I had a relative vent to me the other day about her customer service representative job. “Customers are calling and complaining”, she said. The company she works for provides what is being described as an "essential service". Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic is causing extreme frustration and stress to everyone ordered to stay home with their everyday lives being disrupted. The short delay in this service could go unnoticed under normal circumstances. I commend the company for not implementing an automated recording to handle their incoming phone calls and instead offering a personal service especially during this difficult time. I asked my relative to tell me a little about some of the conversations. It turns out that the company has no standard “FAQ” policy in place for their employees to reference when responding to customer’s inquiries. Instead, each employee is providing a different response to the customer’s inquiry which causes frustration to a customer when hearing a different answer each time they call. Gradually the customer’s inquiry becomes a customer’s complaint.

My next questions to her were, “do you want to invest more time in this company?” and “is there an opportunity for growth?”. Once she responded “yes” to both, I said to her, “here is your opportunity to shine!” I recommended that she use her downtime to create a policy, a standardized formerly asked questions sheet that is referenced by employees when dealing with customer inquiries. This document could address two problems. One, it will help ease the frustration caused to customers and relieve the stress from the employees who are pressed to think of an “on the spot” response during a phone call. Two, this document can also bring awareness to management of what customers are asking and how they can proactively address these concerns, and to think of different ways to assist their customers to prevent interruptions or delays in service that could eliminate the customer’s complaints, decrease the inquiries and free up employee’s time for more value added work.

I also suggested that once the document is complete, share it with team members to seek their review and comments. After her team reviews and approves, send it to management for their input. I told her that for this policy to be successful, it is imperative that everyone involved, those who are directly interacting with the customers and hear the questions being asked and those who are knowledgeable about the information that will be provided, must give their input and approve the final document.

The policy is a solution to a problem. The idea of creating this document demonstrates innovation, initiative, problem-solving skills, team-building and leadership. All qualities highly valued by most companies.

My message to the reader, “Are there any policies, processes or systems within your company that need to be created or updated?” Now is your time to shine and demonstrate your leadership skills!

At Reign’s we specialize in consulting & legal recruitment, but we support all industries. Check out our website @ www.reignslegalstaffingagency.com. Thank you!

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