I admit I have a narrow view of things sometimes. I look at my computer screen and not the mess on my desk. I look at my “to do list” for the day and assign extra work to my managers without looking at theirs. And, I don’t look at anything over my head. In the day to day hustle and bustle within your office, you will find most people are using a narrow lens as they complete their duties, too. Customer service looks at things through the lens of customer satisfaction and call volume. The sales department looks at things through the lens of wins and losses or revenue streams. The operations department looks at things through the lens of completing all the stops on the route sheets safely. And, the accounting department uses the lens of accuracy and profitability. A proactive and effective customer service driven company needs to take a 360 degree look at all customer interactions to be effective and efficient.

Let’s take a look at how a 360 degree approach to customer service can impact your residential customer base. Every day you expect phone calls from your customers and you expect some of them to be regarding missed trash. Customer service fields the call, but other departments take a back seat to satisfying the customer. Our collective goal is to determine whether the trash that is still sitting on the customer’s driveway is because of an operational error or a customer issue, and to solve the issue so effectively that the customer never has to call for the same issue again.
How can customer service think more like an operations manager?
If a customer pays a past due bill at the last minute, stick with reinstating service the following week. Too many special favors each day can negatively impact your dispatchers and drivers. Sending trucks back costs money.
Know when your trucks are in certain areas so you can be frugal with company resources. If a supervisor has to hop in the pick-up truck to satisfy a promise customer service made, sending the pick-up truck out costs money.
Be sure to assess whether the issue is with recycling, household trash or yard waste so that the right driver is notified. Sending back the wrong truck costs money.
Gather good detail on extra trash or bulky items so the driver isn’t surprised and possibly unable to clean up the trash left behind. Sending trucks back and forth costs money.
I recently had a dispatcher ask why I cared what time routes were closed. She commented that she finished usually by the following day around noon. She again asked what her closing the route had to do with customer service. I asked her if drivers put on their route sheets things like “trash not out” or maybe that there was an appliance at the curb. She said they did. I asked her what time she thought a customer might call if they came home from work and found the trash wasn’t picked up. She laughed a bit as she said they started calling before the office was open for the day. I startled her as I exclaimed “Exactly!” She didn’t realize that if the customer service department had the information before a customer called they could be prepared and address the problem properly without having to call dispatch.
How can the operation’s team think more like a customer service representative?
Make sure your drivers are handling “trash not out” or issues with a stop properly. Lack of documentation contributes to poor customer service.
Close your routes daily so notes are entered in the system to help your CSRs answer customer questions. If you can’t complete closing a certain route, let customer service know what issues you had so they can be proactive and call your customer. When information is not updated in a timely manner, it contributes to poor customer service.
Let customer service know if there is a delay or problem with a route as soon as it happens so they know how to answer customers. When customer service is the last to know, they sound unsure of themselves when they talk to the customer and that contributes to poor customer service.
You wouldn’t send a driver out in a truck without gas or with broken tail lights. In the same light then, don’t send customer service out to talk to your customers without information that affects a customer’s service. The driver is the hands and feet of the operation and the CSR is the mouthpiece. They both need the right tools to do a great job for the customer and the company.