Lack of Consolidated Measurement Tool in Client Service - Research Proposal Example

Lack of Consoli d Measurement Tool in Client Service Introduction Improvement in client services provided by a company is essential for growth. Majority of organizations, especially the large companies have been setting aside a department that could be dealing in client services. In most of them, marketing department is set aside to take care of client service. Measurement of any business component is important in its growth and improvements. However, most of the business components are very difficult to measure. And in particular it is difficult to measure the client services. This is because of the need to employ a cross-channel, data intensive approach and an underlying technology that support the cross channel and intensive data (Haven & Vittal, 2008). As a result, it is necessary to employ measurement tools in order to understand such components. This paper proposes an investigation on the lack of consolidated measurement tools for measuring client services. The paper explains the research problem that would be investigated, research question that would be address, objectives that should be achieved, and the benefits that would be obtained from the investigation. Problem statement Companies have been using several measurement tools to measure client service. Each of these tools has its advantages as well as disadvantages. One of the most common measurement tools used by the companies to measure client service is the business outcome. Most companies believe that increase in outcome of a business indicate an improvement in customer loyalty resulting from improved client services. However, none of the companies in the industries of our economy has adapted a consolidated measurement tool for client services. The problem that would be addressed by the proposed investigation would be lack of one consolidated system to measure performance in terms of statistics and productivity in a bank. The bank that would be used in investigating this problem would be identified among the ones operation in the United States. It would be either a national banking institution or an international banking institution. Research questions Client services encompass any service provided to a customer. These services are mainly aimed at addressing a particular need of the customer. When a customer visits or calls an organization, his expectations are to obtain the best solutions to his present problems. The company might have the ability to solve the problem of the customer at that particular moment. However, it might also be unable to solve that problem in that moment. This might be due to running out of stock or not dealing with the products that the customer wants. Whatever the case, the customer expects to be served well with utmost courtesy. One of the research questions that would be investigated by the proposed research is how the client service should be effectively measured to enhance service delivery. This research question would reveal the reasons why the bank has not been able to design a consolidated system for measuring its client service. Customers have different characteristics and personalities. There are those who are quick to get angry and those who rarely get angry. Moreover, there are those with high level of tolerance and those without tolerance. This makes them to respond differently to services provided to them by an organization. In addition, customers reactions to services provided to them by organizations can be influenced by several factors. Some factors are internal while others are external. Internal factors are those that appear from within the organizations. These are like employees willingness to serve, company’s level of technology, and the mode of client service delivery chosen by a company. External factors are those that are not from within a company. These include competition level, government restrictions, and globalization. What are the influences of these factors to the adaption of a consolidated measurement tool for the measuring client services? This is the other research question that would be addressed by the proposed study. How do changes in business operations in the banking sector influence the lack of consolidated measurement tool for measuring client service in the identified bank? Business operation in different sectors of the economy has been changing dramatically in the past few years. The banking sector is among the sectors that have received the most changes. These changes have brought a need for the companies to build a good customer base in order to survive in their respective industries. A strong customer base could only be created through increasing the customers’ trust and confidence on the company. This could be achieved by improving the quality and effectiveness of services provided to the customers by the company. Measurement of client service would be very essential in helping a company to achieve this goal. This research question of how the changes in business operations has influenced lack of consolidated systems for measuring client services is the other question that would be investigated by the proposed research. Client services influence the consumers’ perception about the company. This perception can be obtained through the customer feedbacks. Several companies use the feedbacks obtained from the customers and other stakeholders as a measurement tool for its client services. The feedback could be obtained through an interview, a survey, or a business experiment. However, as earlier indicated, customers of an organization are influenced by several factors. Moreover, they have varying characteristics. How effective then is the use of client feedbacks in measuring client service provided by an organization like the identified bank? This would be the other research question that would be investigated by the proposed research study. Primary objective To investigate the causes of lack of consolidated measurement tools for measuring client services in an organization. To explore the impact of lack of a consolidated system of measuring services provided to customers in an organization. To investigate some of the measure that could be used to facilitate adaption of a consolidated system of measuring services provided to clients by an organization. To examine the effects of the characteristics and attributes of the clients of an organization in the designing of a consolidated measurement tool for measuring client services. Secondary objective Exploring factors that influence the ability of an organization to expand in its respective industry Determining the ineffectiveness of the methods used currently by organizations in the identified industry in measuring levels of client services. To identify the people who could play the greatest role in enhancing the ability of an organization to adapt consolidated measurement tools of measuring client services. Exploring the regulatory measure that could be adapted to influence the ability and commitment of people mandated with making consolidated tools of measuring client services. Significance of the study Organizations like the ones to be banking institutions to be identified in the proposed research would benefit from the study in several ways. One of the ways is that they would be able to discover some of the possible factors that have made them fail in some of their effort to expand their operation. This is because the study would address the causes of their failure to adapt a consolidated measurement tool for client services that to a great extent impact their ability to expand their business. Moreover, organizations like the one to be identified for the investigation would be able to increase their competitiveness in their respective industry. This is because the research study would address some of the issues affecting the competitiveness of organization; the