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- You can answer any question that comes in, easily and quickly. (Or, if not easily and quickly then at least on behalf of the customer.)
- You are responsible for problem-solving, out of sight of the customer.
- You close the loop for the customer.
- You reduce the burden of effort for your customer in every way possible. And no that doesn’t mean telling them to go to your website. Probably they’re calling you because using your website is untenable right now, or it’s failing them in some way (website is the first port of call in 2024, not the last).
Contractor handing your service? Here’s how to screw your customers.
March 27th, 2024When you farm out a service to a Contractor, the fastest way to screw your customers is to wash your hands of the service.
Delegating anything to a Contractor adds customer service burden. It does not remove it! I’ll explain why, below.
The attitude that you can wash your hands and divest responsibility is especially problematic in local government (local Council).
Recently I’ve had several interactions with my local Council that demonstrate how not to do things. The stories are helpful for you, so I’m about to tell them.
And in a move different from my usual perspective, I am going to name and shame today. I’m choosing to do so because City of Marion Council publicly pretends to be all about its residents.
Use a “process” that fails over and over again
I first lodged a No Spray request with Council in September 2023. This was via phone call and via Snap Send Solve, a complaint lodging app used by many Australian local government organisations.
After complaints, I began getting calls directly from the Contractor, without my consent and without any interaction at all from Council. This meant that my details were passed to a third party without someone having asked me first. And each time, a failure to solve the issue occurred.
When finally someone deigned to inform me that there was a No Spray Register form online, I filled in the form. This form was supposed to solve the problem, by enabling Council to inform the Contractor of the No Spray requirements; sprayers are held to account against the Register.
But, guess what happened? Failure. Demonstrated by someone hoofing poison from a vehicle into my property.
It wasn’t until I threatened to present this at a Council meeting that the issue was apparently resolved. “Apparently”, because we have yet to see whether sprayers bypass the property as directed.
It transpires that the internal process had failed, from every dimension. The No Spray Register form process had failed also, which is a damning indictment of failure internal to the workings of the organisation. Once the form had reached the apparently responsible person, where did it end up? Who knows!
When finally a person with authority got involved, she was shocked at how poorly her team had acted on the issue. But she shouldn’t be if she was involved in any kind of quality improvement program.
That process took six months instead of one day.
Factoring staff time, Contractor time, and handling, you might say that this one simple issue cost Council an estimated $200, if the handling time is factored at $34/hour. (Plus on-costs. If the Contractor charges more like $120/hr than $34, it is more in the order of $600). It doesn’t sound like much, but if this is representative of how residents’ requests are being handled, multiply this by many thousands and you have an absolutely dire picture of where ratepayers’ money is going.
In terms of customer aggravation and staff panic, the cost has been immense.
Fail to maintain information about your own services to handle simple enquiries
My favourite failure lately has been the handling of simple enquiries, because it’s endemic. I’ll stick to my example for today though.
This Council, like all Councils, delegates waste management to a Contractor.
But instead of maintaining simple information for its customers, it completely washes its hands of all customer enquiries. They make customers jump through many hoops just to get a simple answer, as if Council were a signpost instead of a service provider. (They can’t be a switchboard unless they actually do something.)
When I phoned City of Marion to enquire about the price of an additional bin, I was told to call the Contractor.
It took me 15 minutes on hold before I was offered a call-back.
The call-back came about an hour later.
The call-back told me to phone someone else. No phone number was offered to me. I would have to go and search for the number, spend more time on hold, and effectively waste half my day.
This could have been solved by having information at reception, and the receptionist saying, “it’ll be $80/year”. Or whatever it is.
Bam. Half a minute longer on the phone, happy resident.
Now, imagine what would have happened if the receptionist had not only provided this information but asked if I wanted one. The Council would be up some dollarbucks, and everyone would be far happier.
When your customers phone you, the confidence and knowledge your staff members have about your organisation and its services is reflective of how the entire organisation functions. A receptionist who won’t even go a little bit beyond a literal question is therefore a liability, not an asset.
Service failure is a key indicator of a Quality system breakdown
In terms of Quality indicators in accredited organisations, this type of simple service failure is a key indicator of a system breakdown.
Take, for example, high call waiting times. Sometimes this is unavoidable, such as times of staff shortage. But in this particular case I’d suggest that it’s more likely due to rubbish service delivery and high complaint levels.
