Customer Engagement
Philly311 Youth Engagement Program at Penn Treaty: challenges, lessons, and next steps
The Philly311 team, accompanied by the leaders of the Philadelphia Youth Commission, arrive at Penn Treaty School at 3:30 on Thursday, October 15th. The children have just gotten out of a full school day and are just getting settled into the afterschool program. We get to the classrooms where the Education Works afterschool program is held and the kids are participating in free time activities. Students have access to the four school computers in the back of one classroom, some are socializing, some have books or notebooks out, and the high school students are playing a heated game of Clue in the middle of another classroom.
We bring all the students together for our presentation. Everyone introduces themselves and we pass out our survey to determine what the students know about city government and what they want to get out of the program. Only one student had heard of Philly311 before today. I ask the group what they know about City government and in response we get blank stares.
Danny launches into his presentation. To open the conversation he plays a short video about his background and his role at Philly311. He explains that he is from this area and knows about being from a place that feels beat down and broken. He understands it can be hard to see a way out from that environment. He reminds the students they can be whatever they want to be in life and never to let anyone tell them differently.
After his introduction, Danny tells the students what kind of issues you can report through 311 – “quality of life” issues, and what “quality of life” means. We talk about how the government works for the citizens and it’s our responsibility to tell government what we need it to do. We explain that in this program, they will learn how to communicate with their government.
One interesting exchange happened when we mention that the City can remove graffiti. One student raises his hand and says, “I think graffiti is artistic and I like it.” Danny explains graffiti is often artistic and can be a nice addition to a community if it is done with permission. When the artist defaces someone else’s property it becomes a crime and hurts the community. We mention that the Mural Arts presentation next week will talk about this in more detail. The child seemed intrigued and allowed us to continue.
At this point, we have already covered a lot of information in only a half an hour. We talked about what City government does, why it is important to participate in local government, we explained what you can report, and Danny talked about how you report issues on the mobile application.
Next it was time to go outside and use the mobile app. We got the children out of their chairs and walking around the community. The students point out things they think the City should fix and send those requests from their smartphones to the appropriate city department with the click of a button.
Watching the children learn how they can communicate with their government to have a positive impact on their communities gives me a sense of satisfaction. I can see them learning and participating. We also talk along the way about the student’s neighborhoods. Penn Treaty School was a receiving school for many other schools that were shut down. A lot of the students are from North Philadelphia. While they actively participate in the walk-through, listen to our instructions and diligently report issues, I can tell that because this is not their community, they are only half-heartedly invested in this process.
Joseph Brand, site coordinator for the after school program, had told our program manager at a site visit earlier that week, “These kids aren’t from here.” He had said it several times during this meeting. He also spoke about how amazing it would be if we could tie it back to their community – where they live. Taking the values of this program back to the communities these kids live in would be extraordinarily powerful because it would resonate with them more and hopefully make them feel invested in the process and the purpose. Additionally, the neighborhood around Penn Treaty School had very few quality of life concerns. This area was clearly well cared for and the residents here presumably knew how to connect with their government if needed. The poorer communities that most of these students live in is where these services and resources are most needed.
The goal of this program is to provide a lesson in citizen responsibility and civic engagement, to teach them to use their voice in City government. But first you have to reach them. That is what this Youth Engagement Program is all about – connecting with and educating young people about local government and being involved in your community.
We closed the session by talking about the walkthrough. Many of them remember exactly what issues you can report. I was very impressed with how many City services the students were able to list from the walk through. We tell the students about some of the different groups that will come to present to them over the next few weeks. Then, we say our goodbyes and being to prepare for next week.
I think next week’s session with the Mural Arts Program will be able to address ideas about place, home, and a sense of community that will help the students understand how this program fits into their lives. Our goal is to achieve Joe Brand’s vision of bringing the substance of our program into the student’s neighborhoods. I am also looking forward to the students working on art projects that express how they feel about their communities, and how the children can help their communities. In the first session, we walked around this place (Penn Treaty School). In the second session, we want the students to tell us about the place they live and to imagine what these places could be with a little extra love and care.
Customer Satisfaction: Innovating with Lack of Resources
My post originally appeared on the DigitalGov blog.
As government contact centers, we all face financial and technological constraints in our pursuit to improve the customer experience. One challenge faced by many contact centers is staffing limitations to handle the volume of incoming customer traffic. There are barely enough employees to operate phones, let alone work on meeting or exceeding the organizational customer satisfaction performance goals.
One initiative that was important to the City of Philadelphia’s 311 non-emergency contact center was the successful collection of customer feedback and coaching our employees to improve the customers’ experience with each transaction. The 311 Contact Center serves as the single point of contact for over 1.5 million residents, businesses, and visitors needing City-related non-emergency services and information.
With so many daily interactions between our customers and agents, how could we improve customer experience if we did not have the means to ask our customers about their experience? With a limited technology and staffing budget, it seemed impossible to implement a customer satisfaction program in our government contact center. We needed to find innovative solutions to effectively collect, and manage, accurate and real-time customer experience responses.
A Solution
To create a credible program to measure customer satisfaction, our contact center partnered with a national Fortune 500 company who, pro bono, helped to develop an effective customer satisfaction survey and we partnered with a local non-profit organization for surveying and data entry staffing support. The benefit of these partnerships were two-fold: building a best-in-class program and providing a training environment to enhance clientele’s skills through their experience in a customer contact operations.
For example, in an agreement with the non-profit’s Work Experience programs, we provide opportunities for their clients to gain experience in an office setting. Work Experience employees work in our contact center for up to 20 hours a week for an agreed-upon number of months (based on the program) or until they found employment. Work Experience employees administer customer satisfaction surveys via the telephone.
