What Are Your Customers’ Expectations of Service?
By David Saxby
Outside the city of El Paso, Texas, sits Damian Elementary School. This is
a school with a 90 percent Hispanic population and 80 percent of the students
are economically disadvantaged. In 1997, Damian was struggling to pass the
Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.
For the past two years, Damian has earned an exemplary rating by the Texas
education system and this year it was recognized as one of the best elementary
schools in the state by the Texas Business and Education Coalition.
What caused such a dramatic change for this school?
At the core of the school’s turnaround was a five-point agreement outlining
what students, teachers, parents and administrators should expect from each
other. School principal Max Padilla stated that, “In order to run a successful
business, you must treat your customers with dignity and respect.”
Every public power utility has an opportunity to exceed its customers’
expectations of service during any interaction. The small things your utility
does, from the initial greeting through the close of the interaction, are what
your customers use to decide whether you did a good job. Therefore, it is
critical that your entire staff consistently deliver the level of service you
desire for your company. This is what your customers should expect of you.
Here a few things to consider in creating a consistent quality customer
service experience for your customers:
Create Clear Expectations Internally. Whether it’s how to greet a
customer who calls to discuss their bill or what to tell the customer who has
lost power to their home, it is important to establish a procedure for how
every employee interacts with customers. Identify the steps during the phone
call or in-person contact that are critical to creating an excellent
experience for the customer.
Greet Customers Properly. Are your employees offering a warm and
friendly greeting every time they interact with your customers? Are they
speaking at a comfortable pace during the greeting so that the customer can
easily confirm they have reached the right business and feel as if you have
the time and desire to talk with them? During the first few seconds, are your
employees offering their name to improve rapport with your customer?
Use the Customer’s Name. In many interactions, the employee will have
to pull up the customer’s account record to respond to a request. Are your
employees using your customer’s name during the conversation? Customers would
rather be recognized by their name than an account number. Even worse is to
not be acknowledged at all. Restate the customer’s name at the close of the
conversation. Not only does this help personalize the conversation, it also
increases the customer’s comfort level should he or she need to call again.
Customers then feel as if they have a “friend” at your public utility.
Let the Customer Talk. Your employees face the challenge of hearing the
same request a number of times in a day. Employees have a tendency to jump
into the conversation to save themselves time. After all, they’ve heard it
before and know exactly what the customer wants, right? That’s a dangerous
assumption. Train your employees to allow customers to explain their issue
fully. A customer who’s cut off in mid-sentence gets the impression that you
care very little about them or their problem.
Ask Questions. Are each of your employees skilled in asking the
appropriate questions to identify your customer’s true need or problem and
then create a solution? Our experience in calling a number of utility
companies to measure their customer service tells us that most times customers
ask questions and employees respond only to those questions. This rarely gives
the customer and the employee a complete picture or understanding and leaves
them making decisions or judgments with limited information.
Be Proactive With Emotional Customers. Make sure your staff has the
knowledge and skills to handle emotionally charged situations. When people
lack the proper skills to deal with emotional customers, they tend to react
instead of proactively creating a solution. Have employees role play various
scenarios of customer interactions. Coach them on the appropriate way to
handle a customer and make sure that everyone of your employees is comfortable
demonstrating those skills. It only takes one poor interaction with one of
your customers to change their impression of your utility.
Get Management Involved. Improving the skills of your staff is a
process and management plays a key role in guaranteeing the success of the
process. Management needs to listen to employee interactions with customers to
confirm that every staff member is consistently demonstrating excellent
customer service. When the interactions do not meet your new standards,
management needs to step up to the plate and offer suggestions to the employee
on how they can improve.
The reverse is also true. Follow the principle of “catch them doing it
right.” Acknowledge those who are doing a great job. Don’t be fooled into
thinking that just because you create a new expectation for customer service
that every person in the company is committed to meeting those standards. Most
people are uncomfortable doing something new and different. Your employees
have been taking care of your customers for number of years in a certain way.
Measure the Quality of Your Service. How do you know if your customers’
expectations are being met? How do you know if your customers’ interactions
with your company are positive? Here’s a simple method: ask them. Ask your
customers if they think their expectations for service are being met. Survey
them by phone to improve the accuracy and the amount of feedback you receive.
One organization that offers such a service is Satisfaction Development
Systems. You can learn more about them at
www.sdsresearch.com.
If an elementary school in El Paso, Texas, can achieve extraordinary
success by establishing clearly defined expectations for teachers,
administrators, students and parents, what results can you achieve by
identifying and implementing excellent customer service expectations?
David Saxby is president of Measure-X, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based measurement,
training and recognition company that specializes in customer service and
sales skills training for utilities. He can be reached at 888-644-5499 or via
e-mail at
david@measure-x.com. Visit the Measure-X Web site at
www.measure-x.com.