When I was re-emerging into employment after closing down my first business, I manned a frightfully busy switchboard for a a furniture company for about a fortnight (I was temping). Call volumes were high; but call bounce-back was also high. After a few days, I decided to track the nature of the calls. It transpired that the call volume was a direct result of unhappy clientele: The vast majority of calls were complaints! Many of those complaints were about the chosen delivery contractor. When I presented the data, complete with charts and extensive notes, to the appropriate management bods, I was given a surprised and tight smile. Then, the next time they requested a temp, they asked for a junior. The company went bankrupt soon after, and I for one was completely unsurprised.
Customers are a key pillar of any Quality Management System for many reasons. Customers are the lifeblood of your business, and a customer interaction triggers your systems. How your organisation handles all types of customer interactions demonstrates whether or not the organisation is committed to quality output, quality function, and continuous improvement.
That commitment is integral to ISO 9001. Without it, you cannot achieve certification.
And when your commitment to your customers fails, so does your business.
In summary
If your organisation provides a service, it is your organisation’s responsibility to handle that service effectively from start to finish.
This means:
In all cases, the quality of your service is indicative of your leadership’s attitude.
If your service treats customers with disdain, then I will bet you $100 that your leadership’s attitude is all about itself.
In any organisation, that’s simply a fast track to failure.
And as a final, personal, aside, I genuinely hope the City of Marion doesn’t have an ISO 9001 certification! If it does, I’ll be wondering who is certifying them and what they’re not checking.
Xx Leticia
Are you there, God? It’s me, Leticia.
February 24th, 2024Are you there, God? It’s me, Leticia. I’ve been absent a long time because I didn’t realise the very nature of the world.
I remember telling the world that I wasn’t a Buddhist, but that I did Buddhist things. I chanted the mantra of compassion and wailed. I did loving-kindness meditation every day without realising that this state of ever-love was something I was taught by a Church when I was a kid and too young to understand it or care.
And then I became mother and the entire world changed. I walked through a fire unlike any fire of my life. I faced one of the most significant deaths of Self I have ever encountered, and it spilled out into my world and fractured everything for such a long time – including my marriage. When I re-formed back into a recognisable human being, I embraced art and creativity in new ways. I even published a collection of poetry about how I struggled to come to terms with what I was never told about the sheer beauty of motherhood. So filled with angst was I about how I felt like I had wasted my life despite all of the “achievements” I had made.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Leticia, and I remember you. You were there in the beginning.
Not just the beginning of all worlds and all creations, but at the beginning of Me. At the beginning of every new life. At the beginning of all new works, all new Arts, all new creations, there you are. Sometimes dressed in the shining, shimmering garments of a Muse with a hidden name. Sometimes you whisper ideas of deliciousness, inviting me into pathways I’d never seen, or heard, or known.
When I realise the immensity of what it means to be a Source of all creation, I lose my mind with the scale. Mathematicians may be the only academics who really know you exist. When I know the sheer scale of ‘beginning’, I realise that those who thank the universe forget that the universe ‘exists’ and therefore began somewhere. I realise that those who thank the ‘Source’ are simply afraid of the word God. Without you, birth is impossible and mothers are redundant.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Leticia. I have been afraid of recognising you in public.
The public shames those who believe in God, and champions those who uplift any alternative term. And yet, you called me. You keep calling me to you, and I will always answer.
I remember when I felt so drawn to pray the Rosary that I was physically restrained from doing anything else than buying a set of beads one afternoon. I couldn’t think of anything else. I couldn’t be without it. I will never forget how praying the Rosary restored to me the capacity to meditate after exposure to COVID-jabbed people who were shedding, how it restored to me my energetic body and allowed me to keep functioning. Since then, I have prayed daily and my entire life has changed direction, for the better. Society has dived into a deep hole of blasphemy since the population took the poison, and it is no surprise as to why.
You are there, God. I am Leticia, and I know you, name you and honour you.
Thank you for all you do for me, and long may your light shine into and redeem this darkening realm.
xx Leticia
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A morning with Eagle Rays
February 12th, 2024A morning with Eagle Rays sounds enchanting, because it is.
Today, I spent three hours with my gorgeous three-year-old son, at Seacliff Beach in South Australia. It was hot, and getting hotter; about 37 degrees by lunchtime.
When we got to the beach, it was littered with boat trailers, the occasional car. The soft sand near the road had been churned up into deep, bog-like trenches by four-wheel-drives (4WD) roaring through so they didn’t get bogged. We almost got bogged, as I pulled the beach wagon by hand through the soft, softer, softest mounds, cursing my choice of entry. The little guy was loving it, even though his mum panicked a little when a 4WD came barrelling off the beach in front of us.
We parked closer to the water, near where people were kind of gathered, a little north of the boat trailers.
