NATIONAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT CUSTOMER SERVICE CONFERENCE
Interactive Session Notes
TOPIC 1: FACILITATOR: NAOMI
STRATEGY – HOW DO YOU DEVELOP STRONG AND EFFECTIVE INTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS?
Make the time to have your staff attend branch meetings to ask for feedback, that opens the gate for better communications
Establish regular, productive meetings with stakeholders
Attend meetings with each section of council to bring them up to date with what is happening in Customer Service and listen to any constructive feedback so you can continue to improve Customer experience for both for internal and external customers
Treat internal departments the same way you treat external customers – build trust and rapport
Instigate ‘2 Hours in the Life of…..’ program where staff sit with other department members so everyone gets a feel for the demands of different roles
Invite other department staff to your team meetings
Understand the what and why. We know 'who' is in each section and 'how' we support them (service levels) but do we fully understand what each section does and why (the bigger picture). Have a Q and A speed dating session.
Establish regular, productive meetings with stakeholders
Hero’s Program – employ additional staff to service, help other departments. Casual and permanent staff have the opportunity to fill temporary positions in other departments
Monthly meetings – invite other departments to share knowledge and discuss issues
Morning Teas – Rotate staff to attend
GM & Directors to spend time in Customer Service to answer phones and work on the front desk
Customer service training for all new staff to the organisation
Rotation of staff
Exchanging knowledge and keeping updated between departments
Respect Customer Service space
Engage all departments on all new processes
Everyone in Council is Customer Service not just Customer Service Department
Share Ideas
Help out other departments if they have a heavy workload
GM puts on drinks on Friday afternoon for all staff
Customer Service give out gold stars weekly to employees that give great customer service
Inviting guest speakers to team meetings
Spend a day in Customer Service
Executives and other staff listening to calls
No technology 2 hour window to spend with team
Spend time in other areas
Tracking feedback and looking at trends
Reporting to other units
Good news stories for the newsletter
Focus groups for upcoming issues
Social clubs
Toolbox talks
Using values for performance feedback.
Face to face
Respect, trust, honesty
Knowledge sharing
Process ownership/impact
Breakdown barriers
Celebrate achievements
Time spent with internal stakeholders
Meetings
Include subject matter experts with customer service daily experiences
Train the CSO properly to do their job better – communications
Clearer information
Impacts of changes to processes
Improve internal support
Encourage calls to be transferred to enable a conversation
Seeking advice – how can I help you?
Behaviour
Council vision – work together
Stakeholder morning teas
Welcoming environment
Guest at team meetings
Expand key relationships
Being clear on issues
Lead by example
- Interact
- Relationships
Cross skilling
Connect with other areas of council
Emotional intelligence
Silos
Within teams eg: Counter, call centre
Between teams/departments
Indoor vs Outdoor workforce
Staff - Customers
TOPIC 2: FACILITATOR:
HOW DO YOU MAKE CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM MEETINGS AND TRAINING HAPPEN?
Simple iPad, record your meetings and then have a chart that lists everyone, mark who attended and then everyone else updates once they have watched the video
Schedule outside of cyclic customer busy times and make it a priority
Plan and set meeting dates at the beginning of each year and communicate to customer service team and other departments in Council, particularly if relief is required. Customer service teams often get taken for granted – need to prioritise team and self-development just the same as other departments get the opportunity to do
Make sure your team is given priority when booking staff in to training sessions. Work with HR team (or whoever arranges training) so they fully understand the difficulties in rostering front line staff.
Build a framework that works for the team and stick to it to ensure regularity and consistency
Invite stakeholders across the organisation to do presentation of interest to the team
Develop annual training programme from Annual Appraisal and feedback from staff and then roster the training in for each quarter – work with HR to ensure the training is booked in with the trainer and facilities
Find or develop support systems, such as staff that can step in and provide basic CS functions whilst staff need to attend training. It is important that we don’t forget to make it known that due to the restrictions (resourcing, proposed timing of meeting/training) that CS won't be able to get the full benefit of the meeting/training … Scheduling might be able to be changed and this could be remembered next time the organiser is planning the next meeting/training. Bosses might be able to provide/divert resources. Important not to automatically exclude our teams from opportunities.
Monthly
Schedule
Minute-taking – distribute
After hours meeting – paid 1.5 hrs
Schedule meetings ‘quiet times’
Not mandatory
Dinner ‘allowance’ sessions
Vary times
Multiple meeting to cover all staff
Content
Informal catch up
Vary content
Use of emails
Screens (TV) urgent messages
After hours – provider
YouTube
Record meetings (iPad)
Guest speakers (record)
Provide incentive(s)
Online
E-learning
Face-to-face
Look beyond the organisation
Skype
Survey
Ascertain gaps
Focus points
Video capabilities
Buddy training
Champions
Ride-alongs
Ownership/responsibility
Meetings
- Using Ipad’s to record – engaging all staff
- Using smart teams to cover counter/phones – driven from executive
Training
- Emails
- Peer to peer
- Inter department training
- Online training: e-learning
- Skype for business/team viewer
- Staff exchange (then help cover for meetings)
TOPIC 3: FACILITATOR: BETH/DEBORAH
STRATEGY – HOW DO YOU ENGAGE TO BREAK DOWN THE SILOS, THE “THEM AND US”?
“Star of the Month” it’s a CS award for internal CS – present it each month or quarter, take a picture, they go up on our wall – all nominees even if they don’t win get invited to an afternoon tea at the end of the year where the GM thanks them for being shining stars
Buddy or ‘day in the life of’ programs are a great way to understand and get to know each other
Celebrate annual Customer Service Week in October and encourage staff to nominate each other for Customer Service Awards (Customer Service Leader, Customer Service Excellence, Customer Service Achievement, Customer Service Shining Star) – nominations to include how staff member demonstrated service standards
Give ‘Staff Shout Outs’ where compliments are given to staff who have gone above and beyond to help other staff
Invite other department staff to your team meetings
Encourage staff to bring their morning cuppa in to customer service to 'look and listen'. Might have to supply the cake. It opens up the 'I didn't realise you did that' discussions.
