Priority Tasks for a Customer Service Manager
Discuss about the Manage Personal Work Priorities and Development.
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 & 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.
Creating a Personal Development Plan
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).
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 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.
Units of Competency for Quality Customer Service
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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).
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