ANALYSIS
Customer Service in the New Millennium
WRITTEN BY PETE MESLIN
your services or would write a letter to your boss. Tere are numerous studies that support the old management adage that an unhappy customer would tell four to five times as many people about your service than a happy one, but 96 percent of the time those same disgruntled customers filed a complaint. Tere was occasional feedback, but it frequently took months to reach your desk, and it almost never reached your prospective customers. We now live in an age when online access allows students to shop for teachers, and parents to read and write reviews of service departments. Any- one now can read about best practices (either in magazines, journals or conference materials). A truly dissatisfied customer can blast emails to hundreds of other customers, or use social media to instantly inform thousands about your poor service.
T
hey say customer service just isn’t the same as it used to be. Tey’re right. Poor customer service used to mean that a very dissatisfied customer would stop using
almost immediate. Entire businesses now live and die based upon reviews posted on blogs or websites. I, for one, would like to read customer reviews before I eat at a new restaurant. I’d also like to hear about others’ travel experiences before I choose a guest house when travelling overseas. Tese busi- nesses know how important customer service is for their survival. Tey provide quality service or they lose business. If they lose enough business, they’re out of business. As an industry, we used to say that we should take time to care about the customer. In reality, however, we knew that it was very difficult to hold us accountable if we didn’t. Tat has changed. We now have to show not only that we care most of the time, but that we care all the time. We have to not only listen to customer complaints and look at automated problem reports. We also have to take immediate steps to resolve the problems they point out. Just like that new restaurant, our brand reputa- tion is on the line every day.
We can choose to live in fear of the new technology or we can choose to embrace it and adapt our service to make use of it.
Similarly, they can express their displeasure to
you, your boss, your boss’s boss and, ultimately, your school board — all in a matter of seconds. Is it fair that frustrated students can record and post misbehavior on the bus, or that a student can instantly contact parents when he or she feels the driver acted rudely? Probably not. However, this is the new reality. We can choose to live in fear of the new technology or we can choose to embrace it and adapt our service to make use of it. We can wait for the phone call from an angry
parent, who received a call from their 7-year-old student on the bus relating that the sub driver is lost. Alternatively, we can use AVL technology and GPS systems to make sure the driver doesn’t get lost in the first place. Tat same technology can now also let a parent know when the bus is near, or it can let the router know when the bus is consistently late. School transportation, and the world in general, is advancing very quickly. Customer feedback is now
38 School Transportation News April 2014 Are these impossible expectations to meet? I’d
emphatically argue No. Te best departments do not live in fear of videos, blogs or bad reviews. Rather, they continuously are trying to improve the customer experience. In so doing, they build real relationships with their customers. For decades we’ve been teaching how important it is to know your students and how important it is to treat them and their parents like important customers. For those who have been listening, the evolution of customer service isn’t a threat. For those who haven’t heeded that advice, this new customer service world can be very perilous.
Pete Meslin is the director of transportation at Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Southern California, a frequent magazine and blog contributor, and a member of the National Board of Advisors for the Transporting Students with Disabilities and Preschoolers Conference.
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