Things to Think About

2. Things to Think About • How is providing customer service in an Information & Referral service different? • Briefly write down the very best customer service experience that you have had. What made it memorable? • Briefly write down the worst customer service experience that you have had. What made this experience so bad?

3. What is a Customer Service Culture? • A customer service culture is an organizational environment where services are planned and delivered in ways that maximize positive impressions and outcomes. • Customer satisfaction is a measure of the degree to which a product or a service meets the customer’s expectation. • It involves responding promptly and accurately to client requests in such a way that each client feels valued, respected, and understood. • An I&R service should be conceived and executed from the outside-in – not inside-out approach.

4. Customer service culture exists where: • staff care to know what results they produce • those results relate to client expectations • A strong customer service culture should be reflected in your mission, vision, values, strategic plan, policies and procedures,performance management system and your training and orientation

5. To create a customer service culture I&R’s need to: • provide clear definitions of behaviours and expectations • provide clear performance measures • have an ongoing process that emphasizes feedback and dialogue • link it to strategic goals and organizational values • have shared responsibilities between managers and employees • address poor performance

6. Mission, Vision and Values in a Customer Service Culture • Client service cultures exist where organizational mission, vision, values and systems support behaviours that improve their capability to serve clients. Effective organizations identify and develop clear, concise work values that inform and impact every aspect of their organization. • All agencies have a mission, vision and values and a charter of expectations, all of which contribute to its organizational culture

7. What’s Yours? • Write down your organizations mission statement? • Write down your organizations values?

8. Example of Mission Statements: • BC211 is committed to enabling British Columbians to access and use community resources through quality information and referral services. • 211 Canada: The mission of 211 in Canada is to effectively connect people with the appropriate information and services, enhance Canada’s social infrastructure and enable people to fully engage in their communities. • AIRS: To provide leadership and support to its members and Affiliates to advance the capacity of a Standards-driven Information and Referral industry that brings people and services together."

9. Examples of Values • Leadership — The art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal • Service to Others — Meets the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers • Respect— Due regard for the feelings or rights of others • Diversity — Widely varied people, clients, abilities, skills, ethnicities, socio-economic situations and perspectives • Accountability — Being required or expected to justify actions or decisions • Integrity — The quality of being honest and morally upright.

10. Video: Give’em The Pickle • The video addresses four key principles of client service: • • Service — Make serving others your #1 priority • • Attitude — How you think about your clients is how you will treat them • • Consistency — Set high standards and stick to them • • Teamwork — Look for other ways to make each other look good (T.E.A.M. = Together Everyone Achieves More)

11. I&R and Service Delivery Effectiveness • One of the many responsibilities of the I&R management team will be to evaluate service delivery effectiveness and its impact on client service and satisfaction. • It will be important to identify the key drivers of client satisfaction for the I&R service and potential areas for improvement. • Can you identify the five drivers of satisfaction?

12. Five Drivers of Satisfaction • The five “drivers of satisfaction” are the elements that most strongly influence citizens’ perceptions of service quality across the many services provided by government and non-profit organizations. • Timeliness • Knowledge/Competence • Courtesy/Comfort • Fairness • Outcome • What would be some other drivers and considerations?

13. What Clients Value • Whether clients are shopping in a retail store or accessing an I&R service, there are three key areas that concern them: • Product • Did I get what I needed? • Is it a quality product? • Process • Was it easy to get what I needed? • Did I get it when I needed it? • People • Were the people responsive, efficient, friendly?

14. Client-Centered Service Standards & Satisfaction Targets • It is vital for I&R managers to set standards and targets by which you intend to judge performance. Staff need to know what the performance expectations are, both individually and collectively. • Standards can also serve as reference points that define expected practices within the I&R service and can be used to measure the extent to which your service is in compliance with those requirements.

15. Standards • • Commitment to service provision 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. • • Automatic call distribution (ACD) capability with means of tracking, at minimum, the call volume, number of abandoned calls, average speed of answering and average call length. • • Uses automated call tracking system to generate reports on nature of calls and their disposition • • Multilingual access • • Comprehensive, current and accurate computerized database of human services with a standard service classification system.

