okay, question of the day: so how does anyone get low wage workers to improve the quality of their work? i was just on the phone with fedex, because they lost one of my packages. the customer service representative sounded bored, disinterested and mentioned that she would tell someone to look into it. wow, that sounded reassuring. so i asked her to repeat what i said, and she snapped at me and said to call back later. this is the second time that a fedex driver has bungled a delivery in a month. and ups never ceases to deposit my packages on any exposed flat surface in my apartment building, most of the times in areas that require hunting and/or pure luck to discover. my girlfriend literally tripped over a package in a stairwell, and by the grace of pure dumb luck, it turned out to be one of her holiday presents.
so, the call center people don't care, and the delivery guys don't care. furthermore, the packages take over a week to get processed. i thought the company was called federal EXPRESS, not "bubba's slow-as-molasses package shot put training camp."
what kind of incentives can we give to get support staff to do their jobs? listen, i know their job sucks. i know it's monotonous, and people can be cranky. i know they don't get paid very much, but... people should get their deliveries ON TIME and not have their expensive gifts / corporate documents strewn on the floor for the neighbor's minitature doberman to chew up. customers pay top dollar to get their shit on time.
anyway, i have a simple suggestion. tip the driver when things come on time. call in a "thank you" when a job is well done. anyway, i guess my point is... when someone does a good job, compliment them. when all a person hears is complaints, that lowers morale. positive reinforcement never hurt anyone.
this is not to say that one shouldn't speak up when services are not done properly (oh believe me... i do!), but when things are done well, don't forget to compliment someone. it might make a difference in the quality of their work, and you might just get what you want.
this has been a public service announcement.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
quality control
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2 comments:
while complimenting good service is a good idea, basically, you are going to get the level of service that the company is willing to pay to provide. you have to acknowledge that people don't take shitty jobs for the joy they get when people compliment them on their performance. they take shitty jobs because they are paid to do shitty jobs.
higher wages and better benefits make a shitty job a lot more tolerable, and happier workers will give better service. customers care more about the price the company charges more than they care about excellent service, and the company has clearly arranged things to take that into account.
yeah i would agree with you. however, i don't control the management of fedex, so the only thing i can do is give positive reinforcement when things go well. i used to be a "screamer" when it came to customer service representatives, but i discovered that "please" and "thank you" actually got better results for me than "@#$@$#@!!!! you idiot! can you READ?! OH MY GOD WHERE IS YOUR SUPERVISOR!!!! FOOOOCCKKKK!!!"
and if a particular customer care representative is not responsive, simply call back and try another one.
being polite also helps collection agencies remove credit dings faster. "i'm a lawyer and i'm going to sue you!" does not.
anyway, i would agree with you that if companies simply took better care of their workers, workers would work harder and produce better quality work. happy workers = more productivity and better service = more profits and happy customers.
but we don't run these companies. sadly.
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