Customer Service and The Wait-Time Misery Index

Recently there was an interesting article in the WSJ about new innovative ways companies are using by improving customer service and raise customer satisfaction for their products and company. Nothing is worse than non-performance or having to wait around for hours.

Not only does waiting increase stress, but creates a bad impression with clients. Many companies do not even provide 4 hour windows, but 8 hour windows, which kills the whole day. The longer in the day that service is finally provided, the less satisfaction a customer generally has.

Maybe some people of have heard of the Wait-Time Misery Index, but if not, it is a useful definition for measuring potential customer satisfaction. The greater the misery, the less customer satisfaction there will be.

The best adage is under promise and over deliver!

What new ways can you create to help reduce this index for your company? What change management techniques can be employed? How much do you communicate the need for great customer service and what metrics do you have in place to manage it and improve it? How can technology and IT, social media, visioning exercises, and strategic planning help to improve performance around this index? 

Have you, your C-Suite and Marketing personnel given thought to this? If so, how effective have you been? If not, why not?

(Link to the article is at the end.)

The Wait-Time Misery Index

Why Do Deliveries Trap You at Home For Hours; Strategies to Speed Things Up

By RAY A. SMITH

Would you wait around if your friend was four hours late for dinner? No, but your cable company thinks this is a reasonable window of time to wait for service.
Now some companies are whittling down the wait window to two hours and trying to improve communication with customers. Some send texts with arrival updates while others reveal online where people rank in the day's delivery queue. The thinking: people, trapped in the house waiting for something to be delivered or installed or repaired, will feel less powerless if they know what to expect.

Everyone hates waiting for the phone company to come connect service or for a mattress to be delivered. Ray Smith on Lunch Break looks at which companies are innovating in this area and what effect waiting has on our sanity.

More than 50% of adults used a sick day or vacation day to wait at home for a service or delivery, according to a 2011 survey of more than 1,000 people by TOA Technologies, a Beachwood, Ohio-based firm that works with companies to reduce customer wait times. More than 25% of people surveyed lost wages while waiting.

People often become more stressed by the uncertainty, says Richard Wurtman, a neuropharmacologist and distinguished professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The underlying personality will determine the extent to which you are vulnerable to stress induced from waiting."
Shaving two hours is a big leap, companies say, because so many factors affect delivery from traffic to calculating the time a repair or installation will actually take.

General Electric began experimenting with moving from four-hour windows to two-hour windows last year for its appliance deliveries in the Midwest. UPS late last year launched a program called My Choice which, for a $40 fee, offers customers a two-hour window delivery option. Use of the service has been strong, UPS says.

FreshDirect, a grocery-delivery service based in New York, offers two-hour wait windows. Less than a year ago, it began giving people $2 discounts on its usual $5.95 delivery fee to choose a "green" time slot—a window in which the company knows it has trucks in the customer's neighborhood. It is marketed as an eco-friendly innovation, but it also has the effect of grouping deliveries for more efficiency.

Linda Peterson, an interior designer from Atlanta, says she has resorted to paying more for an appliance-repair company called Appliance Doctor that guarantees two-hour windows, even though it costs at least 25% more, she says, than if she called the manufacturers of the appliances or other repair services.

"I didn't want to pay the premium, but I became so frustrated and being asked to wait for more than two hours was exasperating," she says. She finds even two hours hard to bear. In August, while waiting for a repairman, she began ironing linens to take her mind off the time. He arrived close to the end of the window and the work took awhile. "It was probably 50 napkins, four or five tablecloths easily," she says.

Calling during the wait window to inquire about the status of a shipment or delivery generally is not worth your time, companies say. That's because a customer will likely be calling the retailer, but usually the delivery is handled by a separate delivery company.

Service visits can be a different story. Bill Kula, a spokesman for Verizon, says usually that kind of inquiry wouldn't make a difference. That said, if a customer calls near the end of a promised window, perhaps 30 minutes before the time is up, it could be helpful. Verizon could see if there is a technician nearby who could reach the customer ahead of the scheduled technician, Mr. Kula says.

To make deliveries within a two-hour time slot, more companies are investing in software that helps determine the most efficient route The technology can shave time off trips by taking into account speed limits, for example, and estimating how long a stop will take based on service type.

"In the not too distant future, companies will be able to tighten that window to one hour," says Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group, a Sewickley, Pa., transportation and logistics consulting firm.

