Many fire departments are coming to a serious crossroad. The pessimists see the beginning of the end. The optimists see some stumbling blocks on the road to a better tomorrow. Right now, I’m not sure who will be right. What I do know is that what happens today and for the next few months, to a large extent, will determine that future.
I have watched many very positive people lose their drive and become discouraged. I am now receiving more and more complaints about employees I consider to be very good people. This article concerns my concept of what we as “public servants” are all about or at least should be about.
I only ask that you read this and contemplate how you want to be regarded as a servant of the public. Then, look at your current performance and compare it with what you would like it to be. You are the only person who is really in control of your actions, your thoughts, and your attitude on the job. These are the things that control your performance.
Much of the following information comes from one of the best city government customer service and Total Quality Management programs in the United States-Austin, Texas, and its “Basics” Program.
Fire departments and their employees or members are in the business of service. Our “work” is serving the people within our jurisdiction. We provide some of the services that are fundamental to a community in which people can work, learn, and enjoy life-i.e., fire suppression, emergency rescue services, emergency medical service, fire prevention, fire safety education, and so on. We have an obligation to provide top-quality services and to use tax dollars wisely to accomplish our goals. Concentrating on improving the services we provide is concentrating on the core of our business. Even though we are required to do much more than we did in years past and have fewer people doing the work, what we do we should be doing with high-quality standards and quality customer service.
Much has been written about quality customer service, with numerous theories on what constitutes its key elements. This article focuses on the four common themes that lay the groundwork for a philosophy of providing quality customer service. These include managing moments of truth; knowing and understanding customer needs and expectations; developing or revising systems and procedures to ensure they are customer-friendly; and recognizing and treating employees as customers, too.
Managing Moments of Truth
A “moment of truth” is an episode in which the customer comes in contact with any aspect of the organization and thereby has an opportunity to form an impression. These impressions layered one on top of the other form the customer’s opinion about an organization. We can take this figure of speech-moment of truth-and make it a concrete part of an approach to producing, delivering, and managing service. Moving the focus of attention from job descriptions and tasks to moments of truth helps us think more clearly about our personal contribution to customer satisfaction. It also helps us think more clearly about service quality-excellence at the moments of truth, excellence as defined by the customer’s frame of reference.
This “service management philosophy” suggests that each member of the organization has a part to play in making sure things turn out “right” for the customer. This is not to suggest that the customer is always going to get his way or not be subjected to some negative consequences for his illegal activities, but fairness, respectfulness, and courtesy may define the word “right” under some situations. Certainly, anyone who is in direct contact with the customer should feel responsible to see things from the customer’s point of view and to do whatever is possible to take care of the need that customer presents. Every person within any segment of the department needs to have the customer in mind at all times. Under this philosophy, the entire organization should operate like one big customer service department.
If you take the “moments of truth” concept literally, you don’t concentrate on jobs and tasks and organizational structures and procedures. You start thinking in terms of outcomes. You can immediately begin to take inventory of the moments of truth “your” customers experience as you deliver your service to them. Once you know what these moments of truth are, you can analyze each one from the standpoint of quality. You can start improving the ones that need improving and looking for ways to add value to all of them. Keep in mind that not all moments of truth involve direct interaction between a firefighter and a citizen/customer. Some of these moments involve the communication between the organization and the customer that is not performed by an employee but originates through some other medium. Some involve the location, layout, and upkeep of the department’s assets, facilities, and vehicles. The personal appearance of a department member may be the only perception a “customer” has of the fire department as a whole. The sum total of all the possible moments of truth our customers experience, human and nonhuman, becomes the service image.
As we think about this view in terms of moments of truth as episodes that offer perishable opportunities to make a quality impression, it becomes obvious that management-i.e. the officers of the department-are not in control of the quality. The same is true for the city council and board of directors. They simply can’t be present at all of the moments of truth to supervise them and make sure such moments are handled properly. This means that we have no choice but to rely on the person actually handling the moment of truth. The person providing the service to the customer at any moment of truth is in fact the manager at that point in time. Each one of us controls the outcome of our moments of truth by having control over our own behavior toward the customer. Sometimes, it is a frightening realization for supervisors who pride themselves on being “in charge” to realize that they really are not in charge. The basic building block of service can no longer be thought of as the employee’s job task; it is really the moment of truth he “manages.” Quality is not the satisfactory performance of an assigned duty. It now must be defined as the outcome of the moment of truth.
Knowing and Understanding Customer Needs and Expectations
With the variety of services provided by fire departments today comes a vast array of customer types. To provide an acceptable level of service quality, you must understand the needs and motivations of each customer group.
