Providing Quality Customer Service

GENERALIST HELPFUL TIPS:

• Encourage employees to ask for help when they need it.  Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.
• It’s okay to not have the answer or immediate solution.  It’s okay to say “I’m not sure, I’ll look into that.”  This is much better than making it up.
• Edit existing first bullet under this to eliminate “Keep fully staffed” (this isn’t always possible).
• Gather feedback from customers (internal or external)-and act on it.

SUCCESS STORIES:

After reviewing the Employee Survey Results, we reached out to department directors who met one of the following criteria:

• Their department's score was higher than the County average in this category.
• Their department raised their scores from previous years scores.

They provided us with insight, feedback, and suggestions for departments who would like to improve in this area.
 

"We don't measure customer service by itself. Instead it's baked into everything we do, it's part of our DNA. Part of our mission statement reads: We care and our customers matter. And they're not just words; no decision is made without first addressing how it will impact our customers. Our staff is committed to quality customer service for our job seekers and our community partners. There are times we don't always meet our own expectations, but we've created a culture of humbleness and grace. Our employees feel free to admit mistakes and strive to do better next time."

Jacob Castillo, Economic & Workforce Development

"Our department consistently turns out over 500 work orders a month, approximately 250 orders per side: light and heavy duty. In order to meet that kind of workload and provide quality customer service, we have to trust our employees. We empower them to make decisions. We celebrate with them when their choices prove to be successful and encourage them to learn from the experiences that didn't work."

Heidi Vilhauer, Fleet Services
 

SUGGESTIONS & TIPS:

• Keep staff fully staffed and make sure they have the tools they need. If they have the department's support, employees can focus on providing the best quality customer service they can.
• We operate in a high-trust environment. If things are shared in confidence, it will stay confident. We've done our best to create a culture of trust, openness, honesty, humility, grace, and transparency. We want our employees to know they're heard and while we can't always meet requests, they're assured it was considered.
• Recognize employees. Once a week, we do a "Shine a Spotlight" feature within our department where staff can recognize coworkers or managers and supervisors can recognize their employees.
• Trust and empower your employees, give them the freedom to make their decisions.
• Don't micromanage.