Costumer service

Preface.

In this essay, we are going to tell you something about the customer service of the two large oil companies Shell and BP. We are going to make a little comparison between the Customer Service of these two companies.

We hope you enjoy reading this essay.

Introduction.

In these days, Customer Service has become a mature importance to every company. Without Customer Service, a good relationship between customer and company will be unthinkable. Also with a good Customer Service a company will differ from other competitors. If a company gives Customer Service it means that they want to satisfy the customers needs and wants in the best possible way. If they have succeeded, the customer will return to do business with that company again. If the customer returns it will lead to higher profits for the company.
Good Customer Service leads to positive reactions of the customer and they will tell there friends about your company. This also will lead to more customers and a change of higher profits.


In this essay, we are going to compare two different oil companies, Shell and BP, on their Customer Service. We mainly have focused on the oil company Shell, because we first only wanted to tell you something about the Shell customer service. However, we have changed our plans and we looked up information about the oil company BP and made a small comparison between the two companies. We have also done some research on what the customer really thinks about the customer service of shell and we had an interview with the manager of a Shell Gas station in Nieuwegein.

And this all has lead to this essay.

1.The secret of the shell.

Before we start with telling you the information of Shell and Shells customer service, we first want to tell you a story about the secret of the shell of Shell. The Shell shell is the most famous shell of the world. If people see the shell, they right away know that it is the shell of Shell. However, how did Shell get that nice red/yellow shell sign as its logo?

1.1 Back to the birth of the shell.
How did the shell become the sign of Shell the larges oil company in the World? Well we start with going back in time, back to the 19th century, back to 1833. 1n 1833 there was a man named Marcus Samuel. This man opened a small shop in London’s East End in 1833; the firm was called Samuel & Co. They traded in Japanese seashells that were very popular at that moment. It did not take long before trading shells turned into a thriving general import and export business.
At the end of the 19th century the son of Marcus, Marcus Junior, took the firm into a different area of business. He came across oil exporting and he saw great opportunities in exporting kerosene for lamps. Unfortunately, Standard Oil in America had a monopoly on the business, so Marcus had to find a way to undercut prices. The Suez Canal offered a solution. In 1892, Marcus succeeded in transporting 4,000 tonnes of Russian kerosene to Singapore and Bangkok with the first special oil tanker. Samuel Senior came with the brilliant idea for the name of the export firm: ‘Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd’. After that it was not that difficult to choose a good sign for the company, they chose: ‘The shell’

1.2 The future of the shell.

In 1907, the Dutch company N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. started to work together and they become a new company with a new name: Shell ‘The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies’. However, the shell stayed the logo of the company. Just like the colours red and yellow. These colours where added to the shell logo in 1915 when the Shell Company of California started with building gas stations. There was great competition between the gas stations from other companies. Being seen was the
mature thing. And because California had great relationships with Spain, they choose the colours of the Spanish flag: Red and Yellow. And these colours are still used for Shell all over the world. In the 1960s, a famous designer named Raymond Loewy got the assignment to modernise the shell of Shell. The word Shell disappeared from the logo and only the shell was left. Loewy had a good reason for that. The shell of Shell was world know by that time. If people saw the shell they know it was the logo of Shell ‘The Royal Dutch/ Shell Group of Companies. That is the logo that we still see everywhere.


2. Customer service of Shell.

2.1 What is customer service?

Customer service is the way in which companies maintain their relationships with the customers; this can either be: before, during or after the sale.
There are six main characteristics of customer service:

2.1.1 Availability.
The product must be available at the points where it is being sold. E.g., gas stations must never be out of gas.

2.1.2 Period of delivery.
The period of delivery is that amount of time between the assigning of the order by the customer and the actual deliverance to the customer. These periods must be as limited as possible. Gas stations do not have any problems with their delivery times; they can either deliver or not deliver the gas they are asked to deliver.

2.1.3 Deliverance assurance.
A good assurance of delivery is crucial for a good relationship with your customer. This depends on the possibilities of the company to react on sudden orders. Again the gas station branch does most of the time not have problems with this, however, as we saw a couple of months ago, a regular supply of gas is essential. Because of the strike, English gas stations had problems with the supplying of fuel for quite some time.

2.1.4 Adapted products.
Some customers are looking for special designed products. Companies react on this by supplying several brands to the market.