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"I see companies using the two-hour window as a significant marketing thing," says Bruce Champeau, Room & Board chief operating officer. The furniture retailer has had a two-hour window in effect since the mid-1990s. "It's a matter of respecting the customer's time," says Mr. Champeau.

Room & Board uses scheduling software that factors in variables from traffic routes, including roadwork detours, to how long furniture assembly might take. Employees make additional updates and adjustments accordingly.

A small delivery window can give a company a leg up on rivals. With the far and fervent reach of social media, a very good or very bad delivery experience can go viral. Increasingly shoppers are broadcasting their anger—and naming company names—on customer review sites like Yelp, and on Facebook and Twitter. In the TOA Technologies survey, 16% of respondents said they post complaints online.

When it comes to waiting, a maddening factor is often the lack of information. Is the company on its way? More companies are trying to give customers status reports during the appointment window. Some businesses believe this reduces customer stress.

This is what New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority found after it began installing digital clocks to display the number of minutes before the next subway train would arrive on the platform. So far, 209 of its 468 stations have the clocks.

"It's the 21st century," says MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz. "There are expectations that real-time information be available to customers."

3PD Inc., of Marietta, Ga., which hires local carriers on behalf of large national retailers to handle the final leg—or what the industry calls "the last mile"—of a delivery, plans to add a similar style of communication for customers later this year. Using an app, 3PD's customers will be able to look up how far away a delivery is from arriving, says Will O'Shea, chief sales and marketing officer.

Some enterprising small concierge companies have emerged in recent years to do the waiting for you in your home for a fee. Some charge around $35 an hour.


When Victoria Kingscott's cable went on the fritz, the 25-year-old senior analyst at a financial services firm in New York says Time Warner Cable told her she couldn't get a Saturday appointment for three weeks. She couldn't take off work during the week, so she booked a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. appointment for a Saturday last August and waited. When the big day came, she waited some more.

At noon, she became antsy. She called and was assured a technician would arrive within the hour. At 1 p.m. she called again. Apologies were offered. "I said 'this is unacceptable. It's a Saturday. I have things to do.'" She was given a second four-hour appointment window and told she was "next."

More hours of waiting, more calls. At one point Ms. Kingscott was erroneously told the technician was at her home. He was not. Finally, the technician showed up around 4 p.m. "He didn't really say he was sorry or offer any kind of explanation," she says.

"Clearly that is not an optimal customer service experience," says Alex Dudley, a Time Warner Cable spokesman. "The overwhelming majority of our installations go well."

The Wait-Time Misery Index 

Ethics, DRUGS and Morality: How they affect Communication, Productivity and Everyday Life- Part II

Drugs in their many varied forms (alcohol, hard drugs, amphetamines and even tobacco) have a myriad of effects on our employees and companies. As mentioned in Part I of this series, 31% admit using drugs or alcohol, and these are for people who admit it. The percentage is most likely much higher.

At a business conference several years ago, a breakout session about the 12 Steps of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) was held. Originally, I had envisioned this to be how to use the process in other ways within a company. No, it was about actual AA, and it was attended by those who either had been on drugs of some form, or had direct family members who were on drugs. The statistic presented there was 40%. This was a major revelation at the time, because I had never seen this statistic before and it impacted me as to the ramifications that this holds for, CEOs, senior managers and C-Suite professionals and HR departments, which should be staggering if viewed from the proper perspective.

We always are wondering why our people may not be as engaged as we would like, or why our communication messages held with auditoriums of employees, or even chats at the water cooler, seem not to be as impactful as we would expect, and like them to be.

Possibly this statistic and topic may be part of the reason. Of course, some of the problem can be our delivery of the topics or making them relevant to those we are speaking to and/or with. However, if we take this drug statistic and also look at other distractions at work, such as illnesses of parents, children, relatives or even the general health of our employees, not to mention the medication being taken by employees at work, can we begin to see why people may not be as engaged as we like, or as productive as we expect? Might this figure of distracted, low engaged people be as high as 70%?

How much are the various drug forms affecting organizations and corporations? Significantly more than we probably care to know, if we acknowledge this statistic and the implications on productivity! Everything from absences, distractions, worry, stress, and general illness, impacts corporate sustainability, profitability and productivity. Government regulations in many countries now required companies to provide benefits for medical care, in various forms, for existing employees, including mental and support-group coverage for “illnesses.”