In Practice
Formal training is conducted for our Work Experience/customer satisfaction surveyors to familiarize them with our services, the data collection processes and why their role is critical to our success. After this, surveyors are given a list of anonymous customers who contacted us within the last 24 hours and authorized the use of their number for a customer satisfaction survey (asked by our contact center agents at the end of each phone call). Over time we have enhanced the sample questions the surveyors ask. The results are entered into a centralized database. Following are the current baseline questions used in our survey:
- Did the agent explain the process for resolving your issues or concerns?
- Did the agent have access to the necessary information to meet your request?
- Was your call (or e-mail, or visit) handled in a timely manner?
- Were you satisfied with the service you received from Contact Center?
- Would you like to provide any additional feedback about your experience with the contact center?
- Would you like to provide your name, phone number or e-mail address, if you would like to be contacted.
As part of the process, surveyors are able to transfer concerned or dissatisfied customers to a contact center supervisor or manager to follow up on or resolve their issue.
Results and Overview
Results of the customer satisfaction surveys are shared with our contact center supervisors for meetings with their teams. The previous day’s average is also displayed on our contact center’s reader boards. Monthly and quarterly customer experience results are shared with Senior Leadership within the organization and posted on the department’s bulletin board.
Overall, our ability to gather customer satisfaction data has been instrumental in our growth as our city’s customer service center. The data has improved our technology and business processes, external communication, and service offerings as we continue to strive for customer service excellence. We continue to use Work Experience programs to collect customer satisfaction surveys and we have also expanded our initiative to include social media data mining. Designated agents monitor social media “streams” to see what our customers are saying about us, in addition to their “wants” as they relate to our services.
While we still face budgetary constraints, our contact center continues to innovate and find means to continually improve our customers’ experience.
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com.
Philly311 TV: Community Engagement is Customer Service
Video Posted on Updated on
The above video is a clip from our upcoming episode of The Philly311 Show featuring PhillyRising’s East Division Coordinator, Joandelis Marquez. PhillyRising is a program within the Philadelphia City government that targets neighborhoods plagued by chronic crime and quality of life concerns, and establishes partnerships with community members to address thoseissues. Joandelis and I had a great time discussing the innovative community engagement strategies she uses to connect with and serve her “customers.”
Community engagement is customer service–it’s just more targeted and personal. Often times, it’s more effective too. Some organizations view community engagement efforts as optional or philanthropic extensions of customer service. In actuality, community engagement should be mandatory because of the level of service these efforts provide. Through community engagement efforts, your organization is able to provide the most personal customer care possible. You’re also able to engage your customers by building human relationships.
Building personal relationships goes farther than you think. Not only do they humanize your organization or brand (making it easier to connect with customers) but they also lend valuable insight into your customer’s wants and needs. While surveys and customer data can be effective representations of of customer sentiment, through community engagement efforts you can literally hear what your customers are saying. Often in a more natural setting than a phone or self-service customer satisfaction survey, customers are able to voice their honest feedback in their own way, in person, on their own turf. Even if your community engagement efforts are small, this valuable feedback could benefit all of your customers.
How are you engaging the community?
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com
Philly311 TV: Why is Internal Customer Service Important?
Video Posted on Updated on
The above clip is a sneak peek from The Philly311 Show episode where I interview Al D’Attilio, the Director of Human Resources for the City of Philadelphia. Al and I discussed the City’s hiring process as well as the services his office provides to the rest of city government. Based on my conversation with Al, it was clear that the Office of Human Resources sets a great example for internal customer service.
Internal customer service is just as important as external customer service, but it’s not often viewed as a priority. Taking the time to provide information or services to other departments can feel like it takes away from time spent doing our “actual job.” However, as an organization’s level of internal customer service improves, the overall efficiency of the organization improves as well. Employees who have easy access to information and the ability move projects forward can better they can serve the organizations customers. Great internal customer service usually results in great external customer service.
As few tips for improving your organization’s internal customer service include the following:
• Setting expectations and service level agreements between departments.
• Designating a “point person” for each department or a specific service.
• Creating a clear communication process and escalation policy.
• Communicating the positive relationship between internal customer service and the success of the organization to all employees.
I want to thank Al for setting the high standard for internal customer service. Does anyone else have any tips for how to improve your organization’s internal service delivery?
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com
Essential Traits for a Customer Service Manager
Video Posted on Updated on
Above is a sneak peek at The Philly311 Show episode where I interview 311 Operations Manager, Sheryl Johnson.
What I loved most about speaking with Sheryl is her passion for customer service. This passion is so important to a customer service manager because it tends to transfer into the organization and its employees. From my time speaking and working with Sheryl, I took away a few key attributes that every customer service manager should have.
Innate passion for customer service. Sheryl’s level of passion for customer service is an asset to the organization, unfortunately, this level of passion can rarely be taught. The same innate passion should be sought out in your hires, the kind of potential employees who yearn for more than a just a paycheck. Among other aspects, these individuals should be evaluated on the way they have handled past situations rather than on the intricacies of their resumes. (See my blog post on how to hire the right customer service people.)
A clear understanding of the organization’s mission. A customer service manager must understand how his/her “shop” contributes to the organization’s mission and communicate this to employees to increase their level of engagement. Small ways managers can accomplish this is by celebrating milestones, achievements, and other types of employee recognition also helps to engage employees, relating their success to the success of the organization and vice versa.
Ability to identify special skill sets of employees and capitalizing on those skills. In a contact center, most of the day-to-day work is mundane. That’s why it’s important for a contact center to give employees special projects that cater to their skills or interests. This not only lets employees explore their passion, but it also helps create a more vibrant and creative environment where employees are excited to come to work.
What other traits does a customer service operations manager need? Let me know in the comments!
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog atwww.rosettacarringtonlue.com