Case Study
Municipal Court Leadership and Staff Receive a Tailored Training Solution
Client Background and Overview
Turnkey Solutions was engaged by one of the largest cities in Fulton County, GA to assess departmental and citizen perceptions of its Court Services Department and deliver comprehensive customer service training for all court services staff, leaderships, and municipal court judges. This engagement was aimed at supporting the city’s strategic plan by fostering a customer service-oriented culture, aligning the department with strategic goals, and addressing internal challenges and departmental tensions.
Challenges
The City’s Court Services department was experiencing an incredible amount of tension among its staff as well as with departments they worked closely with. Numerous complaints had been received, highlighting a poor image of the department and their level of customer service to external and internal customers. Aware of the growing complaints, the court leadership sought Turnkey’s help to create a cultural shift within the department. Enmeshed in this overarching challenge were several smaller concerns:
- A perceived rift between the Police and Court departments existed.
- All staff felt like there was a lack of cohesiveness and a general misunderstanding of staff roles and responsibilities.
- Not all current processes or a flowchart of communication were documented and made clear for all staff, creating confusion and frustration, and hindering operational efficiency.
- Sentiments were expressed by court leadership that many of the staff lacked accountability, and they perceived a lack of professionalism among the newer and younger staff members.
- Court staff felt that the leadership lacked the needed communication skills and perspective to galvanize the team.
- The department experienced technological issues and deficits that severely impacted performance.
Solution
Aware of the sensitive team dynamics and eager to help the department work together to best support its internal and external customers, Turnkey Solutions was able to offer the department a thorough customer service training experience. This was done using our precise and efficient methodology in assessing training needs to develop customized content.
To begin with, we deployed a customer and employee survey to receive new and accurate data about current perspectives of the City’s Court Services Department. This not only confirmed the areas of improvement identified by the court’s leadership, but also revealed other areas of need. It also provided a morale boost to the department by highlighting areas where the team was doing well. Using the assessment data to inform instructional design, Turnkey’s staff developed customized training to address each area of need.
To truly foster cultural change within the department, our training engaged both court leadership and court staff in separate sessions to cater to their nuances and differences. We employed a multimedia approach, incorporating roundtable discussions, physical job aides, team-building exercises, role-playing, and real-life application activities to maximize knowledge retention, maintain engagement, and accommodate a diverse array of learning competencies.
During the training, Turnkey’s staff not only addressed typical customer service topics, such as professionalism and communication, but also provided training on leveraging generational strengths and differences to create more unity and understanding within the department. The training was incredibly successful with nearly 90% of staff testifying that it was highly engaging. Many also mentioned that it was not just applicable in the workplace but beyond.