When a company offers a product or service, it is obvious that these must meet minimum quality standards. However, how well done the product is or how well the service is done is not the only thing that influences a customer’s satisfaction.

Aspects such as the treatment of workers, waiting time, how clear it is what it means to contract a certain service, among others, are key to understanding not only the fact that the client pays, but also that he comes back in the future. For this reason, the company must be clear about how its staff should interact with customers and, if something is not quite right, proceed to improve it.

The customer service cycle refers to all the steps that happen when a user comes to an organisation to get a service or product . This is something that the company must have very well defined in order to know how the clientele is treated and to what extent they are satisfied or not.

Here we are going to talk more in depth about what the service cycles are about, as well as explaining the steps to follow in order to elaborate them and, finally, we put a practical case.

What is the customer service cycle?

The customer service cycle is the entire sequence of actions that customers go through when they make contact with an organization until they get the product or service they are looking for. In other words, it is a continuous chain of events through which a customer passes when contacting a company.

This cycle starts when the client requests the service or product that the company offers and ends when the client achieves what he was looking for and feels satisfied with the treatment received.

During this process, customer and supplier maintain contacts, which are called “moments of truth”. The customer’s experience of these moments of truth may be positive or negative, depending on how he or she felt at the time the salesperson or service provider treated him or her.

Companies are very aware of how the customer service cycle works and, especially, how the moments of truth occur, since, even if only one bad experience can be perceived by the customer, it can completely ruin the possible sale or offer of the service.

The great usefulness of the customer service cycles is that they allow us to know the weaknesses and strengths of an institution when the organization-client contact takes place, as well as allowing us to identify what needs to be improved .

It should be noted that an organisation’s service cycle should not be seen as a simple set of tasks . It should be understood that what is important in these cycles is how the customer experiences the actions and lives them in a pleasant way, with the benefit of him requesting the product or service again from that same company in the future.

Steps for developing a service cycle

In order to delimit exactly how the cycle of the service to the client takes place in a company, it is necessary to follow a series of steps, with which it will be possible to define the moments that occur during the process of purchase or offer:

1. Identify moments of truth

The first step analyses the moments when there is interaction between the client and the vendor, supplier or any other professional offering a certain product or service.

To ensure that they have been correctly identified and delimited, it is advisable to resort to the professional opinion of analysts, promoters or other specialists in the field of economics that will allow for greater precision in the moments to be analysed.

It is important to establish what are the critical moments that occur during the cycle. A critical moment is one in which aspects such as customer satisfaction and mood can be negatively affected in the event of any type of incident.

Companies must be especially careful when interacting with their customers in these critical moments , otherwise they run the risk of progressively losing users due to the offer of a bad service.

2. Requirements

At this point you should find out and clarify what is required in order to improve the service offered .

It is advisable to ask what the organization itself thinks about what is needed to improve services, especially to supervisors and managers, who will offer a more holistic view of what is required to achieve better contact with the clientele.

3. Action plans

Once it is clear what is needed to improve the service, it is time to establish strategies for improvement.

At this point , the institution’s directors can be consulted , who will draw up the action plans in the most efficient way with the resources available.

4. Prioritization of areas

When plans for improvement have been decided upon, the areas that require short-term intervention should be chosen, either because of their importance within the organization or because they are seriously underdeveloped.

It is advisable to draw up a list in which the items are ordered according to their level of priority.

5. Customer satisfaction survey

Last but not least, a satisfaction survey should be elaborated , with the intention of being able to clearly achieve what clients think of the organisation and how it relates to them.

It is very important to reflect on what deserves to be asked, and to put it down on paper in the least ambiguous way possible.

With these tools it will be possible to know the perception that the clientele has about the organization, that is why, at the time of reading the questions, it must be clear what is being asked and, thus, to be able to obtain a feedback coming from the clients that turns out to be profitable.

Example of a duty cycle

Below we present what would be the service cycle in a bank. In this cycle we mention the different moments of truth that occur between the customer’s arrival at the establishment until he leaves it, and all the steps he goes through. In this case, the customer in question has decided to go to the bank because he wants to cash a cheque:

  1. The client decides to go to the bank to cash a check.
  2. Take public transportation to the bank.
  3. Get in the bank.
  4. Within the bank, observe the process of check cashing.
  5. Ask a worker what he needs to do to cash the check.
  6. The employee tells you that you must first take a number in order to be served on a first-come, first-served basis.
  7. The client waits until his turn comes, which can last more or less depending on the number of clients in front of him.
  8. The client is called to the window.
  9. The client greets the cashier and presents the check.
  10. The worker verifies the data on the check.
  11. The worker asks in which bills he wants to be given the money.
  12. The customer responds and the cashier gives him the money.
  13. The client checks the money received, which is the correct amount.
  14. The client says goodbye and leaves the bank.
  15. The client takes public transportation home again.

In the example given here, several critical moments can be analysed, i.e. moments in which if there had been any kind of incident, especially serious, they could have spoiled all the service offered.
There have been several critical moments. The first one was when the first worker indicated that he had to take a number. If he had answered inappropriately, indicating that it was obvious what he had to do, it would have been a clearly unpleasant moment of truth for the client.

The next one was the moment he had to wait for. If he had had to wait for a long time, the customer might have thought that the company was not managing its tasks well, or that it did not have enough cash machines for so many customers. This can make it easier for the customer to consider changing banks.

Finally there is the moment when you give the check and go to receive the money, this moment being the most critical . If the cashier had made a mistake when giving the customer the money, giving him less than the expected amount, the customer might have thought that the bank was trying to swindle him, something that is clearly not a desirable situation when going to a bank.

Bibliographic references:

  • Baker, M.J. (2001). Marketing: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, Vol. 5, Routledge, pp. 3-4
  • Kotler, P.; Keller, K. (2006). Marketing Management. Mexico: Pearson.