complaints. The report also includes a customer survey, the different methods of administering them, questionnaire design, and the characteristics of a well-designed questionnaire.

ASSIGNMENT 3
BRIEFING REPORT FOR OZHOUSE CLEAN CUSTOMER COMPLAINT REPORT.
PURPOSE.
The purpose of this note is to help us understand what group buying website is and the customer complains at
hand that we need to resolve. Group buying website is defined as a website that offer daily discounts coupons
for various services for example a company can decide to offer their customers treatment at an exotic Spa, body
massages and meals at distinguished hotels. It is usually offer a new deal every day.
Summary of the issues/ Current Situation.
The main issues that we are dealing with are; presentation of vouchers that had expired. This posed a challenge
to us because the vouchers which are expired cannot be redeemed because they are beyond the acceptable time
limit. Three customers had these expired vouchers. When our customer services officers explained to them the
situation, two of them were not satisfied and reported our company to the Department of fair trading because
they were incapable of redeeming for the services paid for because we do not offer refunds in relation to such
vouchers.
When we were signing up for group buying website, we experienced delays and therefore we had two clients
who protested that they had to wait for too long to convert their vouchers for an preliminary clean. We also had
another customer who complained that they had called to book an introductory clean, but were informed that
that the coupon only covered one hour unpaid for cleaning and they would have to give a fee the full amount,
requiring the customer to pay an additional $70.
Analysis of required legislation.
Background.
Before issuing a voucher, it is important to ensure that the purchaser is notified by a pre-printed display or a
well readable display the expiry date, all terms and conditions on how the voucher may be used for example,
whether it can only be used on certain days or certain times of the day or particular stores and expiry date. If the
business has adhered to all these and the customers still present the expired voucher or coupons, unfortunately
there is no obligation on the business to honour it. In our case this was correctly indicated and therefore there
are no legal issues that may arise from this case.
As for the customers who reported us to the Department of fair Trading, we have a valid licence from the
department to conduct our business and we have done this within the set rules and regulations and therefore
nothing to worry about because we are on the safe side of the law.

Issues with use of group buying web sites for businesses, including benefits and pitfalls.
One of the major benefits that prompt businesses to use group buying concept is because it is a very effective
marketing tool because it focuses on promoting brand awareness to a large audience aiming at gaining repeat
customers who eventually become loyal to the company.
For the companies who have been in business for a long period of time or well established businesses they can
use this tool to introduce or launch new products and services to the market.
All the vouchers that are bought thought the sites are pre-paid and are valid only for a period of time and
therefore the businesses receive a large sum of money once from the sales.
Group selling concept is usually used by most businesses to off load or sell off poor quality, poor selling or the
stock that has lasted for a long time in the shelves.
It also increases traffic or getting a lot of people through the businesses door and thus having up sell people
when they are onsite. This concept also help the business to capture details that are needed for follow up
marketing to continue improving on services or on customer experience. This creates an opportunity or it is a
major factor in getting return customer and people or customers telling friends or family about the experiences
at these sites.
Group buying could help merchants or business to develop a large customer base within a short period of time.
Pitfalls
Group selling sites have their pitfalls especially to customers. Firstly, the deals in these sites are not always
“dirt” cheap. The reasons why these sites are created is not always true or with good will for the consumers. A
good hype is created around the product or services on offer to make you believe that they are worth that
particular quoted price or sum, then a large discount for example 85% is offered, and this always exclude the
cheap commodities.
These companies or businesses wants all the customers or clients to be in touch and therefore they keep
spending. They ensure that they keep you posted and up-to-date with emails and messages to inform you what
is going cheap so that you keep purchasing, and they keeping making money. Most customers especially on the
first encounter they purchase even what they do not need simply because of the discount offered. With more
product selling cheap you really want to keep track so that you do not miss the golden deals as if there is an
emergency to purchase. This has seen more consumers going off their budgets.
Not getting good enough service by the retailer or seller simply because you're on discount, kind of defeats the
purpose. One of the objectives for business trying group buying concept is to recruit new customers that they
can potentially keep as their loyal customers.
These group selling sites and offers are usually attached with “terms and Conditions” and if you as a customer
don’t read and understand them you might end up losing or wasting your money for example a treatment at a

