That’s a great message to give to your five-year-old when she spills milk over her homework, but lack of perfection and mistakes can cause real problems in the adult world. Undoubtedly, there will be a time when you, or one of your techs, will discover that a customer’s problem was directly caused by another tech’s screw-up.
What do you do? How do you handle it?
Use Checklists to Prevent the Mistakes at the Beginning
Last summer, the water pipes in our neighborhood had to be updated, and this meant that our water was shut off. We knew the water would be off for a few hours, but after six or seven hours without water and not a workman in sight, I called up the water company. Oops, they had left for the day without turning the water back on.
To keep reading, click here: Whatever You Do, Don’t Let a Customer Service Mistake Fester
I hear your pain with dealing with incompetence in that example about the water situation. We had a similar situation here but I made a point to talk to some of the “supervisors “ about the timing of the work and actually spent time watching the work progress while I traveled up the area doing my daily walk. I was able to see that they expect to inconvenience the residents for a posted 8 hour shift but the actual work was less than 6 hours ( between the gathering of the workers and spreading out materials and equipment for the day and the required breaks breakfast, lunch and several rest breaks). No supervisor,even though there were several, followed up at end of day’s work to ensure that everything was placed away safely unless they were dealing with gas lines. Luckily the work being done was in both water and gas lines. But they never kept to the posted timeline and the only reason they finished (at least on my street) a bit faster was because they had to partially block off the traffic to the highway exit/ entrance during their work hours. The actual inspectors that were responsible for both the water and gas lines ( utility company) didn’t show up until the new pipes were laid in and the seals had to be checked all the way to the actual residences. Meanwhile everyday for 6 weeks, we had no access to water or gas for 8 hours daily. You calling the utility company was a good idea but the communication gap was between the construction company and the utility company. I suggest that whenever a utility company is part of the project that each resident calls them directly to get notified of any turnoff period to avoid the situation described in article.