By Loleta Sump, Director of Customer Service, Division of Facilities
Giving great customer service to both our external customers (the campus community) and our internal customers (facilities employees) is more than “just part of the job” for me…it is a passion! The mission of Facilities Customer Service is to ensure that any interaction with us is enjoyable, efficient, and effective. I guess it should be no surprise to anyone that customer service is the topic that I chose to write about for this month’s Facilities Newsletter.
After every work order is completed, our external customers have the opportunity to respond to a survey, rating their satisfaction to the work performed. The rating scale is:
1 = Very Poor
2 = Poor
3 = Good
4 = Very Good
5 = Excellent
Over the last 18 months, we have received 421 surveys from our customers with 97% of the ratings being a 3, 4 or 5. Congratulations to each and every one of our facilities employees for performing their duties in a manner that merits such high ratings. Here are a few of the noteworthy comments received from our customers:
- The plumber explained the repair options and gave us a time frame, and the repairs were completed quickly.
- The gentleman handling the situation has kept me apprised of everything that has been going on.
- The employee was very courteous and extremely accommodating. He gave us all the information we needed and also went the extra mile to circle back with us to collect our picks for carpet. This was a very positive experience for us! Thank you.
- The professor wanted to personally thank you for the professional and quick job you did! The professor really liked the note on the door with the card and the updates through email. Thanks again!
- Thank you for providing us with good service on this request. I would rate it as 5, excellent. Your staff arrived promptly and worked to resolve the issue through the building, not just in the one bathroom that was the emergency.
- I’d rate my satisfaction at 5. The work was so unobtrusive and done so quickly that I didn’t even notice it had been completed until this email made me look at my door!
The portion of the comments in red indicate the service that meant the most to the customer and, therefore, resulted in an excellent rating. In contrast, here are a few comments from our customers that were not so satisfied with our service:
- We did not know this work had been done, as no one came and talked to us. When did they come over as we were still having issues late last week?
- Apparently it isn’t fixed, but no one bothered to tell us that. satisfaction 1. Could you please send your technician back to fix it?
- I don’t even know if they showed up. It would be nice for the workers to at least say, they were able to fix it, or, they need to get parts, or it is not fixed and they will be back, or something. I know they are busy but it only takes a minute to stop by my office or the front desk to let us know. Thank you.
Of course, the feedback from our customers is only valuable if we genuinely “listen to what they have to say.” What I hear from these survey comments is that communication is key to quality customer service! Other characteristics of quality service that are noticed and appreciated by our customers include professionalism, going the extra mile, doing the job right the first time and working quickly and unobtrusively so as not to disturb their working environment (if possible). While these survey comments largely pertained to our building maintenance teams, the same characteristics of quality service can be employed by each and every one of us. Let’s show Kansas State University what a great Facilities team we are!
