Customer Care - Success stories
The pilot in Technical Services paid off immediately. First to go back to the floor was the Road Repairs Manager. Again, this area was selected because of the high level of customer contact and concern about roads.
The Manager began by asking his team what they thought he should review. They elected for him to spend a day on the roadmender with them. He discovered the machine was travelling some distance between one job and another because job tickets were dealt with in the order faults were reported.
The team only fix the potholes on their list because there’s a limit to how much tar the machine can carry. So, if a resident reported a pothole and later a neighbour spotted another, the team couldn’t fix the second hole when they were out on the job. The machine could be in an area one week and back the next to fix another hole. Road diversions had to be set up for just one repair.
The manager and team talked through the problems and came up with solutions together. Repairs are now planned on a 6 week cycle. An inspector programmes work after area visits.
Area Forums and community councils bring citizens together with the Council to help agree priorities.
“The outcomes truly surpassed my expectations,” said the Manager. “The team can respond to the public’s fault reporting on the spot or commit to coming back in 6 weeks. There is less inconvenience to road users, productivity is up and costs are down. Customers get a quicker response, they can see a there’s a plan behind our work and they can help set local priorities.
This one example in a series for the pilot began to paint a picture to help employees understand that customer care is more about how we do business than how we answer phones.
All Services drew up plans to roll out the programme over the course of a year.