spa which can only be redeemed at a particular time of the day like at 12:00 pm and at this particular time you
are at work and cannot be available.
During these sales, certain changes may occurs for example when merchants have disputes with the websites
they fail to honor the consumers offers, and in such cases refunds come up which are inconveniences to the
companies and the customers.
Some merchants that corroborate with these sites are fake or bogus. Sometimes you get offers which are truly
too good to be true because a merchant is scamming or is using fake goods, or not providing the full products
and/or services as promised in the original offer before the delivery.
It is very important for the business to note that group buying more often than not results in an influx of traffic
and customers. It is therefore crucial to be prepared because if your customer service fails, the venture will not
be a worthwhile investment and this could adversely affect your reputation or damage it completely.
These sales or offers sometimes may lead to losses for the business and therefore it is important for the business
to be prepared for the same.
Recommendations for actions, as well as recommendations that will be adopted internally to avoid this
situation reoccurring.
According to Federal or Minnesota Laws,” a coupon must contain to be meet legal requirements. If a coupon is
honest about its representations of material fact and clear and conspicuous about its terms conditions, then it is
most likely in compliance with federal and state law”.
It is crucial for vouchers and coupons to have a well displayed disclaimer that matches stores overall vouchers
acceptance policy. This will help the business to avoid legal liabilities that may arise, keep customers happy and
preserve public trust or image of the business.
Having a well written and comprehensive coupon and vouchers policies will also protect us from the exploitive
couponers who may replicate the coupons or vouchers.
Disclaimer that we shall include in our vouchers in the future.
 Treat this card as cash .This voucher is can only be redeemed for our cleaning services only.
Convertible at Ozhouse clean locations nationwide. Valid two years from the date of purchase. . It will
not be replaced if lost or stolen.
 Redeemable at Ozhouse Clean for our amenities not getting beyond the outstanding credit balance on
this card. Treat this card as cash; if it is lost, it will not be replaced. For gift card balance, terms and
expiration date, present this card at Ozhouse clean. Kindly note that this card is property of the issuer.
 This voucher may be used toward any buying made at any Ozhouse clean location. This gift card is not
exchangeable for cash or replaced if lost or stolen.
 Note that the voucher only covers one free hour of cleaning service and the customer would have to pay
the full amount, and if exceeds, the customer must pay an extra $70 for the services rendered.

The last action that I recommend is that all customer service officers should ensure they call our
customers regularly to remind them to redeem their vouchers before expiry so that they can avoid
disappointments after the vouchers have expired. With this I hope we shall be able to prevent such cases
or issues from surfacing again.
This is what you shall write in the email.
This attachment contains the summary of the explanation of what is Group Selling,challenges being
faced by Ozhouse, advantages and pitfalls of the group selling and recommendations of what Ozhouse
should do to avoid such challenges in the future.
PART TWO
CUSTOMER SURVEYS
Customer surveys are methods that companies use to get customers feedback, conduct market research,
measure the level of customer satisfaction and identify the customer’s expectations. Most of the
customers don’t raise their complains directly to the company and therefore customer survey will help
you get the feedback from customers on your service delivery.
There are several ways of administering customer surveys which includes;
 Face to face Interviews-where questions are asked directly to the customers by the researcher. This
method though has lost popularity with time because of loss of anonymity and high cost involved.
 Telephone survey-Where the researcher contacts the survey through the telephone conversations. The
main challenge with this method is that most customers are avoiding calls from anonymous sources.
 Online survey- This is the most popular method that organizations are using to conduct surveys because
it can reach customers in a wide geographical area and with least cost.
 Mail Survey- This is where the researcher sends mail to customers via mail boxes or e-mails with the
questioners for the survey. The mail disadvantage of this method is that most customers never bother to
respond to these mails.

