6.2 Customer Service
Vision: Victoria has outstanding levels of customer
service in all areas of the tourism industry.
Objectives
- Provide a competitive advantage for Victoria through outstanding
levels of customer service.
- Ensure visitor satisfaction.
Exceptional Customer Service
Background
Victoria has an opportunity to position itself as providing exceptional
and seamless customer service. Work has already been done in relation
to training, the development of standards and codes, accreditation,
and improvements in technology and business systems.
Delivering quality customer service makes good sense for the tourism
industry as a whole, as it potentially improves perceptions and
increases the desire to visit. For communities, it can contribute
to improvements for locals as well as visitors and encourage greater
cohesion and pride of place. Delivering quality customer service
also makes good business sense for individual enterprises because
it inevitably leads to satisfied customers, repeat visitation and
word of mouth promotion.
The delivery of effective customer service involves both tangible
and intangible elements. Intangible elements include reliability,
assurance, responsiveness and empathy. Tangible elements relate
to product and service delivery, physical facilities, itineraries,
staff presentation and appearance, opening hours, group sizes, and
food quality.
The achievement of exceptional customer service implies consistent
and seamless service standards that exceed expectations and are
a highlight of a visitor's trip experience.
Regular and disciplined performance monitoring is critical for
business and industry development. This is essential if Victoria
is to position itself as providing excellence in visitor services.
Monitoring performance requires the development of standards and
indicators relevant to business systems, product quality, the tangible
and intangible elements of customer satisfaction, technical competencies
and sustainability. Indicators should be relevant, realistic, simple
and assist in decision-making. Performance monitoring may be linked
to codes of practice, accreditation, certification and benchmarking
and should be an integral part of any quality management system.
A pilot program to measure product and service delivery has been
trialled successfully by the Alpine Shire and selected major attractions
assisted by Tourism Victoria. This service assessment program can
be effectively applied by businesses, destinations and regions.
Information provision through promotional material, visitor information
centres, and road signage is critical for creating appropriate expectations
and influencing satisfaction.
Tourist road signing needs to be considered as part of an integrated
approach to providing visitor information services in conjunction
with quality road and tourist maps, information bays, visitor
information centres and other marketing support material.
Signage allows communities to brand and promote their town or
area and contributes to the visitor experience by informing visitors
and giving them the confidence to venture off major routes. It
is also significant for the many small to medium business located
in regional Victoria, which rely on signing to direct visitors
to their premises.
Signs should ensure ease of visitor navigation through appropriate
placement and design, facilitate motorist recognition and comprehension
through the use of consistent colours and symbols, meet road safety
objectives and reduce roadside clutter and visual pollution created
by a proliferation of uncontrolled and inappropriate signs.
Issues
There is a need to better understand the elements of exceptional
customer service and customer satisfaction. There is also a need
to understand the current level of product and service delivery.
To create a sound competitive advantage, there must be a systematic
focus on customer service supported by quality assurance processes
including auditing and monitoring.
Greater cooperation is essential to provide seamless, integrated
customer service that focuses on the total visitor experience.
There is a clear link between community awareness of the value
of tourism and quality visitor services, as communities must value
visitors to create a welcoming attitude.
Strategies
- Undertake research to better understand expectations of Victoria's
target markets and visitor satisfaction of destinations, products
and services.
- Benchmark current levels of service and identify service gaps.
- Develop an exceptional customer service training manual based
on best practice case studies. Support this with a seminar series
to be taken up by destinations that seek to position themselves
for quality product and service delivery.
- Incorporate customer service into formal training and education
programs.
- Expand accreditation criteria to incorporate excellence in
product and service delivery.
- Continue to develop customer service as an integral component
of award and recognition programs.
- Implement customer service audit programs at a business, destination
and regional level.
- Scope, research and develop visitor satisfaction monitoring
tools that can be used by the tourism industry in Victoria.
