Meet the team – Coordinating for customer satisfaction

In our latest Meet the Team article, the spotlight falls on Karen, who has over 20 years of experience working in Facilities Management. Karen is a well-liked and trusted Precision FM team member who loves her job.

Here we learn more about her position, commitment to quality client care and customer satisfaction, and why she likes being kept busy.

What is your role within the company?

I have been at Precision FM for four years now and I have responsibility for handling the customer calls and emails that come into our Helpdesk on a day-to-day basis.  I also oversee the follow-up, making sure our team (or specialist subcontractors) resolve any issues.

As a Customer Service Coordinator, I supervise a team of customer service representatives and ensure that as a team, we are adhering to the business’s guidelines and practices and are in line with the customer service level agreements (SLA’s).

We work hard to maintain the company’s reputation for excellent levels of customer service, ensuring that all our customers receive a timely and efficient response to their enquiry.

I feel that someone who wishes to be successful as a customer service coordinator must have great communication skills and the ability to guide and encourage fellow team members on the business’s overall mission. They should engage with their team and reward them with incentives for receiving good client reviews.

What does a typical day look like?

I’m on the phone all day taking calls from clients who might have all manner of issues, from broken sprinklers to parts needing to be replaced. I might coordinate tradespeople’s dispatch to construction or refurbishment jobs or deal with one-off matters. We employ skilled engineers and tradespeople who will go out and fix structural problems, plumbing issues, or whatever is required by the client to make things right.

What are some of the problems clients ask you to help with?

We mainly deal with jobs requiring tradespeople such as an electrician or a plumber – the skilled people we all rely on to keep things working well.

I might get a call to say the radiators are not working properly at one of the premises we manage. So I’d then decide who the appropriate person would be that I could send out to get the issue rectified.

There might be a problem with the lighting or the lifts, so I’ll contact our technicians and arrange for them to be fixed. The engineers will let me know that the job has been done, and then I can ensure we’ve recorded this within our online system and noted what action was taken.

As we have the experience of working with a range of customers, sometimes we are able to help the client without the need for an engineer to be sent out.  We use our experience and understanding of our clients’ sites and the assets they have to suggest what might be causing a particular issue.  If we can do this, we are helping them to save money and deliver the best level of customer service.

What processes do you have in place to help deal with these and improve customer satisfaction?

We pride ourselves on delivering a professional, expert, value-for-money responsive service and the company has set a range of key performance indicators to ensure we are delivering a ‘customer first’ service to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction.

All calls to the helpdesk are answered within 5 rings and the experienced team are available to identify the right type of engineer required through thorough questioning with the client contact upon call-out request.

We have an extremely useful priority system.  When a client reports an on-site issue to us, we will review its severity based on four key areas of impact; health & safety, operational critical, security, and reputational impact.  The issue would be ranked in accordance with its expected impact on the business and we will plan our response times against these.  We obviously have to send out people immediately for emergencies such as flooding or a potentially dangerous electrical fault, anything that is immediately impacting our customer’s business operations.

We operate an online diary system on our Topdesk CAFM system, where we can see which blocks are occupied, and they’re colourised by priority. There might be a regular maintenance job that can be booked for weeks in advance or something that must be seen immediately.

It’s all about team coordination, and I’d say we do have an excellent ability to prioritise so that customers get seen according to their needs.

What would you say clients like the most about working with Precision?

I believe they’d say that Precision FM is a great company. It’s trustworthy and reliable. We adapt to people’s specific situations, so we’re very responsive. I think clients would say we’re a terrific company!

What do you enjoy about working for Precision?

It’s a great workplace because everyone treats each other as equals. The managers’ doors are always open to talk, and there’s always something to do.  They were great, particularly during the pandemic, we really felt part of a team and that the company were there to support us, as well as supporting our customers too.

I like it when it’s busy because it’s simply more enjoyable and time flies by. Secondly, an active company indicates that we’re doing something right – customer satisfaction is key!

Click here to learn how our facilities management solutions team can benefit you, or call 0116 366 6508 to chat about your project in full detail.

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