Customer surveys are done mostly depending on the type of survey that a company wants to conduct, but most
companies do these surveys annually. If a company requires to conduct a customer satisfaction survey, it is
recommended that they do it semiannually so that the customers can sense their commitment to customer
satisfaction. For onboard or implementation survey, it is recommended that they are done within the first three
months for new customers. For project completion surveys, the survey is done at the end of a project
implementation.
Questionnaire design.
For any survey to achieve the desired success, the questionnaire must be well designed for the same.
It should have the following characteristics.
 A well designed questionnaire should meet the researchers objective or the target that the researcher is
aiming at.
 It should be able to obtain most complete and most accurate information from the interviewee or the
customer. It should be designed in a way that the interviewee will understand the question and is not
likely to lie or refuse to answer the questions.
 A well-designed questionnaire should make it easy for respondents to give the necessary information
and for the interviewer to record the answer and it should be arranged so that sound analysis and
interpretation are possible.
 The question should be brief and to the point and designed in a way that the interviewee or the
respondent will remain interested throughout the interview.
CUSTOMER SURVEY
The quality of service survey sample.
Kindly show your opinion by ticking one of the (4) numbers next to each statement. Number ( 1) being totally
dissatisfied and (4) being totally satisfied
1 2 3 4
Totally
dissatisfied
Dissatisfied Somewhat
Satisfied
Totally
satisfied
1 Ease of doing
business with
Ozhouse.
2 Time used to clean
3 Appearance of our
staff

4 The appearance of
our
materials(brochures)
5 How likely are you
to recommend our
services?
6 Performing service
right the first time
7 Safety you feel
when dealing with
our staff
8 The courtesy of our
employees
9 The willingness our
employees to help.
10 The convenience of
our operating hours.
11 Likelihood to use
our services again
12 How would you rate
our overall services?
This is what you shall write in the email
The purpose of the survey is to identify the quality of services we offer to our customers. Since we
improve on our services more often I will recommend that this survey to be done semi-annualy or twice
every year.
Secondly, I would also recommend that we use mail to administer our survey since it is an economical
way of conducting the survey.
Ref:
Group buying in China: Statista dossier on group buying in China. (2017).
Ferry, Lance. (2012). The Group Buying Handbook - Everything you need to know about Group Buying.
Emereo Publishing.
Mezines, B. J., & Bar Association of the District of Columbia. (1967). Group buying. Washington, D.C.?
Arkansas. (1997). Customer survey. Little Rock, Ark: Dept. of Insurance.

Brace, I. (2018). Questionnaire design: How to plan, structure and write survey material for effective
market research.
Gillham, B. (2015). Developing a questionnaire.
PART THREE.
Customer Survey Report.
In customer survey report, we start by identifying the survey methodology which is sampling of individual unit
from a population. In our case we sent the emails to city dwellers who had used our services for the last three
months. We conducted the survey through sending emails to the customers. We opted to use female customers
who are between 30-40 years of age. We sent 300 emails and only 49 responded and from these we were able to
make our conclusions and recommendations.
The key results that we collected included the following.
In overall satisfaction with Ozhouse clean services 26 out of 49 customers stated that they were satisfied and
this is a 42% of the total population that responded. This shows that we are at average in providing satisfaction
to our customers. Out of 49 customers,42 said that they would use our services again. This is a 72% of the
population. It shows that a good number of customers are happy with our services and they would use our
services again.
A 47% said that it was easy to do business with us and this is below average. I would recommend that we make
our procedures and processes to be made more customers friendly so that we can reach more customers.
Customers who said that they would recommend us to other customers were 63% and this means we are above
average in delivering our services but we should continue to improve on our services and this will enable us get
more recommendations especially to new customers.
These comments also were given by the customers.

 Cleaning staff great, but phone services a bit average.
In this case I would recommend that we have customer service officers who are dedicated and trained to handle
customers and customer queries through the phone and in future we should have a 24 hr. service line.
 Customer service staff could do with a bit more knowledge about products sold by the company, good
on services knowledge but not on products.
In this case, I recommend continuous training on the product knowledge sold by the company so that we
demonstrate exceptional knowledge on our products when we are answering to our customer’s queries.
 Optional extras such as ironing would be great as an add-on service.
On add on services we should consider offering ironing services to our customers because this was requested by
more than 10 customers.
In order to improve on overall satisfaction, we should ensure that every encounter we have with our customers
should be unforgettable and this will be achieved through consistent training our staff.