Case Study
Customer Service Assessment Helps Government Address Departmental Tensions
Client Background and Overview
A mid-sized City engaged Turnkey Solutions to implement comprehensive Customer Service Training for approximately 500 employees. This initiative aimed to enhance the City’s ability to execute its five-year strategic plan by instilling a culture of world-class customer service across all departments, later expanding to encompass departmental assessments of customer service, efficiency, and broader community engagement. Initially, the scope of work included conducting one employee and citizen survey to assess perceptions of the City’s customer service, facilitating employee and citizen focus groups to identify service delivery needs and improvement opportunities, implementing two secret shopper campaign events to gauge real-time service delivery practices, and developing targeted training content based on data analysis from the aforementioned services. However, as the City’s needs evolved, Turnkey Solutions adapted to ensure the best possible support for the client.
Challenges
The main challenge facing the City was difficulty in trying to develop a customer service culture nurtured by senior management that permeated every aspect of the City’s operations and service to citizens. They desired to see specific outcomes as evidence of a successful and thriving customer service culture but needed assistance bridging the gap between current operations and ideal operations.
Eager to help the City improve its service delivery, Turnkey Solutions conducted thorough employee and citizen surveys, along with focus groups, to assess the challenges facing customer-facing departments. Our findings revealed several issues that hindered the City from delivering the best possible customer service to citizens and City stakeholders:
- Low Employee Morale: Employees felt undervalued, unrecognized and unrewarded for their efforts, and experienced stress from unclear career paths.
- Lack of Clear Policies and Procedures: Inconsistent or undocumented policies created confusion, especially around customer service processes and decision-making.
- Communication Breakdowns: Poor communication within the department and with City leadership, as well as between departments, led to inefficiencies and mistrust.
- Understaffing and High Turnover: The City struggled with excessive workloads and insufficient staff, contributing to employee burnout, dissatisfaction, and high turnover.
- Inadequate Training: Employees reported ineffective or inconsistent training that failed to address key knowledge gaps or prepare them for job duties.
- Outdated Technology: Disjointed and unreliable systems created inefficiencies and prevented staff from providing reliable and excellent customer service.
- Unclear Roles and Responsibilities: Ambiguity in task ownership across departments results in duplicated work and missed responsibilities.
These challenges were compounded by the scope of our engagement evolving due to changes in leadership and shifting departmental needs, altering the project timeline and deliverables.
Solution
Aiming to provide the best possible solutions to help the City resolve its challenges, Turnkey implemented a flexible service contract offering a pool of hours for on-demand support. This approach enabled the City to efficiently address evolving departmental challenges.
Additionally, Turnkey Solutions provided the City with strategic tools designed to guide the workforce toward effective solutions for their customer service challenges. By providing data-backed information and utilizing effective collaboration and communication techniques, we offered a framework to the City for improving practices, addressing key issues, and aligning its efforts with its long-term goals. The tools we provided were:
- Status and Planning Meetings: Turnkey Solutions conducted regular planning and status meetings with the City to ensure project alignment with their customer service goals. we reviewed key milestones and project developments with stakeholders to foster open communication and a collaborative environment and set a standard of transparency and accountability for the City.
- Focus Group Findings Report: Our staff provided the City with detailed findings and recommendations from the analysis of the focus groups. This allowed the City to get a comprehensive understanding of its nuanced customer service challenges and root causes and to accurately assess its current state.
- Recommendations: Embedded in this report were tailored recommendations aimed at addressing each of the identified challenge areas for the City and transforming it from its current state to its ideal state.
- Action Plan: The report also included an action plan with determined next steps for the City to effectively implement the recommendations.
- Best Practice Strategies: To help the City be best-in-class and align its customer service practices with proven and researched practices, we provided the City with best practice strategies that directly addressed each of their identified challenges.
Impact
Turnkey Solutions provided the City with a strategic framework to address its customer service challenges, focusing on improving interdepartmental communication, clarifying policies and procedures, and increasing employee engagement. Through detailed assessments, including surveys and focus groups, we identified key areas for improvement and offered tailored and targeted recommendations to guide the City toward achieving its goal of instilling a world-class customer service culture. Overall, our services enabled the City to assess its customer service performance, implement targeted solutions to support staff, boost employee morale, and enhance service delivery. This ultimately strengthened the City’s relationship with its citizens and positioned it for long-term service improvements and alignment with its five-year strategic plan.