The sea was aqua, as flat as the eye could see. The type of sea that presages either earthquake or blisteringly hot weather; it darkens as the day gets hotter.
We got out the floatie board and pretended to surf.
We swapped out toys for water guns and pew pew‘d each other until salt water ended up in eyes.
Then we threw them away and got properly wet. The water, freezing on first entry, was soon deliciously warm. Shallow, lake-like, and under a burning sun, it was simply glorious. Toddler son, more a little boy now than a toddler, who had been so utterly resistant about going to the beach until I’d promised trenches and jumping on sand castles, was enthusiastic. He was determined to get wet. We played a game first invented by Troy, which was to walk along and then ‘discover’ a hole in the ground that mum (or dad) falls into, causing parent-and-son to splash noisily into the water.
‘Ohh I hope there are no more holes here!’ I shrieked, pretending to be alarmed.
Soon, though, we were joined by a sting ray. Well, I thought it was a sting ray. He or she was flying lazily along the sand’s surface, maybe a metre away.
Pretty soon, one sting ray became two.
Two became three.
Three became four.
They flew near us, north along the shore. Then flipped a wing out of the water, turned around and few back, capturing the attention of every walker along the beach. Some walkers abandoned their journeys and gently followed the flying beasts, venturing into the water to get closer. Some pulled out phones and filmed them. Others took photos.
And we simply marvelled at their glorious, calm beauty.
A woman and a dog happened along. She had a little girl, older than my boy, who captivated his attention. The girl was off splashing around and swimming. The mother yelled out after her, ‘(name), this is as good as it gets!‘. She was referring to the ultimate proximity to the rays, which were close enough that they could almost suck your toes. In some cases, they saw my toes and came steadily towards me.
I smiled at the woman. ‘You’re right about that!’
She came over, beaming. We had a discussion about identifying the critters. She pulled out her smartphone and searched around for them, and we determined that they aren’t sting rays but eagle rays. My mum’s suggestion – that they’re skates – was wrong. Skates have stumpy, fleshy tails, rather than the eagle ray’s whip-like tail. These were Southern Eagle Rays.
We were privileged to watch them coast along, flip a wing out of the water to turn sharply and coast back. They moved slowly past us, totally unconcerned. We saw every detail, from their noses to their beautiful big eyes and their fins. We watched them ‘flying’ along north and south. For a while, my little man got up on my shoulders so that he could see them better. At his tiny vantage-point not far above the surface of the water, ‘me no see anything!’.
It turns out that the rays are pretty tame because the fishermen feed them scraps when they come in from their fishing jaunts. The rays follow the paths of the boats almost right to the water’s edge.
We swam, and splashed, and threw rocks. And in between, we stood respectfully by, watching the eagle rays swim and coast along. My little guy learned that they’re not sting rays. He learned how they swim, where their eyes are, what they look like, and how to spot them in the water. He learned that they feed on fish and molluscs. He learned that the fishermen feed them, that they follow boats along. He learned that (the ones near us anyway) seem to travel around in families, despite being solitary creatures.
Along the way, he learned what fishing rigs look like, what boat motors smell like. He learned how boats stop floating away in the sea, and what an anchor looks like. He learned how boats are hoisted up onto boat trailers, and two or three different ways of doing such a job.
He learned that it’s awesome to talk to new people, to share a love for the wild. He discovered a deep, abiding joy in just watching wildlife, and a real love for the glorious creatures that otherwise look so scary. He learned that they’ll come up to you and that you can stroke them if you know how (as some on the beach did today).
It wasn’t long before our falling-in-holes game became a ‘me be eagle ray, you be Beren’ game.
Then, when we were out having a mid-morning picnic, he cast his eyes up and down the beach.
‘Why no kids, mum?’ he asked me.
‘They’re at school, mate.’ I replied. ‘All day. Like daddy.’
He pondered this for a moment, looking around at the retirees and middle-aged, and those who are presumably not Monday-to-Friday wagies.
‘Strange,’ is all he said.
Given the incredible experience and learning we had in just three hours of fun and wonder, it’s pretty hard to see it any other way.
I sometimes write about nature. Like this piece, about the rain. I’d love to hear what you think.
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Never let the sun set on anger
January 14th, 2024‘Never let the sun set on anger’ is a phrase I’ve known since I can remember. It has legitimately been with me for my entire life. And as a prideful, ego-filled (ego-fuelled, perhaps) person, I’ve always just thought yeah, yeah. But it’s improved my marriage, endlessly.
Well, I ought to qualify that.
‘Improved my marriage’ is a far larger category than one simple phrase. But using Never let the sun set on anger as a guidepost has enabled me to access something even more important. Forgiveness.
