Customer Service Manager: Prioritizing Demands and Development Plan

This report analyzes a customer service manager's approach to managing personal work priorities and professional development within the context of BizOps. The report begins with a prioritization of daily demands, categorized by high, medium, and low priority, and explains the rationale behind these choices, considering factors like employee stress, customer complaints, and recruitment needs. A personal development plan is then outlined, detailing career objectives, personal goals, and an assessment of current competencies, identifying areas for improvement such as leadership and computer skills. The plan includes training opportunities, networking strategies, and recommendations for improving work-life balance among the sales representatives. Feedback forms are used to gather insights from staff, customers, and colleagues to assess the manager's effectiveness in addressing organizational issues and achieving personal and professional growth. The report references various academic sources to support its arguments.

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Manage Personal Work Priorities and Professional Development
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Contents
Prioritization of demands:..........................................................................................................3
Feedback form:...........................................................................................................................4
Personal Development Plan:......................................................................................................4
Feedback form:...........................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................6

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1. Prioritization of demands:
As a customer service manager, the professional demands for a particular working day have
to be assigned with priorities in order to estimate feasible approaches needed for addressing
organizational goals (Løwendahl, 2005). The prioritization of various demands on a Monday
could be observed from the to-do list and allocation of distinct priorities such as low, medium
and high. From the perspective of a professional development plan, it is essential to produce a
document that describes how I prioritized the competing demands for my time on Monday
morning. The high priority tasks for me as a customer service manager included meeting with
the team and interview with a new candidate for the position of sale rep in our organization.
The meeting with team was assigned high priority owing to the increasing concerns
pertaining to stress among employees and setbacks related to their work-life balance that
could be responsible for increase in number of customer complaints. The interview was
assigned with high priority because it is essential to address the problem of turnover that may
arise from the pertinent issues of stress and work-life balance.
Recruitment of appropriate candidate that can be a perfect fit according to the conditions
would be helpful in resolving the problem of turnover (Ahrens & Chapman, 2000). It would
also be essential to determine the capabilities of the new candidate to perform according to
the organizational objectives, plans and policies of BizOps. The task of medium priority is
recognized in the form of contact with a customer for managing a complaint (Kydd,
Crawford & Riches, 1997). Management of customer complaint is a mandatory responsibility
of a customer service manager thereby validating the prioritization. The low priority tasks are
identified in the form of research on the existing trends in customer service policy and
reviewing the Customer Service Charter as well as meeting for discussion on sales promotion
(Bubb & Earley, 2007).
The tasks are assigned with low priority as the outcomes would be relevant for meetings in
the next week (Adey, 2000). It is also essential to produce reasons for prioritizing
unscheduled events of the day such as high prioritization for the task of discussion with the
HR manager, Gina, regarding problems with recruitment agency and adjusting the schedule
for the 10 minute delay of the sale rep interview candidate, Craig Bullen. The meeting with
the irate customer abusing the sales rep, Roxanne would be assigned with medium priority.
Prioritization is not necessarily responsible for allocating time to specific tasks (Dwyer &

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Hopwood, 2013). On the contrary, it reflects on the specific order in which the professional
tasks for a day can be addressed so as to obtain optimal productivity.
2. Feedback form:
The Feedback form for identifying my competence can be found in the appendix. The form
has been specifically designed to obtain general responses from staff, customers and
colleagues (Eraut, 1994). The outcomes of the feedback could be promising for me as a
customer service manager in order to address the issues faced by the organization such as
turnover due to stress and discrepancies in work-life balance as well as the increasing
customer complaints (Elmore, 2002).
3. Personal Development Plan:
My personal development plan would be designed in accordance with the organizational
plans and policies of BizOps and would comprise of career objectives, personal goals,
assessment of personal competences, requirement of new competences, opportunities for
training and development, implementation of action plan and networking plans for
development of new skills (Grady & McCarthy, 2008).
My career objectives include accomplishing a productive leadership position as a health and
safety representative, obtaining an Advanced Diploma in Leadership, improve my network of
professional contacts and associate with a promising professional organization.
My personal goals are directed towards improving my professional competences and identify
areas of insufficiency in personal competences that can facilitate insights for continuous
improvement process. Another significant personal goal in my personal development plan
would be to acquire the necessary information required for addressing contingency situations
at the workplace.
The personal development plan would also include references to assessment of personal skills
and knowledge with respect to the units of competency for management of quality customer
service. The evaluation would involve three units of competency which reflect on planning
for fulfilling the internal and external customer requirements; monitoring, adjustment and
review of customer service and ensuring delivery of quality products and services. With
respect to the first element, the planning to meet internal and external customer requirements

