TechZilla Said…

Well first off, I recently emailed the president of the company I work for...(modified for public display)

Mr President,

We've never met or corresponded so I would like to take a moment to tell you a bit myself about myself before I get to the reason I am emailing you.

I've been with the company for about 5 years working up in the Redding-Chico Area. I have gone through the various ranks from Independent Contractor to RFT in that time. I've been a computer technician for around 16 years now and really enjoy my work and the people I deal with on a daily basis performing my duties. Generally, I would say I'm a happy camper. I perform both the break/fix and full service accounts for my area.

During my career, on a personal level, I've come to believe that this type of work is literally all about customer service. It doesn't matter what the job is as it all falls under that category. It doesn't matter how good you are replacing parts or diagnosing problems if you have no people skills to go along with it.

As an employee of the company, I've seen many changes. It's a struggle with the economics in our industry being with the way it is, that ultimately the biggest loss is in the level of customer service we provide. The way the company has been forced to cut wages basically to the bone in the areas I work in, will likely only attract only warm bodies with basic skills to complete the task at hand. The new hires likely will not possess the experience and skills to deliver above average customer service skills. I believe that there are many seasoned technicians in our organization that don't actually possess enough people skills to shake a stick at.

The words "Customer Experience", "Customer Satisfaction", and "Customer Service" are often part of the conference calls I attend. We take required training classes, read the manuals and yet some of the folks just don't get it. I'm not sure if it's that they don't care, can't remember what they have read, heard or what. The same problems keep coming up. With all the pressures involved with performing our services and keeping off the radar, I think the focus on customer service gets lost in the priorities. Herein, the real problem. My idea for curbing this problem is actually rather simple.

I can imagine that there are several technicians who could be identified by the managers as providing above average skills in the area of customer service. Each having different insights on how to handle certain situations, or answering customer questions that others may not have thought of. My idea is to get those ideas in front of our peers and have them learning passively without even knowing it.

To the best of my knowledge, the Exchange Server is capable, with the right tweaking, to put a message in the footer of each new message.

The footer message would contain a customer service orientated "Quote of The Day" from one of the technicians identified as leaders by the managers. Putting the contributor's name and email address as part of the quote, would create a means for personal recognition at all levels of the organization. Additionally, create a path for peers to contact us for more information with the "specialist" on the subject as well as a means to get the information from the best of the best into the hands of those that really need it, many that we would never normally meet or cross paths with.

Anyway it's your idea now if you want to run with it.

Respectfully,

Michael Welch

 

Much to my suprise, I got a fairly good resonse from the pres.......(modified for public display)

 

Michael, thanks very much for your thoughtful insight. I think you have captured the essence of the challenge we face. Another staff member and I will talk about your idea. It could be very useful. Thanks very much for taking the iniative to present your thoughts. . Regards. The President 

 

Then from the Staff member......(modified for public display)

 

 

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