During our workshops, we discuss the importance of the quality of the written word and how it helps the customer recognize the value that we provide in the work performed. This easy acronym – I-CARE –highlights the 5 steps to create work orders that shout “value”.

When I have the opportunity to speak with service managers, one of the discussion points that inevitably comes up is about the quality of the work order summaries written by their service technicians. It seems that in many organizations, the quality of the written summaries of work is all over the map – from very poor to excellent. When I ask if they have clear and simple guidelines to help their busy technicians to consistently write well, they often admit that those guidelines are still on the “to do” list.

The quality of the written work order summary is important for a number of reasons. One reason is that the customer relies on the summary to give them a sense of the quality of the work that was performed. Because of the nature of our work, it is unlikely that our customers will be able to objectively assess the quality themselves. A clear, concise and comprehensive summary will communicate more value than a simple “fixed unit” on the report. Another reason for complete and concise reports is that the report may become an important document if there is ever a dispute about what work was actually performed. Yet another reason is that a complete and concise report will save time in the long run. Think of your own organization. How many times has the technician had to be interrupted in the field to answer a question about the work performed that could have been prevented if the work order summary description was more complete?

To help you address this problem, I suggest that you introduce the I-CARE approach with your team. It is a simple, easy to remember acronym that will help your technicians write work order summaries that will communicate the value of their work.

Add your own example to provide context. You may also wish to remind your technicians to:

• Remember that everything they write on the work order goes to the customer so spelling and grammar are important
• Include all materials and relevant consumables
• Omit obvious facts (e.g. “drove to the work site”)
• Refrain from language that may create doubt in the customers mind (e.g. “seems to be working”)

Perhaps the most important question of all is to ask your team to imagine that they are the customer who will receive the invoice that will follow. Based on the quality of the work order summary, how comfortable do they feel about paying the bill?

I hope you find this helpful. If you want to see other suggestions to improve the customer experience for your customers, send me a quick note and I will be happy to send you a copy of our Pocketbook of Proactive Service®, which includes I-CARE and several other ideas for improving the service experience for your customers.

As always I welcome your questions and your feedback. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“The difference between the right word and the almost
right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

– Mark Twain

The post I-CARE – 5 Steps to Work Orders that Shout “Value” appeared first on jimbaston.com.

Whether we like it or not, what is written on the work order to describe the service that has been performed, is an important indicator to the customer of the quality of the work completed. This is because, under most circumstances, the customer cannot actually know the quality of the work itself. For example, how do they know if the hour it took the technician to troubleshoot the problem displayed brilliant detective work that would have taken any other person several hours to figure out, or if the hour demonstrated a poor grasp of the technology that another technician could have completed in only 5 minutes? The fact is the customer doesn’t know. They therefore look for evidence of the quality of the service and one of the most important factors that they rely on is how the work performed is described in the work order description.

Therefore, providing a clear and accurate account of the work completed is very important. There is also another and very practical reason for having a clear and accurate work order resolution description – productivity. Imagine the technician completes a complicated repair and describes the work completed simply as “Fixed unit” in the work order description. The invoice for the work is $1,000. The customer on site is delighted to have the problem fixed and gladly signs the work order.

Roughly 60 days later the customer on site gets a call from her Accounts Payable department. They are reviewing the invoices for payment and they want to know what the service company did to justify the $1,000 invoice. Confronted with the need to provide this information, what does the customer do? She goes to her copy of the work order to collect the needed clarification. Of course, the “fixed unit” description is not at all useful so she is forced to call the technician directly. The call unnecessarily interrupts the technician in his work and he struggles to remember exactly what he actually did on that day over two months ago. All this costs time and, of course, money and all because the work order resolution description was poorly written.

So, how does a busy service manager encourage and ensure that his/her team communicates the value of the actual work through the work order resolution description? They could coach their team to use CARE on every work order.

CARE is an easy to remember acronym that can be used as a reminder for the technician to include the critical information that best describes the repair or service in a professional manager and that reassures the customer of the value of the action taken.

C is for Condition: Record the condition on site prior to taking action.
A is for Action: Summarize the actions taken to resolve the issue.
R is for Results: Record the resulting condition on site after the action has been taken.
E is for Expected Next Steps: Identify expected next steps, if any, that need to be taken, including any recommended repairs.

In addition to describing the work performed using the CARE approach you may also wish to include other information such as identifying the equipment and its location, recording all the materials and consumables used in the repair and, of course, identifying other observations or recommendations that will help the customer. All of this can be reviewed with the customer at the completion of the call.

All of this information and much more can be found in our Pocketbook of Proactive Service®. I would be happy to provide you with a free copy of the Pocketbook. If you would like your complimentary copy, simply send me an email with “Pocketbook” in the subject line along with your company name and address and I will get one out to you right away.

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

Isaac Asimov

The post 4 Components of a Better Technician Work Order Resolution Description appeared first on jimbaston.com.