How Utilities Can Improve Their Customer Service Culture
Your customer service representatives (CSRs) are essential to your utility. They handle the day-to-day activities and interact most with your customers, and as they do, they strive to uphold your utility's vision, values, and mission. When they do their jobs competently, the workday runs smoothly, and they serve your community well. So how can you use your utility's customer service culture to ensure more good days than bad?
What is Customer Service Culture?
Customer service culture is a set of values, beliefs, and actions that an organization uses to interact with customers. When your utility has a positive customer service culture, your team members feel empowered to put your community members first, and everyone works together to provide a positive environment.
What Does Customer Service Culture Look Like?
The difference between average customer service and an excellent customer service culture isn't always easy to spot on the outside. CSRs from all industries can provide acceptable customer service and handle hundreds of customer complaints, problems, and issues. What sets an exceptional team apart is the knowledge that all team members and customers are valued. Supervisors and managers know that customer interactions are a crucial part of business decisions, and everyone, even those not customer-facing, understands who the customers are and why they matter to the utility.
How Do Utilities Create a Positive Customer Service Culture?
When a utility has a positive culture, they know that customer service is part of the strategic vision, and everyone agrees on what "exceptional customer service" is. If you're wondering if your organization has a positive customer service culture, review your answers to these questions below.
Do you hire people who fit your customer service culture?
When you advertise for a new CSR, a whole range of applicants applies, from the unqualified to the highly qualified applicants. Looking to hire the most skilled candidate may seem like a good idea, but they may not fit your culture. Although this person looks capable on paper and in the interview, they get frustrated, irritated with customers, or gossip about customers when they leave. Being highly skilled does not always translate into someone best suited for customer-facing work.
The interview questions you ask can mean the difference between hiring someone who fits in a positive environment and who does not. Asking culture fit questions helps to objectively measure if someone is a good match for your utility. Their answers reveal their preferred work style, environment, and personal beliefs and values. When you ask culture fit questions, you're given insight into how well a potential hire will work with your current team and if they will treat your customers well.
Do you treat your employees well?
One of the best ways to build a positive customer service culture is to treat your employees like you want them to treat your customers. A positive customer service culture starts from the top down, and if your leadership team practices your utility's values, then your employees are more likely to embody them too. Treating your team members like a customer gives them a front-row seat on how best to help them.
Does your team have a good rapport?
When a team has a good rapport, they enjoy the people they work with and see their jobs as a team effort. If you've ever walked into an office with noticeable tension, you know there is an undercurrent of unhappiness among the team. But, when you walk into a business with a positive customer service culture, you can feel the positive philosophy flowing through every employee.
Participating in team-building exercises is the best way to foster affinity among your team members. Ask for ideas, build quality assurance processes, send team members to cross-train in different departments, and create leadership paths based on customer service excellence. With each team-building exercise, your team will build a stronger rapport, and everyone will work together to shape a positive environment.
Does your team share their good ideas with you?
Part of having a positive customer service culture is that your team members feel safe sharing ideas. If a good or bad incident happens, your team needs to feel comfortable speaking up. As customer advocates, having the authority to help customers to the best of their ability empowers team members. And when they are encouraged, they feel they can share the good and the bad, knowing that everyone will work towards a constructive resolution. When you listen to your employees and take them seriously, they will, in turn, listen and take you seriously as well.
Do you provide feedback and reward your employees?
When a CSR does an exceptional job, customers notice, and management should take note too. Tracking customer service metrics, such as first contact resolutions and response times per customer, is an objective way to determine your organization's performance and what feedback and rewards you should share.
Providing rewards to CSRs who go above and beyond helps a positive customer service culture to thrive. And when, on the other hand, a CSRs needs a refresher, constructive, not destructive, criticism is best. Rewards reinforce the behavior you want your team to exemplify, and constructive criticism redirects undesirable performance into looked-for behavior without belittling anyone. You wouldn't demean a customer, so you shouldn't do that to your CSRs.
Do you have the right tools for your CSRs to serve your community?
Nothing is more frustrating to a CSR when they have a customer in front of them, and they can't resolve a matter efficiently. When your CIS software is functioning effectively, your CSRs have everything they need to perform their jobs with the least friction. A robust software ecosystem that integrates seamlessly is essential to a positive customer service culture. When your team members have what they need in one place, and it's easy to find, then response times per customer are reduced, and first contact resolution increases, making for happier customers.
Answering the above questions will help to determine if you're fostering a positive customer service culture. However, it's not enough to ask these questions. Your customer service culture guidelines must be clearly communicated to everyone involved, including your community members. When you do, everyone will know what a positive customer service culture is supposed to look like, and they will all work toward customer service excellence.