Customer service should lie at the heart of your strategic plan. Your vision, mission, goals, and objectives should all target your customer. Customer service should be well defined and well communicated with no conflicting objectives. The following behavioral statements are part of the strategic plan for Las Vegas Valley Water District’s fleet operations, and are engrained in every fleet employee.
Respect for People
Treat everyone with courtesy, fairness, dignity, respect, and compassion.
Do not engage in favoritism and apply the same rules to everyone.
Genuinely listen and encourage an open and free exchange of ideas.
Acknowledge and appreciate others’ talents, experience, and contributions.
Praise in public and criticize in private, addressing the action, not the person.
Resolve issues impartially, without retaliation.
Avoid displays of arrogance, rudeness, vulgarity, anger, or superiority.
Respect others’ property and workspace.
Demonstrate Integrity
Employees who demonstrate integrity will:
Demonstrate honest and ethical behavior in business transactions and management practices.
Stand behind promises that are made and follow through on commitments.
Accept responsibility for actions.
Focus on finding solutions rather than placing the blame.
Not take credit for other people’s work.
Maintain confidentiality and trustworthiness.
Not participate in gossip or pettiness.
Stand up for their beliefs, even under pressure.
Encourage and acknowledge all constructive feedback.
Customer Service is the Goal
To assure the district offers the best customer service possible, employees will:
Act to provide reliable information and solve customer problems in a timely manner.
Effectively listen to and demonstrate courtesy and sensitivity to customer’s needs.
Give equal service and not engage in favoritism.
Encourage interdepartmental cooperation to improve service.
Provide the resources necessary to do an effective job.
Not compromise the quality of service.
Work proactively to prevent problems.
Provide efficient and cost-effective service.
Strive to exceed expectations.
Job Performance
To assure excellence in job performance, employees will:
Perform at their best ability while striving for continual improvement.
Demonstrate confidence, a positive attitude, self-discipline, and initiative.
Take responsibility for working safely.
Do the job right the first time.
Make sure that goals are well defined and clearly understood.
Set the example for excellence in how work should be done.
Encourage a high standard of performance.
Encourage people to participate in training and professional development, and consider and support new ideas, creativity, and innovation.
Support and encourage empowerment through effective training and task delegation.
Satisfy Customer Needs
The goal of any fleet management program is implementing processes to enhance productivity, improve efficiency, and provide excellent customer service. More importantly, the key to attaining these objectives is determining your customer’s needs, wants, and expectations.
Your customer is the No. 1 gauge when trying to determine program effectiveness. You may be cost-efficient, but if your customers, drivers, and operators are not happy, you do not have a completely successful fleet management program.
Survey your customers. Providing a medium for their comments and input is a must. Develop a system to obtain feedback. Quality assurance cards at your service desk and feedback cards placed in the vehicle after servicing are just two methods.
Take your service and assistance to the customer anywhere you can. Most fleets have a centralized parking area where drivers and operators show up at certain times of the day to get their vehicle.
Provide a mobile roaming technician to assist drivers and operators each day as they perform their vehicle safety/mechanical checks. The technician can roam the parking area equipped with fluids, minor repair parts, advice, and can provide on-the-spot service to drivers and operators. An electric burden cart will normally fit this task perfectly. This effort will educate drivers and operators about vehicle maintenance. It will also expedite getting vehicles into service quickly and reduce road services. These actions will
contribute tremendously to saving valuable manpower and resources.
A winning situation with your customer is to give them more than they expect. This will keep them coming back, and they will tell others of their good experience, who tell others, who tell others.