2.1.5 Quality.
When you do not supply good quality products, customers will be not satisfied and look for the products at the competitor's shop.

2.1.6 After sales care.
After sales care is very important as well. When a customer is satisfied about the product, he or she will tell this to his friends and by doing this attract more customers to that particular company.

2.2 Classical types of customer service.

There are three different classical types of customer service:

Pre-sale service.
sale service.
After-sale service.

These are called classical, because companies have used them for many years.

2.2.1 Pre-sale service.

The service precious to the sale is very important, because during this stage of customer service, there still is a possibility of losing the customer. Pre-sale service involves:

Supplying product-information and sales conditions.
Demonstration of the product.
Giving possibilities for testing the product by the customer.

2.2.2 Sale service.

Providing specific product-information and technical advise.

Providing parking space.
Providing a restaurant, a shop, toilettes, call boxes, etc., etc.
Final demonstration of the specific product.

2.2.3 After sale service.

Checking the product at home.
Home delivery.
Free installation of the product.
The availability of a helpdesk.
Guarantees.

Gas stations merely provide sale service. Next to the main point of a gas station, selling gas and all sorts of fuel, they provide all sorts of extras. E.g., you can do most of your daily shopping at any gas station these days. Some gas stations are even planning to create a whole supermarket together with the Dutch mega-supermarket Albert Heijn near some of its gas stations.

Therefore, in this essay we mainly focused on how Shell solves a matter it has much more to do with, handling complaints.


2.3 Handling complaints.

Handling complaints is very important. When handling a complaint, the manager of e.g. a gas station first has to do a very important thing, i.e. listening to the complaining customer. An unsatisfied customer is the worst thing that can happen to a company. It is shown in the graph below that when a customer continuous to be unsatisfied, he will tell all his friends about the bad way the company handled his or her complaint. The result will be that the company loses customers and with that will lose profit as well.

2.3.1 Complaint procedure.

For handling complaints, most companies use complaint forms. By using these forms, a company can clearly see:

What the complaints about her policy are.
In which periods most complaints occur.
The solutions given by the people of the complaint department.
Which products are the most complaints about.
Which departments are the most complaints about.
Which employees made the most mistakes.

Based on this information, the management is able to make decisions on how to prevent such problems in future.
It is very important that a complaint form is filled in completely and accurately in order to enable the department who handles the complained to handle it fully completely and in a good way. It can be said in general, as noted before that customer service is the most imported way in which companies communicate with their customers in order to be able to continue satisfying them in a good way, serving them for the full 100%.

How Shell handles its customer service, is mentioned in the interview with the gas stations manager.


2.4 Questions to the manager

On the 23rd of December, we got back our questions we send by fax to the Gas station Shell at the A.C. Verhoefweg. The manager of that gas station was so kind to fill in these answer, as you can see below, which we could use for our Customer Service Project.

We have asked these questions to the manager:

1. How can you describe your customer service?
“The way in which the company maintains its relationship with its customers”.

2. Which parts of customer service are important in your branch?
“Clean and there is a coffee corner helpful and friendly”.

3. How many customers do you have weekly?
“Between the 3500 and 4000 customers”.

4. What kind of customers visits your gas station? Business/regular customers or coincidental?
“Most of the customers are Business or are coming out of the area.”

5. What is your opinion about the customer service at your gas station?
“Good, but it can be improved”.

6. Do you ever get any complaint from your customers? And how do you deal with these complaints?
“Yes, we do get some complaints”. “We listen to both sides of the story to solve it in the best possible way”.

“N.B. While doing this you must never attack your personnel in such situations in public”.

7. What is Shells policy on customer service?
“Shell policy is always put the customer at first place. There are no doubts about it”.

8. How do they make their policy clear to you as manager?
“By means of reading and messages”.

9. How do you train your employees so they know how to act on this policy?
“It starts with the job interview and they are being trained to”.

2.5 Customer Service Questions.

We have also made a Questionnaire to ask the customers of the Shell Gas station at the A.C Verhoefweg what they thought about the Customer Service at that Gas station. Below you can see the Question we have asked them. Unfortunately they are in Dutch, my apologies for that, But it were Dutch Customers, which we have asked the questions to.