So this affects a company financially, from the FIRST day a new employee joins the company!

How do we address this issue from corporate communications, to employee manuals and benefits, and even more importantly assessing this in the pre-hire phase, before even bringing a person into our organization? Is this being done in your company? Is it being regularly communicated into the organization? Is it being reinforced with Mandatory Training Programs?

What do we discuss during the onboarding process? What procedures do we have in place to monitor compliance to existing drug policies and excessive absences? Are these in place within your company? If not why not? Can you afford NOT to address this issue on a regular basis?

Managing Your Time and Energy when on the Job and in your Life

There have been a number of studies in recent years identifying the need to manage our time, but even more importantly, there is now discussion in managing our energy. Many of us have probably noticed that at times we are not as sharp, as we are at others. As one ages, the phenomena becomes more evident and there is a greater need to care for one's self and health.

At times, we have possibly lived on 4 hours of sleep for literally years but "intellectually" and even more "intuitively," we understand that this can only last for a period of time, as it is not healthy on a long term basis. The adage of burning the candle at both ends, probably applies to most of us at one time or another, but we do need to recharge.

So learn and pay attention to your own energy cycles, as this is an essential first step. Are you a morning person, or a night person? But even more importantly, you will probably find certain times of the day, and at night, your productivity increases and at others, it wanes. As you learn about yourself, then you can begin to manage your work around these. Of course, there will be times you will not be able to adapt your schedule or project to work neatly around these times, as meetings are called, or an urgent project needs to be completed, but with diligence you will be able to help maximize your productivity throughout the day.

How can you manage your energy at work? Analyze your work day. You will probably see that there are surges in e-mails at certain times (just look at your e-mail list, there are time stamps), for example, or when you can best reach a client(s) or colleague(s), or there are regular assignments that need to be done. Certain days it is easier to reach people than others. Many studies show that normally Mondays and Fridays are the worst days to reach out to people, as companies have meetings on these two days to start out the week, or there are deadlines for project completion(s). Start to keep track of these surges by analyzing them, either by taking notes, or mentally observing them. You will probably begin to see that patterns do occur, daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly.

As an example, early morning calls to people may catch them before their work day has really started, or the e-mail that you send quickly comes back answered. Or, there are regular, less energy requiring activities that have to been done, so when your energy is lower, maybe this is the best time to tackle these items. Or conversely, for some people, by doing this exercise, it re-energizes them and sets them up for more "mind challenging" activities.

So, managing projects and your work cycles, can lead to heightened productivity, reduced stress and especially lead to sustained, long-term productivity. Obviously, for CEO's and Senior Managers this is even more important as world travel, with its associated jet lag, time changes and eating challenges all affect us.

The same can apply to your personal life. This has become critically important as we are globally connected, 24/7 with access to e-mail, texting, social media, television, print media, all coupled with mobile connectivity via computers, smart phones and now iPads and iReaders (Kindle, Nook).

Finally, plan some downtime, possibly away from these technological devices. Some peace and quiet to collect your thoughts, reflect on life and what goals you are fulfilling, and those that need to be initiated, can be wonderfully reinvigorating.

Good health is critical, and managing your energy and time can be major contributors to a long, enriching and productive life.

Related articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/jobs/24pre.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=The+Personal+Energy+Crisis&st=nyt

http://www.hf.faa.gov/docs/508/docs/cami/00_10.pdf

Performance Evaluations - How to start?

Performance Evaluations can be the most critical and stressful part of Management regardless of whether it is for, or as, a front-line Manager, Senior Executive, or CEO. It is a critical component/activity as it identifies areas of proficiency and developmental areas for the individual and sets the stage for the coming period of performance for the employee.

Done well, it can be invigorating, supportive and motivating. It gains heightened engagement from the employee and this cascades and helps to build engagement within the organization.

Done poorly, it can result in an employee(s) who can: become demotivated, have poor morale, and can become a critic of any and all operations or activities within the group, division or company. Obviously, this needs to be avoided at all costs.

One of the easiest ways to start the evaluation process is to clearly communicate what the process of the performance evaluation will be. Communicate how it is to be initiated, the forms that will be used, metrics and standards employed, whether it will use a 360 review process, and what input the employee will have in the process. Obviously, the final Performance Evaluation or Review will be a document placed in the employee's Personnel File and should be communicated accordingly.