Love Travel (on the customer journey)

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

Repairs, repairs. repairs.. such a lot of repairs action these last few weeks. I don't know if its increased arrears fears with it being the anniversary of the (spare) bedroom (subsidy) tax and fears of more caps to come, that is putting the (white LED) spotlight on repairs. But I do seem to be looking into a lot of repairs for my customers.

A lot of questions you might recognise go into the mix. Better diagnosis or broader originally, performance of internal workforce/contracted major contractor, improved interfaces/bulk invoicing, lastly the most important, when its recognised, improving the 'Customer Journey'.   

Do you recognise the real meaning of 'The Customer Journey'? More pointedly, how often do you have all parts in that long chain, in one room to share experiences, tackle challenges and make improvements quickly? Each Tuesday morning I attend a meeting with one of my larger customers in the West Midlands managing over 18,000 homes. Its only an hour, but because we have a full chain from Customer services, scripting, assets, repairs, dispatcher, an IT chap and trade operative (An excellent 'Plumber' since you ask, don't DM me for foreigners(!). I do my best to not miss any of these. I would even make a special journey to go to it, for the hour, if I was not working for the whole day there.

Most weeks we solve or change something. although everyone has their corner/team to look after, we don't get upset when a mirror is held up to reflect something we can improve. More importantly we dig down to seek the real cause of our issues and usually by the meeting following, someone can report some improvement or a nugget of greater insight.   

The few people at other RSL's I have talked with about this approach have all, surprisingly for me, found this remarkable. Doing it so often, or even achieving it at all. If you are not doing this regularly in your organisation, in my opinion you are missing a trick. Consistently good customer service is the cornerstone of great service delivery and achieving best value for money.

Failures when we log our customer requests and problems on the doorstep can be so useful to us. Bring them on, bring them to us and get the journey members in a room to solve them. Discuss, solve, improve brothers and sisters, you know it makes sense.

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If you are free later this month 30th April 2014 (in London) or 22nd May 2014 (in Manchester) and looking to better tackle your repairs reporting and improve your service, read more here about the one day workshops, with the Rod Laird people http://www.rodlaird.co.uk/default.asp?page=1466
Places are booking up fast. I will be exploring what to measure, how to maintain accuracy, what can go wrong and how your IT systems can help (not hinder) with your task. 

Also, a big shout out to everyone who said hello at the Stoke road-show event this week, great to see some old friends again, hopefully it wont be long until I see you at a free bar or buffet again soon. You know who you are Simon 8 - )


You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on to, cutting your waste:

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-waste.html

Danko Jones - Love Travel.


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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