Involve employees
For Nelson, establishing customer service excellence as a part of the company culture was vital to achieving his growth plan
because Cal Water’s union environment
didn’t offer him the variable compensation
options that many CEOs rely on to help
drive key business initiatives. The organization’s growth would have to be supported by employee pride and a desire to service customers above and beyond their
expectations.
“The next step is to train your employees
on the continuous improvement process,”
he says.
Nelson used trainers and conducted the
training in-house. Employees went through
these sessions every day.
“It’s vital that they understand how to interpret the voice of the customer as part of a
continuous improvement process,” he says.
The vice president of human resources
and the vice president of operations over-saw much of the training because those
leaders are key to getting the training
accomplished.
“Those VPs must work on getting rapid
pull-through on any concepts that you’re
teaching because it can take up to seven
years to get a continuous improvement
process fully implemented,” Nelson says.
Once the staff completed initial training
and reviewed Cal Water’s first set of customer feedback scores, the staff was divided into teams of up to 14 employees by
service location. Each team was led by a
manager, who also acted as the team’s
coach and a water quality expert. Because
the customer survey results are measured
by each service locale, the continuous
improvement teams are charged with
developing solutions that raise customer
perception within their assigned geographic service area.
Teams met weekly, and they designed
and presented a business plan around a
suggested quality improvement to an officer review panel every 90 days.
“The plan must include step-by-step
details outlining the problem, the analysis
of the problem and the suggested improvement,” Nelson says.
Every member of the team must present
to the panel, which is composed of other
employees and three or four officers of the
company.
“This step is vital because not only are we
bringing forward ideas, but we’re teaching
employees about the continuous improvement process and we’re building their confidence and presentation skills,” he says.
The presentation doesn’t always have to
be a brand-new idea; they can also present
an update on how a previous business plan
is progressing. Under this system, he had
870 employees presenting in an open
forum every 90 days.
“What you’ll find by installing this kind of
process is that the employees build skills
and talents they didn’t have before, or in
some cases, it brings those talents to the
surface and that helps you develop people
as well as improve customer service,”
Nelson says.
He says nearly every employee has
stepped up through this process.
“It helps that they are part of a team
because they can rely on each other and
the team environment also helps in interpreting the voice of the customer, because
they can discuss what the data really
means,” he says.
In addition to requiring employees to
articulate the prospective value of their
ideas to customers, Nelson requires the
teams to estimate the cost and the return to shareholders as part of their business plan. For example, if the customer service improvement plan calls for increased capital investment, the team must present a recommendation about how to
finance the improvement, how many additional customers can be
serviced through the proposed investment and when the company
can expect to recapture the costs.
One of the best suggestions to come out of this process was
improving customer satisfaction in Bakersfield.
“The customers were reporting a problem with water pressure
and with water quality, and after the team conducted their analysis, they recommended that we build a new treatment plant,”
Nelson says.
Although that idea would result in a major capital expenditure,
the team moved forward with that recommendation and investment. In another service location, the customers complained
about a strong chlorine taste in the water in the mornings. The
team monitored the water quality and recommended a device that
regulates the chlorine dispersal.
