SIX JUST IN TIME INFORMATION TOOLS

The following six tools will provide significant support to front-line personnel in delivering service to your customers:

1. Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)

2. One-page customer handouts

3. Basic service and product facts

4. Written standard operating procedures (SOPs)

5. “Go-to” people list

6. Complaint process guidelines and forms

JUST-IN-TIME INFORMATION TOOLS

1. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

By its nature, this may be the most useful of all information tools.

Here is the best way to develop it:

1. Ask employees to pay close attention over the course of a week to the questions customers most frequently ask. Have them submit those questions to you.

2. Use the submissions as a basis for a training session. In the session, teach front-liners how to write short, concise answers to the questions, and have them practice delivering the answers—it’s

one thing to write answers and another to deliver them orally with ease and confidence.

3. Finally, create a process for the ongoing documentation of FAQs. Most information tools require continuous development. You may not know you need additions or corrections until situations arise

that demand them.

By initially investing time in training front-liners on this tool (and, as we suggest in Part 2, on all information tools that you develop), they become active participants in customer service improvement. Not only will they be a valuable resource to you, but they will be learning valuable skills in the process.

2. One-Page Customer Handouts

After FAQs, this is the next most important resource to create. Sometimes a handout is the best answer a front-liner can provide to a customer. Among the many

virtues of handouts is that you can ensure they will be graphically appealing, thorough, and accurate, with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

Consider preparing one-pagers for every service, product, process, or issue that generates a lot of customer questions. Get team members involved in creating them. Assign one to each member—or pair of members—and let them create drafts that you finalize.

3. Basic Service and Product Facts

If your service and product inventory is too broad to provide a comprehensive resource, focus on two categories of services and products:

• Your leading services and products

• The services and products that routinely generate customer questions

Suppliers often provide brochures that contain most of the information your front-liners need. However, ensure that the most important information about any service or product is clear and available to them:

What is the service?

How do customers access it? Where is the product?

How do customers get their hands on it and buy it?

4. Written Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

SOPs should be prepared for every task and responsibility that front-liners might be expected to perform. No task or responsibility is too small to warrant SOPs. That doesn’t mean SOPs have to be long or complex, though.

Often they can be as simple as a few bullet points.

Here is the best way to develop this tool:

1. Brainstorm a list of all the tasks that front-liners must perform and all the responsibilities that they must meet. The list must be comprehensive.

2. Split up the list among team members and ask them to draft bullet-point SOPs for several tasks.

Make sure to assign members tasks with which they have direct experience.

3. Circulate the drafts and ask team members to improve on the SOPs for each task.

Again, as the manager, you have the responsibility to review the SOPs and finalize them.

5. “Go-To” People List

This is simply a list of the names of key people and their contact information. Key people include other employees, managers, product/service suppliers, consultants, and service providers. They should correspond to

every issue—problem or opportunity—that could possibly arise. Ideally, for every potential issue, you should include a minimum of two “go-to” people. If something comes up that a front-liner cannot personally deal with, he or she should always know whom to contact for help.

6. Complaint Process Guidelines and Forms

There are two key components to the complaint process information tool:

1. Guidelines for handling small matters, that is, matters which lie within the discretion of front-line personnel. These guidelines should define the parameters of that discretion (for example, a dollar limit, flexible policies) as well as the steps to follow when exercising it.

2. A written form for documenting customer complaints that are beyond the front-liner’s discretion.

This form should provide space to record the date, time, customer’s name, contact information, specific complaint, and requested solution.

Ensure that front-liners know they must immediately give the filled-out complaint form to a person with sufficient authority to solve the problem—this is most important.

Finally, as mentioned earlier in our discussion of problem solving, front-line employees must be prepared to follow up with the complaining customer.

Developing each of these just-in-time information tools requires an investment of time and energy. However, the return on that investment can be tremendous.

As the supervisory manager, you’ll have to lead the charge. In guide, you’ll learn how to charge up your team members by involving them in this development process.