Customer Service – Building a Strategy for Success
September 2022 was the one-year mark for launching the Facilities Management (FM) Strategic Plan. Since that time, with input and support from staff across all areas, team FM has made significant progress with implementation. With initiatives in Wave 1 priorities (“Investing In our People” and “Improving Communication and Collaboration” solidly underway, FM is turning its focus to Priority 7: “Enhancing Customer Service Excellence.”
Why Enhance Customer Service Excellence?
A variety of recent reports, along with feedback from customers, has provided overwhelming evidence that customer service is a key area in need of attention and intentional action. Customer experience – both positive and negative – has the potential to impact FM in a variety of ways (for better or worse) including FM’s image and reputation across campus, as well as staff morale and job satisfaction. With this in mind, FM will begin the important work of developing and implementing a comprehensive customer service strategy focusing on three key areas – employee education, communication, and customer-centric processes.
FM Staff Participation is Key to Success
Whether serving internal or external customers, regardless of unit or position, everyone in FM is an agent of customer service. And FM leaders believe that broad and inclusive input from across all FM units will be key to creating a successful strategy. Toward that end, the first step will be collecting thoughts and ideas from all staff throughout FM.
Rather than large impersonal meetings, or structured surveys, input will be collected via a series of small brainstorming sessions conducted by team leaders and supervisors at all levels across all areas of FM. The goal is to ensure that every staff member has the opportunity to share their feedback in a familiar setting. Staff will be encouraged to reflect on a variety of customer service-related questions and share their thoughts and ideas. FM representatives will also be speaking with FM customers, seeking their input on similar topics. The plan is to finish sessions after staff return from the winter break.
Once all sessions have been completed, the information collected will be reviewed and analyzed, looking for recurring themes and actionable opportunities that will be used to develop the final strategy and implementation plan.
Questions? Email Aynsley Toews.
For Inspiration: 3 Great Ted Talks for Improving Customer Service
Sharing personal experiences from restaurants he has worked in and eaten in, Bobby Stuckey focuses on the importance of customer ‘experience’ in any industry. And importantly, how to make customers feel great.
Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei describes how to build trust, maintain it and rebuild it when necessary. This is one of the most viewed TED talks on customer service. It promotes essential skills for anyone involved in customer support, customer service and customer success
Cabanas discusses great service moments. He argues that although companies want to achieve great customer service, it is in fact extremely hard to obtain, and not often come across.