For a moment of truth to be successful, a customer must feel he received the quality of service he needed or expected. By understanding the customer’s needs and expectations, we can more effectively manage these moments of truth.
Methods available for determining customer expectations include market research, user surveys, focus groups, program evaluations, and exit interviews. The resulting information reveals whether the organization is providing the quality of service the customer needs and expects, what kind of service changes are needed, and when to make them.
In addition to formal research methods, customer needs and expectations can be gathered and transmitted in daily communications up and down through the organization on a daily basis. This should include input from all members about the resources they require to provide quality service, as well as input from customers about needed service improvements.
Because many of our jobs include regulatory tasks, the customer is not always right. Many of our outcomes have a negative impact on our customers. What we can provide is fair, consistent, courteous, and respectful service. If you treat people the way you would expect to be treated under the same circumstances, you can seldom go wrong. That does not mean that no one will complain. We can reduce complaints but will never eliminate them because of the nature of our business. What it will mean is that complaints will be a disagreement on whether they were wrong or not but won’t include attitude complaints or complaints of rude or inappropriate behavior by department representatives.
Developing or Revising Systems and Procedures to Ensure They Are Customer-Friendly
The department’s “systems” of operation should be supportive, flexible, and easy for the customer to access and understand. A good rule of thumb is to always design systems that “assist rather than insist.” Each process or system that we have should be designed, to the extent possible, for the convenience of the customer rather than for the convenience of the service provider. In evaluating the organization’s systems and procedures to enhance cost-efficiency and customer service, you must look for the following:
- Complex processes that are difficult to understand and that require the customer to visit several different locations to obtain a response to single questions or issues.
- Customer information that is confusing or poorly written.
- Data systems or other processes that are separate and decentralized, forcing the customer to increase the amount of time spent collecting information or coordinating among different departments.
- Organizational structures designed to force customers to speak with several different people about the same subject.
Of course, it is equally important that each of us responsible for executing the systems and procedures is informed about the reasons for the system’s existence, trained in how to access or work within the system, and empowered to make the system work for the customer’s benefit.
We must realize that some of our previous systems and procedures worked well at the staffing levels of the past but do not have the same degree of effectiveness today. It was very easy to function as separate, nearly sovereign departments in the past. That is no longer possible.
Everyone needs to have a higher level of knowledge of the department’s overall operations. You should at least be able to answer questions and pitch in where possible. Many times, no one from a specific division or city department is available to answer a citizen’s question. You must think about what you don’t know but should know about another department. Then, find the time to get your questions answered. Police officers should be talking with firefighters about how they can help them on particular emergency scenes. Firefighters should be doing the same with police officers. You are the expert at your job in the department. Find a better, more efficient, and more effective way to operate. It will help the entire organization function better.
Recognizing and Treating Employees as Customers, Too
This principle encompasses two different concepts.
First, in addition to the numerous moments of truth that occur daily between department personnel and the citizens are encounters among department members. In many organizations, these moments of truth, which occur when an employee interacts with another employee, comprise the more neglected areas of customer service. Extend the moment of truth concept to include those moments that occur inside the organization. Visualize the production process to include a series of subprocesses where one part of the organization produces an output that is turned over to another part of the organization before the ultimate product is delivered to the final customer. We must recognize the need to improve each one of the processes to create a quality experience for the ultimate customer.
The second concept is the recognition that organizations need to let employees know they are valued and reward them for outstanding performance. The employees will determine the success of any management policy. Employees’ commitment is commensurate with the degree to which they perceive they are valued as an integral part of the organization. In other words, employees are customers of the organization as a whole and should be treated with the same level of respect, care, and concern as external customers. Organizations must never forget that the way they treat employees will be reflected in the way the employees treat the customers.
All too often, organizations tend to view problems with customer service as the responsibility of the front-line employees only. Often, however, the quality of service is dependent on the training offered those employees. Some organization attempt to substitute “smile” training for an adequate support system for the line employee. This is a mistake. We depend on front-line employees as a source of information about what is wrong with the existing system or procedure; we work with them to redesign it; and then we train them so they are equipped to meet the customer’s needs and expectations.
The bottom line of customer service, however, is that the quality of the moments of truth is affected by the attitude and mindset of the individual employee. The organization’s responsibility is to put each of its members in the best position possible to create and maintain a high-quality standard for customer service.
No one but you can decide how you handle each moment of truth. If you do your best, and are proud of each of your moments of truth, no one can ask for more.
MARK WALLACE is chief of the Golden (CO) Fire Department. He is the former chief of the Sheridan (CO) Fire Department and past president of the Denver Metro Fire Chiefs Association and the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association. Wallace has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in public administration. He is the author of Fire Department Strategic Planning: Creating Future Excellence (Fire Engineering, 1998).