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I have initiated efforts such as attachment of feedback form to a product and allocating
priority to interaction with customers while preparing my schedule.
The feedback form also helped in obtaining an impression of the feasibility of plans in
accomplishing the desired specifications of cost, quality and time. From the perspective of
the second element, the competences would be directed towards delivery of products and
services (Marshall, 1998). In this respect, I have not been able to address the appropriate
delivery of products and services according to the customer’s specifications in response to the
business plan of BizOps as it can be observed in customer complaints. On the other hand, I
have been able to ensure appropriate monitoring of team performance through reviewing the
coordination of sales promotion and interacting with on road sales reps of the organization.
The communication with sales reps through meetings was also associated with assistance for
colleagues to overcome setbacks in addressing customer service standards (Maister, 2012). I
also depicted positive outcomes with respect to the final unit of competency that refers to
monitoring, adjustment and review of customer service. The initiative for feedback form
attached with product and the improvisation of online feedback form can be accounted as
personal skills that are relevant to the units of competency required for management of
quality in customer service (Newell et al., 2009).
New skills that need to be developed for personal development include training in computer
skills for increasing the efficiency of real-time monitoring of interactions of sales reps with
customers. Leadership skills such as identification of behavioural attitudes among sales reps
would be helpful for recognizing the sources of motivation for each employee thereby
resolving issues of stress and disorder in work-life balance.
The training and development opportunities could be perceived in completion of an
Advanced Diploma in Leadership alongside participation in team meetings as well as face-to-
face customer interactions (Scribner, 1999).
The plans for networking to develop the required new skills would involve participation in
senior executive meetings for drawing inferences regarding leadership. Development of
contacts with sales reps along with the ones on the road would also be included in the plan for
development of networks (Thamhain, 1990). Participation with peers and engaging in group
activities at workplace would also be included in networking plans.

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The personal development plan would be supported with the recognition of new skills that
can assist in maintaining a competitive edge as a customer service manager. The new skills
include time management, research skills and participative leadership.
4. Work Life Balance
In order to help the sales reps accomplish feasible work life balance, my personal
recommendations would be directed towards time management. I would imply that I could be
able to maintain a productive work-life balance through effective prioritization of tasks with
respect to the organizational plan (Quinn, Anderson & Finkelstein, 1997). Furthermore, I
would also emphasize on the benefits of personal development during work that would
improve commitment to work alongside contributing to betterment of personal life.
Feedback form:
 What is your expectation from a customer service manager at BizOps?
 Is the CSM able to address your identified needs?
 What are the positive traits you find in the manager?
 What are the negative areas you encounter with the manager?
 Did the manager try to address the negative aspects in their activities?
 If yes, what was the approach followed by them?
 Was the manager successful in resolving your problem?
 Would you prefer to interact again with the manager for any issue?
 What suggestions would you give to the manager for improvement?
References
Ahrens, T. and Chapman, C.S., 2000. Occupational identity of management accountants in
Britain and Germany. European Accounting Review, 9(4), pp.477-498.
Adey, K., 2000. Professional development priorities: The views of middle managers in
secondary schools. Educational Management & Administration, 28(4), pp.419-431.
Bubb, S. and Earley, P., 2007. Leading & managing continuing professional development:
Developing people, developing schools. Sage.

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Dwyer, J. and Hopwood, N., 2013. Management strategies and skills (Vol. 10, p. 240). in
Australia by McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd Level 2, 82 Waterloo Road, North
Ryde NSW 2113.
Eraut, M., 1994. Developing professional knowledge and competence. Psychology Press.
Elmore, R.F., 2002. Bridging the gap between standards and achievement: The imperative for
professional development in education. Secondary lenses on learning participant book: Team
leadership for mathematics in middle and high schools, pp.313-344.
Grady, G. and McCarthy, A.M., 2008. Work-life integration: Experiences of mid-career
professional working mothers. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(5), pp.599-622.
Kydd, L., Crawford, M. and Riches, C., 1997. Professional development for educational
management. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Løwendahl, B., 2005. Strategic management of professional service firms. Copenhagen
Business School Press DK.
Marshall, S.J., 1998. Professional development and quality in higher education institutions of
the 21st century. Australian Journal of Education, 42(3), pp.321-334.
Maister, D.H., 2012. Managing the professional service firm. Simon and Schuster.
Newell, S., Robertson, M., Scarbrough, H. and Swan, J., 2009. Managing knowledge work
and innovation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Scribner, J.P., 1999. Professional development: Untangling the influence of work context on
teacher learning. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(2), pp.238-266.

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Thamhain, H.J., 1990. Managing technologically innovative team efforts toward new product
success. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 7(1), pp.5-18.
Quinn, J.B., Anderson, P. and Finkelstein, S., 1997. Managing professional intellect: making
the most of the best. In The strategic Management of Intellectual capital (pp. 87-98).