Cross-pollinate staff
Have a whiteboard where we acknowledge staff that have helped us with good internal service, this periodically gets communicated to the staff member, their Manager and Director. The Director ensures this information goes into a PowerPoint presentation which plays on an large display screen for their achievements and good customer service feedback
Communication working with each team to get the end to end experience for the customer as an organisation not silo- e.g. meetings
.At induction we walk new staff through the CS Centre and invite them to come back to see the how the Centre operates (buddy up with a CSO).
Food!
Transfer calls properly
Attend departmental meetings – feedback, info sharing
Invite to customer service team meetings
Managers participate in call centre
“Walk and Talks” – What do we do well? – What can we do better?
“Day in the Shoes” – shadow other areas officers, job site visits
Be respectful, courteous – treat internal same as external customers
Partnership program
- Customer service out to teams
- Other departments into Customer service
Soft transfers – announce calls/merge calls/info sharing
Cross organisation projects
Promote what you do well
- newsletter
- Share positive
- Feedback & stats
Provide timely and positive feedback
Expectations clear, i.e. timeframes for delivery of advice, duty planner, escalations
Communication techniques – visit rather than email, get to know personally
Update notes in CRM – provide training
Leadership – vision communicated and backed up, lead by example
TOPIC 4: FACILITATOR: DAMIEN
STRATEGY – HOW DO YOU SURVIVE THE NEGATIVES?
Adapt the negatives into work plans to improve
Build strength through open communication with the team
Turn the negatives into position, learn from errors and put processes in place to ensure do not happen again
Accept that negatives happen – use positive language when discussing eg. Learning opportunities
Use “Thought for the Week” memes/graphics that focus on positive behaviours you want to encourage, and to also have a bit of a laugh
Own any of your shortcomings, don’t waste energy trying to defend, but do provide information around the circumstances and consequences. Have a look at negatives and see how they fit with your team and/or corporate values and the overall goals of what you are trying to work towards. Don’t focus on them as being negatives, but as opportunities to make things better. If the expectations are not realistic or well outside your control have the smarts to know when to accept it for what it is and if need be let it go.
Understand the negatives - is it the same person and what is the reason. Easier to find a solution or to reset if you understand the reasoning behind the negatives.
Map the process with the persons having the negative view to see where the real issues are
Accept that negatives do happen
Learning opportunity
Empower staff to find solutions
Turn negatives into positives
Positive outcome – both parties learn
Read the signs
Separate the emotion from the facts (issue)
Put yourself in their shoes – do the walk
Empathise and explain
Engage in the issue not the attitude
Can do. Ask questions
Acknowledge and celebrate the positives
Are you ok?
Wine
Show gratitude
Reliable resources to resolve the negatives
Place yourself in the other persons shoes/place
Flush the day down the drain
Empathy
Establishing team behaviours
Create a safe and caring team
Allow yourself to debrief
Turn a negative into a learning tool/question
Support each other
Look after your health both physically and mentally
Acknowledge the negative and focus on a solution
Feeling safe
Promote input for change
Really listen
Get on board
Building relationships
Educating throughout the change
Let the work day go
TOPIC 5: FACILTATOR: NICOLE AND TREVOR
STRATEGY – HOW DO YOU MARKET CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCCESS VIA MOTIVATION AND ENTHUSIASM?
Get involved, offer up staff to join in other projects, take their good attitudes out and share them, make sure your Team know they are the gold standard and we want to share that with other areas
Celebrate annual Customer Service Week in October and encourage staff to nominate each other for awards (Customer Service Leader, Customer Service Excellence, Customer Service Achievement, Customer Service Shining Star) – nominations to include how staff member demonstrated service standards
Give ‘Staff Shout Outs’ where compliments are given to staff who have gone above and beyond to help other staff
Create News items on Intranet which highlight mystery customer results, KPI achievements etc of team;
Have team morning teas and let people get to know your Team and what they do, celebrate the success as a combined team
Communicate that Customer Service is an integral part of Council operations and greatly valued (not just customer service)
Start a 'did you know' board in a prominent place (maybe the lunch room) and add some facts and figures - 'Did you know...customer service answered 80% of your calls yesterday without you even knowing - 500 calls received and only 100 transferred into the organisation'
Show motivation and enthusiasm as the Leader. Let new inductees know the KPI’s of the Customer Service Unit and their recent achievements. Use the corporate Newsletter, work closely with the communications team for promotion opportunities, capture those positive comments about your motivated and enthusiastic staff – how did they go the extra mile??….. Share, share, share.
Share success with the team and organisation through targeted communication
Working the your coms team to have success articles in the local paper
Report quarterly to the executive team meeting and presentation at the managers meeting
Share success with the team and organisation through targeted communication
Attending other department meetings
Buddy sessions on phone
Explaining customer service procedures
Customer service club – being customer service champions
Celebrate compliments received by customers with morning teas
Customer service criteria on employee month awards
Promote international customer service month with nominations/awards
Awards presentations
Staff shout outs – excellent awards
Work 1 day in the CSC
Customer Service Newsletter
Customer Service Achievers List
Entering awards
Social media
Print media
Feedback and acknowledgement
Reward and recognition
Newsletters
Healthy competition
Guest speaker meetings
“Feed the pig” – compliments to colleagues
Secondments
Share results of Customer Service Surveys
Share Customer Service matrix
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