16. Elements of I&R Service Standards • • Description of the service provided and benefits clients are entitled to receive from the I&R service • • Service quality pledges or principles that describe the quality of service delivery clients can expect to receive from the I&R service • • Delivery targets for key service aspects, such as timeliness, access and accuracy • • Cost of delivering the service • • Clear complaint and redress mechanisms for clients when they feel standards have not been met

17. Information and Referral Bill of Rights • The I&R Service: • maintains accurate, comprehensive, unbiased information about the health and human services available in their community. • service provides confidential and/or anonymous access to information. • provides assessment and assistance based on the inquirer’s need(s). • provides barrier-free access to information

18. Information and Referral Bill of Rights • The I&R Service: • recognizes the inquirer’s right to self-determination. • provides an appropriate level of support in obtaining services. • assures that inquirers are empowered to the extent possible. • A complaints procedure if the client feels that they have been mistreated by the I&R service

19. Service Standard Principles • Owned by both managers, CIRS’s and CRS’s. • Widespread and equitable • Meaningful to individuals • Based on consultation • Attainable yet challenging • Published • Performance measured and reported • Revised and updated

20. Metrics and Key Performance Indicators • Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) • service level • • total calls answered • • average speed of answer • • abandonment rate • • occupancy rates • • schedule adherence • • average call handling time

21. Quality Assurance: More than just Metrics • The nice thing about metrics is that they are simply a programmable feature of your ACD system that will allow you to generate reports regarding calls answered, average speed of answer, abandonment rates and talk time per agent. • What your ACD system and metrics won’t tell you is how well calls are being handled. You know that a CIRS has answered 75 calls in a day, but how well have they answered them?

23. The Problem with Metrics • We can measure therefore we do. • Inherently quantitative, not necessarily qualitative. Many metrics are only marginally meaningful. Here are 5 that really matter: • Cost per Call • Customer Satisfaction • First Call Resolution • I & R Specialist Utilization • Aggregate Performance

24. Other Ways of Measuring Quality and Customer Service • Call Recording and Monitoring • Case Examples • Quality Assurance Call Backs (SQM Results)

25. Service Quality Measurement (SQM) Group Inc. is a consulting company that assists call centers in their service quality measurement and improvement efforts by providing the following products and services... • Call Center Benchmarking • Call Center Tracking • Call Monitoring Impact • Call Escalation • Customer Quality Assurance • Training & Consulting • Publications & Presentations • Certification & Awards

26. Sample Size: n=465 First Call Resolution (FCR): % of customers whose call was resolved in 1 call Calls Resolved: % of customers whose call was resolved Average Calls to Resolve (ACR): The average # of calls needed to resolve inquiry is based on total calls made Overall Csat: % of customers who are overall very satisfied (top box response) with their call center experience CSR Csat: % of customers who are overall very satisfied (top box response) with the CSR who handled their call World Class Calls (WCC): % of customers who are overall very satisfied (top box response) with their call center experience, are very satisfied with the CSR who handled their call and their call was resolved Action Alert Calls: % of customers who are overall somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their call center experience and their call was unresolved

27. Tips for Building a Customer Service Culture in an I&R • Commit to Customer Service Excellence • 2) Come up with Committable Core Values • Hire the Right Information and Referral Specialists and Resource Specialists • Train, Train and Continue to Train • Empower your I&R Specialists to Serve

28. 10 Tips • 6) Set Customer Service Standards and Goals • 7) Make Service Personal (Radar On – Antenna Up) • 8) Ask Clients what they think of your service. • 9) Make Customer Service part of the Performance Review • 10) Celebrate successes – Rewards and Recognition

29. Thank you for attending this session! • Faed Hendry • Manager – Training and Outreach • Findhelp Information Services • 543 Richmond Street West Ste 125 • Toronto, Ontario M5V 1Y6 • 416-392-4544 • fhendry@findhelp.ca

30. Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. • This is a story about four people: There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. • Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody. • Don’t let this happen here because we expect everyone to help.