These were the Questions:
1. Leeftijd:

18 – 29

30 – 39
40 – 49
50 – 60
60 – ouder

2. Bent u een regelmatige bezoeker van dit tankstation?

Ja / Nee* (* doorstrepen wat niet van toepassing is)

3. Komt u hier voor:

Privé / Zakelijk / Beide*

4. Waarom komt u nu juist naar dit benzinestation?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5. Wat denkt u van de klantvriendelijkheid van dit Benzinestation?

Onvoldoende / Voldoende / Goed / Uitstekend*

6. Heeft u wel eens serieuze klachten geuit over de klantvriendelijkheid of een andere zaak op dit benzinestation?

Ja / Nee*

( zo nee ga door naar vraag12)
7. Wat werd er toen met die klacht gedaan, kreeg u bijvoorbeeld een klachten formulier?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

8. Vond u dat er op dat moment genoeg werd gedaan aan uw specifieke klacht?

Ja / Nee*

9. Wat vond u van de acties die de manager van het benzinestation op dat moment ondernam t.a.v. uw klacht?

Onvoldoende / Voldoende / Goed / Uitstekend*

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

10. Heeft u later nog iets gehoord aangaande de klacht die u heeft ingediend?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

11. Was u achteraf tevreden over de behandeling van uw klacht?


Ja / Nee*
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

12. Zou een eventuele klacht voor u een rede zijn om een ander pompstation te kiezen? Of heeft u geen keus wat betreft waar u tankt?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

13. Als U een cijfer moest geven voor de service van dit tankstation welke zal dat dan zijn? (van 1 tot 10)
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Bedankt voor uw medewerking!

2.6 Questionnaire Customer Service Shell.

In this chapter, we are going to show you the results of the Questionnaire of the customer service of Shell. We asked several people who visit the Gas station Shell at the A.C. Verhoefweg in Nieuwegein what they tough about the Customer service of that particular Gas station. And here are the results of the Questionnaire:
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These results are based on the Questionnaires we have asked 25 people who visited the Gas station at the A.C. Verhoefweg, the Shell gas station. If you want to see the Questionnaires, we revere you to the extra attachment of this Essay.


3. The Customer service of BP.

In this chapter, we are going to write about BP.
3.1 Introducing BP:

BP is about discovery, finding, producing marketing with the natural energy resources on which the modern world depends. BP is one of the largest integrated energy companies in the world
Because of their Sales revenues, market value, petrochemical facilities as oil and gas reserve.
BP operates in 100 countries on six continents. However, the size or past success does not mean everything.
A good business should be competitive, progressive for everything we do, the seek to make a constructive contribution increasing requirements for energy. Technology is most important for their activities. And their key to success is that BP is an integral part of society of the every changing needs of the customer. The word of BP involved shareholders, customers and partners.

3.2 History of BP:
Bp is one of Britain’s biggest companies and one of the word’s largest oil and petrochemicals groups. Bp owns its origin to one man, William Knox D’ arcy, which invested time, money and labour in belief that worthwhile deposits of oil could be found in Persia.
In the company’s first decades, its prime focus lay in the Middle East. However, from late 1960s the centre of creativity moved west, toward USA and Britain itself. However, BP is today an international company, having operations in over 70 countries.
Its key strengths are in oil, exploration and production. That means the refining, marketing and supply petroleum products, and the manufacturing and marketing of chemicals.


3.2.1 Market context
Largess changes have taken place within the petroleum industry, during the past decade.
Among the key forces of change have been:

Deregulation

This has had the effect of opening up previously closed sectors to competition, particularly in the US and UK natural gas transportation and marketing businesses and the electric power sector.

Consolidation

Consolidation has gone through the industry, reflecting a variety of developments including the growing maturity of many big oilfields, the entry of state owned companies into downstream markets, privatisation and changing global demand patterns as Asian markets often closed to international investors grew fastest.

Lower prices

The real price of oil and refining margins fell on a trend basis as supply
outpaced demand growth. Petrochemicals margins also fell and a deep downswing developed in the chemicals cycle as capacity expansion exceeded demand growth.

3.3 Fragmentation
Intermediate markets have been established, and information has become more widely available lowering transaction costs and limiting the value of operational integration.
Increasingly, the oil and gas industry is set to operate in open and competitive markets.