Leadership means addressing anger with love, by going first.
Love takes many forms of expression. One of them – arguably the most powerful – is the ability to apologise first.
This is one of the teachings of Christianity. It teaches humility, and through that teaching allows you to discover peace; only in peace will you find the capacity to reconnect.
The trouble with the framing, however, especially to those who are not Christians, is that it appears overly servile.
What if the situation is not your fault?
What if the other person is simply an arsehole?
Isn’t it opening yourself to the abuse of others – especially emotional abuse – if you apologise first, even if it’s not your fault?
Why would you apologise first if it isn’t your fault?
Every question listed above is valid, as is every premise. But the kicker, one that I’ve learned recently, is that apologising first isn’t about who did what to whom. It is about breaking the ice.
It doesn’t mean that you have to accept fault, or accept that you are a causation of someone else’s emotions. All it means is that you’re approaching them, peacefully, and waving a white flag.
Bearing a white flag allows you to step out of the fierce bond that anger creates.
Anger creates a fierce bond between parties. It’s a bond so strong that it looks like isolation. What a concept! Here’s what I mean: When you and your worthy opponent are fiercely mad at/with each other, you are in a stand-off.
The stand-off will only last so long as the passion.
And I truly mean passion. Passions are fleeting. Psychology now will have us speak of emotions, but that’s very recent – only since the late 19th Century. Prior to that, we experienced passions.
After the passion has dissipated, what you’re left with is pride. Pride creates mental stories, mental stories create resentment. Resentment creates new passions.
This is why, even when you’re still in the passion, stepping forward to apologise is such a healing balm. It calms the waters. It allows you to say, I’m sorry you’re upset. It allows you to recognise your own role (if there is one). It allows you to lay the white flag at your worthy opponent’s feet and walk away.
You’ll find that your worthy opponent will walk towards you once their own passion dies away.
As women, we are called to be leaders in our families, but in gentleness. This is why, if you’ve spent your life within the chains of masculine-energy frameworks, leading the way through a door like apologies makes you want to vomit.
Leadership of people requires the ability to be a person of character. This means being capable of addressing your own passions and doing the right thing regardless.
Addressing anger within the same day prevents resentment and promotes forgiveness
Once you’ve been big enough to step up and make the first, gentle, move, you’ll recognise the positive after-effects. Resentment drops. Positive bonds increase. Forgiveness becomes accessible.
Forgiveness is another term that comes to us dripping with the baubles of organised religion, which is why you rarely hear about it now outside of those constraints. And yet, forgiveness will set you free.
As an artist, and as a coach, I spend a lot of time pondering and working with artistic blocks. Many of those blocks originate with the comments and behaviours of others. And they persist because those people haven’t been forgiven.
The act of forgiveness means completely pardoning someone for something. It means you no longer think about it. It means it no longer shapes your thoughts, or your emotions, or what comes out the other side. Thoughts are things; remember Prentice Mulford?
Just like apologising first is not about the other party, neither is forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not about acceptance.
Forgiveness is not about owning someone else’s behaviour or language.
The act of forgiving is an act of seeing someone as a human with a heart, and emotions, and flaws and faults. And then letting them and their acts go.
Sometimes that means you have to actually let them go from your life. But most of the time they already have departed, often long ago! You have simply held onto them, fiercely, for the entirety of your life.
So forgive them. Let them be free. And in doing so, free yourself.
Next time you’re in a squabble or a stoush, apologise before the sun goes down. Don’t let the sun set on anger; it hardens the heart, because anger transforms into resentment.
Take a deep breath and, instead, offer an apology. Don’t persist if they’re still pissed. Just offer it, quietly, and let them be. They will, when they’re calm, come to you. And that is the secret of the good life.
Once you see this magic at work, it will be the balm that heals you, your life, and your art. But you’ve got to have enough courage and character to stand tall and do it.
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Dear Artist: Criticism can kill you
January 14th, 2024Dear Artist
Make it your mission never to criticise anyone. As artists we receive enough of it from society; in ceasing our own criticisms, complaints and condemnation, we each enrich the world and stand as exemplars to all men.
“Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.
“Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do.
“But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
That was written by Dale Carnegie, in his seminal work, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Strive to understand.
Forgiveness isn’t about doing something for someone else. It’s about freeing YOU.
When someone criticises you, therefore, forgive them and move on.
If you don’t, your art – or worse, your life – may languish.
Therefore, cease criticizing others lest you yourself be criticized.
Whatever you do today, may the love this creates in your heart shine through your art.
xx Leticia
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