No matter what your industry, customer service plays a key role in how you define (and hopefully exceed) the expectations of your customers, vendors and employees. When it comes to the janitorial and building services industry, the human interaction factor is often overlooked when it comes to the roles these team members play in your customer service experience. With more than 100 years of collective management experience, here are three rules that we have identified as being key to successfully delivering exceptional customer service in the building maintenance industry.
1. Creating meaningful interactions between your employees, customers and vendors needs to be a priority at every level. In today’s digital age, we can easily become dependent upon emails, texts and automated reports. However, according to a recent study be Accenture, eighty-three percent of consumers prefer human interaction over using digital channels to solve customer services issues. Human and personal contact experiences, not just points of interaction, need to be part of a customer service strategy that should be modeled at every level. In other words, we need to communication like a human in a friendly, professional tone.
2. Whether you are training them in this role or not, janitorial and building maintenance team members are already customer service ambassadors. Beyond maintaining a spotless facility, these team members are among the first to encounter building questions or concerns, among the first to notice potential security and safety issues, as well as among the first to make an impression upon visitors. Your team members should be trained to be able to give basic building information and directions, follow dress code requirements, and to be professional and courteous in all interactions.
3. You don’t know what you don’t know. 80% of companies claim their customer service ranks “superior”, but in reality, only 8% of their customers agree, according to the Harvard Business Journal. It’s important to foster an environment that encourages accountability and feedback from all team members, clients and vendors. Be establishing regular communication channels, team members can report what’s working, or what’s not, and what might be improved. If something isn’t working or working as efficiently as it could, the team members need to be assured that it will be dealt with in an expedient manner. Regular, open communication will improve processes and skills and, more importantly, will help you solve little problems before they become big problems.
We passionately believe that it is our team, at every level of the company, who helps us build strong and lasting relationships with our clients because of our company-wide commitment to customer service. Role modeling enhances the training we give our team. Professionalism and courtesy is emphasized, and our team acts accordingly. Individually, we’re proud to employ a family of the most dedicated and hard-working people in the industry. Our people, our passion, our performance – we proudly recognize that our team members are the heart and soul of our business.
