If you’ve read more than one or two of the Tuesday articles in this space, you’re already aware this is where I get to write about, brag about and celebrate the culture that drives our company. I’ve talked about our core values; I’ve shared our passion for serving with heart – meaning our focus on Servanthood with internal and external customers; I’ve tried to help outsiders understand what it is like to be part of a management team who truly believe our business success depends on the motivation, satisfaction and appreciation of front line employees – those who interact directly with our external customers. AND, of course, I’ve shared all the awards we’ve garnered from third parties that prove WOW! really IS a cut above the rest when it comes to customer service. What I haven’t done is shared with you my personal ‘yardstick’ on how and why we earn them.
What is my yardstick? It’s what we call positive TRs, or positive Tech Reports. These are comments specifically about Broadband Technicians’ behavior and performance gathered from a number of sources: calls to our customer service call center, customer surveys from our website and customer WOW! Moments submitted on our blog. We also have an internal tool that allows other departments to compliment a tech’s behavior or performance too, called the FITS tool.
Ok, bear with me while I take you back in time for a minute. When I started with WOW!, I joined in 2001 as an HR Manager with an automotive manufacturing background. All the other department managers had spent their entire careers in the cable industry, but this was a start-up business so we were all taking a risk. One of the things the technical managers tried to impress upon me was how and why WOW! would be different: we would focus on top-notch service, we would do this by providing technicians with the proper tools to do their jobs, and we would recognize and reward them when the job was well done. As an HR manager, this didn’t seem ground-breaking for me, but I’ve learned over time that it was a major change in attitude for a company in this industry.
Nine years ago, the three senior managers in my region represented over 55 years of cable experience between them. Each told me he could count on his two hands the number of customer compliments their prior companies had received over those years. One of these managers was physically threatened, one had his tires slashed, one had a grocery cart flung at him in a parking lot as he wore his company’s jacket, and so on. Nine years ago, cable companies didn’t have great reputations with their customers.
And then there was WOW!. And here is my yardstick. We have systems in four states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and we have about 725 technicians providing broadband service to approximately 470,000 customers. These 725 technicians have earned, this year alone, over 4000 unsolicited, complimentary comments from those they serve. Let me repeat that:
4000+ compliments so far in 2010.
Kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?!
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