Date of Award

1992

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Business

First Advisor

Arlene Taich

Second Advisor

Susan Dutton

Third Advisor

Jeffrey Harris

Abstract

In today's increasingly competitive business environment, many firms are overlooking a basic function that could potentially be turned into a strategic weapon: customer service. Customer service is a vital function of a company's operations, not only because it is the vehicle to fulfill the company's obligations to its customers.

Customer service is extremely important in service organizations. Services have unique characteristics that are different from products and require unique managing. For one thing, a service is an intangible.

The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is a service organization. Due to the nature of the YMCA programs, it is extremely important that each staff member, at all levels of the organization, is trained in customer service. This training is essentially important for customer service personnel, who have the first contact with the person who comes or calls the YMCA. If poor service is given, it can turn the most loyal, devoted customer into a former customer.

By analyzing people's weaknesses and sharing their knowledge on different situations, they develop a better understanding of the importance of the customer. The job skills of customer service people need to be enhanced through training.

The purpose of this Culminating Project is to analyze and determine the customer service needs that the West County YMCA in St. Louis has, and develop a tentative model that could be implemented as a training model for other YMCAs and not-for-profit organizations. This Culminating Project will include: a bibliographical research on customer service: a description of the history, programs, and service area of the West County YMCA; an exploratory survey that will be applied to YMCA staff, members and program participants; the results of the survey; recommendations; and a tentative training model for customer service in the YMCA.

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