issue of measuring client service provided to client. This would make them to discover factors that might be influencing or affecting their competitiveness thus enabling them to overcome some of them. Literature review Several scholars have studied issues to do with measuring of client services in organizations. Hayes (2008) indicated that customer loyalty could be reliably measured to provide loyalty indices that could be used to reveal growth of an organization. Growth in an organization is identified in terms of increase in client base. This growth might have been contributed by a raise in client services provided by an organization. However, it can also be contributed by other factors. Therefore, use of loyalty indices to measure client services might be somehow unreliable thus leading to wrong findings. Moreover, Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson (2012) found out that an effective measurement of services provided to clients by an organization should integrate performance measurement, portfolio analytics, and universal comparisons. If they fail to integrate these three components then it would not have the capability of achieving the required results. Integrating of these components might be influenced by several factors. The factors vary both in characteristics and in impacts. However, the factors affect organizations in the world regardless of the location, the industry they operate, or their line of operation. Lack of consolidated measurement tools for measuring client services has several causes. One of them is low level of commitment to individuals mandated to make this kind of tools. Perezgonzalez (2005) found that commitment is a legal requirement to all the senior managers in some industries especially the ones involving human health. Therefore, if a senior manager lacks commitment in his work then legal actions should be taken against him. This is because they bear the most responsibilities when it comes to making of major decisions. Designing of a consolidated measurement tools for measuring client services is a critical business issue. As a result, senior managers mandated with designing and implementing such tools should give the process the commitment it deserves. Hendrikse & Hendrikse (2003) indicated that effective business governance structure should promote consumer engagement in an effort to raise their consumer loyalty. Designing of measurement tools for client service, being a management issue, is greatly influenced by the method of governance adapted by an organization. Most organizations in the world have adapted a mode of governance that makes each of their departments to have a very high degree of independence. The independence of departments promoted by the governance used in business organizations makes the decision-making concerning consolidated measurement tools to be difficult. Lack of consolidated client-service measurement tool has been resulting to a varying impact across different industries. Fit-enz (2001) found that for a monopolistic situation, customers have a limited choice of defecting from an organization. As a result, lack of consolidated measurement tool for client services would have little impact to the organization in this kind of a situation. However, for a competitive situations, clients have unlimited opportunity to shift from one organization to another. This might make the lack of consolidated measurement tool for measuring client services to have great impact in this kind of a situation. Boer (2006) found that proving to the customers that the client services provided to them meets the standards they require as the most effective way of building a good customer base. Achieving a good customer base is an effective tool of enhancing growth of organizations in different industries of the economy. Any factor that could influence the improvement of customer base would probably influence the growth of an organization. Adopting of a consolidated measurement tool would be crucial for any kind of organization that is aiming to grow and expand its operation. This is because of the great ability to expand the customer base that it would provide to an organization despite the economic challenges that might exist. Competition in different industries of the economy has greatly increased for the past few years. Bermejo (2007) revealed that the ability to offer results about markets and measures of how to reach this market would promote the competitiveness of an organization. Apart from monopolistic markets, other markets in which organizations operate involve several companies that produce similar products or services. The ability of an organization to offer results about markets and measures of reaching those markets can be influenced by technology. Therefore, technology contributes to competitiveness of an organization. This competitiveness of an organization can be used to indicate the levels of client services provided by the organization. Conclusion and Recommendation Client services are an essential component of business undertaking. This is because they promote growth of a company and makes it more competitive. Organizations have been using several means to measure their client services. However, this measurement tools have not been consolidated and thus have not been yielding the required results. Organizations operating in different industries have been lacking a consolidated measurement tool for measuring client service. This might have been caused by several factors like poor governance and lack of commitment of senior managers. Study undertaken using both qualitative and quantitative data yield better conclusions. This is because of its high ability of measuring different components of the study as well as its ability to compare different findings of the study. Using both quantitative and qualitative data in the proposed investigation is recommendable. This is because it would increase the ability of the research to draw better conclusions that would result to better decisions concerning the research problem. The use of this kind of approach would require employment of a mix of qualitative and quantitative research method. The research team should employ this kind of a research method for this research study. Identification of the sample and individuals to be included in the sample is a significant process in the research process. A random sampling technique could be appropriate for this research. This is because of its ability to minimize the biasness in the data thus resulting to better conclusions from the research. The research team undertaking the proposed investigative research should adapt this kind of a sampling technique. This would actually help in the achievement of better conclusions about the identified research questions. References Bermejo, F. (2007). The Internet Audience: Construction & Measurement. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Company. Boer, S. D. (2006). Six Sigma for I.T. Management. Amsterdam: Van Haren Publishing Company. Fit-enz, J. (2001). How to Measure Human Resource Management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional Company. Haven, B., & Vittal, S. (2008). Five Tools and Technologies to Measure Engagement. Retrieved from: http://www.adobe.com/engagement/pdfs/five_tools_and_tech_to_measure.pdf. On 16 September 2012. Hayes, B. E. (2008). Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Survey Design, Use, and Statistical Analysis Methods. Milwaukee, WI: ASQ Quality Press. Hendrikse, J. W., & Hendrikse, L. (2003). Business Governance Handbook: Principles and Practice. Cape Town: Juta & Co. Ltd. Hitt, M. A., Ireland, D., & Hoskinsson, R. E. (2012). Strategic Management Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Perezgonzalez, J. D. (2005). An Alternative Way of Managing Health & Safety (Knowledge Management Edition). New York, NY: Lulu International Press. Read More