John Linton ....using new processes and procedures and, if I was a total tosser (which I try hard not to be) I would use a wankerish phrase like "new paradigm"....but even writing those words makes me feel slightly ill.
Another Melbourne Cup - another wrong trifecta - I have definitely lost my horse picking ability along with the time it used to need to produce positive results. No big loss - but a sign of the times perhaps. Yesterday was a 'lost day' in terms of business as always but our business sales were above 'target' and we made some progress on other issues.
Yesterday was the first day we implemented the 'tweaks' on the telephone support processes which are part of the ongoing project to clear up 100% of all support calls within the first call except for issues that require actions by the carriers. It produced a slightly better result than we achieved in October and it will be interesting to see how much progress is made over the remainder of November and then into 2012. A stumbling block to 'statistical success' is those people who call in for support without having immediate access to their computer/connection - obviously that makes it impossible to do any real trouble shooting beyond checking the connection to the exchange. It is a difficult project and one that will, if it is ultimately successful provide a much better level of service to customers - particularly those customers who are not very technically competent. The aim is month by month improvement between now and June 30th 2012 when we will re-assess what more can b eachieved.
Yesterday was also the day we asked customers (who receive the news letter) to help 'populate' the latest version of our AI 'engine's' data base which we hope one day will become a key part of Exetel's support and information processes. Mind you, we have been working towards this objective for over six years with only very limited success but have made some progress since we funded the development of a new 'engine' using full time academic resources at the Sri Lankan Institute of Technology. It will still take some time to develop this technology to being something truly useful in a commercial company such as ours but, despite the many set backs over the years, it remains a very sensible objective. One day...... it will be used as Exetel's primary sales interface to answer initial enquiries.
Probably our most important 'support' processes have always been our forum, suggestion and complaint systems which we put in place almost from before we had connected our first customer (in the case of the forum). While I understand that many companies have such processes in place I doubt that any other company has complaints/suggestions/forum posts answered by the owners of the company almost instantly and also have so many sensible suggestions implemented and so many legitimate complaints very quickly addressed and resolved. Our current challenge is to ensure these very positive situations continue in to the future as it is something uniquely positive about Exetel that no other communications supplier can 'imitate'. How much longer the current 'answerers' of these questions can continue to do so is problematic and we need to assess just how other personnel can ensure the effectiveness of these processes continues.
By January 1st 2012 we will have put in a set of objectives which will be aimed at improving every aspect of Exetel residential 'support' with discrete measurements allowing us to control the quality of whatever exists currently and allows us to measure the quality improvement, or lack of improvement, each day. I am not sure how to gauge the rate of change these new processes will achieve but we will put quite a bit of effort into moving the measurements away from 'quantitative' and make them all 'qualitative'. It will be a challenge.
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