The process of deregulation, especially in the electric power industry and the natural gas business, seems set to continue. More governments are opening their natural resources to international investment. Competition is in all stages of the industry. In future competitive advantage can be expected from a variety of factors. Strategic assets such as large low-cost oil fields and innovation. Especially in the application of technology reputation as it relates to consumers, communities and governments and to environmental and corporate structure.
The global oil and gas industry remains in a period of change. New players with specialised skills are entering the industry. And in the future skills, knowledge, flexibility and dynamism are likely to become more important.

Oil Markets

In the past 12 months, there has been a dramatic turnaround in oil prices.
Among the factors involved are and sustained production cutbacks by OPEC, a reduction in the rate of non-OPEC supply growth, a strong bounce back in Asian demand and continued robust US growth. The result was to lift global demand by some one million barrels a day twice the 1998 figure, but still well below trend. Product price recovered in the end of 1999

Gas markets

Prices in Asian and continental European markets fell sharply during the first half of 1999, reflecting lagged oil product prices.

3.4 Why BP has to be a quality business:
Customers desire for better products, constant quality, sharp prices and better customer services. The customer’s dicers not only more, but also have more eyes for which supplier will
fulfil their needs the most. If our company does not fulfil their needs, they will look for another supplier who will fulfil their needs. That is way BP is so quality focus.
BP Chemicals is on his way to be a successful quality business. With success, they improved their work method.


As a company they:

Have to know and understand the current desire of a customer.

They do that by asking people what they think off the services and what services can be improved.

They have to be in progress so they can effectively fulfil the customer’s needs.

BP-stations offer a fool store with all kind of products. They are always there to help you or giving u advice; for example: the right fuel for your car, or give you advise about auto parts such as a lamp. However, you can also quickly buy a newspaper, magazine, candy or drinks and cigarettes.
A dozen of BP stations have also have a Petit Bistro. Were you can buy fresh coffee and sandwiches. Also, the most BP has got a car wash, which is very easy in use and very quick

Bp also has Freebees:

3.4.1 BP reward loyal customers with "XtraBees"

If you want to get some fuel u will get more. This is from 18 October until 18 December.
If a customer tanks and comes back within a week to tank a second time they get 50% above their Freebees. If the customer comes back over two weeks they get 15% Xtrabees above the Freebees card. After the partnership with Zon, a free Internet supplier, the Freebees are more successful then ever. We have now more then 100.000 new Freebees. The Freebees collectors can get XtraBees if they will tank more than 15-litter. You can spend the Freebees at Free Record Shop and the Kijkshop in Holland. This is a typical way to attract more customers to your gas stations. Consumers will only go to your gas station because they can get freebees there and not at another gas Station of another company.

onclusion.
We can say after making this essay that both companies do their absolute best on giving the customer the service that they need. They both have the following customer services:


A customer service telephone line were to the customers can call if they have a complaint.

They have a large assortment of products in their shop at the gas stations.

They have a coffee corner were customers can get fresh coffee.

They both have a car wash.

They both have a sort of saving action, were you can collect stamps or freebees and you can get free products or a reduction.

What does Shell have more than BP:

No long queue in front of the pay-desk because they have two pay-desks and BP only got one. (seen after visit to both gas stations)

Cleaner sanitary facilities. (Seen after visiting both gas stations.)

With the freebees, you can only buy things at the Kijkshop and the Freerecord shop. And with the Shell stamps you can buy thing out of a special order book with al kinds of products in it and you can get money for it.

After the research that we have done, we concluded that Shell does a little bit more
on Customer Service than BP.

Evaluation.

Making this project was not very easy. There where a lot of obstacles in the way. However, we managed to get this essay finished on time, as you can see. We did enjoy working on this project. You do find out more about the customer service that a gas station gives and how their customers think about that customer service. About choosing the subject of this project, we can be very short. First, we only wanted to talk about the customer service of Shell, but after a good conversation with our teacher N.E.C. Spannenburg, we concluded that we had to add something more to this essay. Therefore, we came with a little comparison we wanted to make between Shell and another oil company called BP. We found the Information right away and started writing the essay. This all went good. The corporation between the group members went well and everyone was doing their part of the essay as planned.

The only thing we can hope is that we did everything right.

Reading list.

Title: Customer Service 2 CCA 05.4/1-3
Author: R. Emmerik
Published in: 1999

Title: Kwaliteit opleidingsprogramma van BP Chemicals.

Internet sites:

http://www.bp.com
http://www.bp.nl
http://www.shell.com
http://www.shell.nl