Customer Service

Once the organizational philosophies are completed, implementation of a focused customer-service culture relies on developing a service strategy and method of delivery that understands and addresses the customer perspective in evaluating services. The “customer voice” is critical to the process. The following areas are a “starter list” for how the customer evaluates services:

• Waiting time, delivery time, process time
• Hygiene, safety, reliability
• Responsiveness, accessibility, courtesy
• Competency, dependability, accuracy, completeness, credibility
• Effective communication

Once the service strategy is developed, it is crucial to evaluate all operational processes to include a service-quality emphasis. These process evaluations must include:

• An emphasis on reliability. Processes impacting customers must work well over the long term.
•  A process with service emphasis that is easy for customers to use. Instructions are simple, clear, and convenient.
• The process must be easy for employees to use. Processes that form impediments to positive employee behavior send a mixed message.
• Processes must be accurate and produce results.
• Processes must be fast for both customer and team members, demonstrating both an understanding of the need for urgency in response and respect for a customer’s time.
• Processes must be integrated where possible and proceed in a logical order without passing responsibility from team member to team member or unit to unit. Few subjects are more frequently the subject of complaints than when the customer is passed around among team members and receives no resolution.

An organizational team charged with developing and implementing process improvement can be a major component of an effective strategy. This team may be comprised of team members from involved process units or any combination of units, but should also include a customer voice. Processes to be reviewed should be identified and analyzed for the following:

• Efficiency
• Cost effectiveness
• Outdated procedures/tools
• Metrics (as developed by the team)

Next, the team should evaluate the tools that are available to implement a service strategy. The increased use of technology has created opportunities and challenges. The facilities management unit’s increasing ability to input, store, and analyze data has provided many tools to track progress and offer more immediate response to customers. In many cases, accessing information on projects and work orders can be controlled at the customer level. However, too much reliance on this type of communication removes a personal touch that can result in the customer feeling ignored and uninformed. Voicemail, auto answer and email can combine to create an “invisible assistance” culture.

One example of technology in the culture of customer service is email and texting to handheld devices. It’s an opportunity to combine high tech and high touch.

Tim Sanders, author and chief solutions officer at Yahoo!, notes five rules of email:

• Don’t send angry emails
• Don’t send “Reply to All” messages unless it’s necessary
• Don’t carbon copy unnecessarily
• Don’t send emails at a time of day or night you wouldn’t phone
• Don’t send emails to someone who is in close proximity and could speak to in person

The last rule is perhaps one of the most frequently abused. In the high-tech age it has become too easy to email rather than actually go next door and discuss the issue. While emails can be an efficient paper trail or file record, this also applies to customer contact. In addressing customer concerns, the time often comes when the arrival of a team member in person to discuss an issue that has been ongoing is not only preferable, but in many cases necessary.

On his blog, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin names three things customers really want: results, thrills, and ego.

Results from an FM organization most often mean an acceptable response time, resolution of the issue, and good communication. The organization needs to produce and track metrics to monitor this.

Thrills, or heroism, are more difficult to quantify but most often result from emergency responses. These are the responses that go above and beyond what the customer expects, when the institution really needs the facilities management team.

Ego addresses the team’s ability to make our customers feel important, the ability to treat a customer better than anyone else. This is the area for the little “extras” that combine to say “We Care.” The short phone conversation or personal visit will develop the customer relationship that gives you valuable feedback about your services and the process improvements needed.