Service Leader's Corner: Elevating Customer Excellence

Athens Regional Health System is one of northeast Georgia's largest healthcare systems. ARHS is made up of an acute care hospital with 350-plus beds, four urgent care centers, a network of quality physicians and specialists, and a home health agency. ARHS was named the Large Hospital of the Year for the State of Georgia by the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals. Today, ARHS is recognized as one of the top 100 hospitals in the nation preferred by women.

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In today's fast-paced world, we often forget to stop and think critically about our daily choices and how they affect our overall goals. Information Age recently published Giva's article, "How The Right Thinking Can Inspire CIO Light-Bulb Moments," which lists great ways to reboot your habits in order to inspire productive thinking.

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Sometimes life gives you lemons. It happens to you personally and it will happen with your business too. From the small issues like late delivery of a customer's order to the big ones like a product recall that threatens the bottom line, the trick to handling lemons is learning to make them into lemonade. Here are some examples of companies who turned lemons into lemonade and some tips for how to do it yourself.

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Like it or not, gone are the times where businesses could effectively eliminate candidates for hire based on things like their grade point average, the quality of their educational institution, and even something as basic as age. With the advancement of the technological world and constant innovation, businesses are more strapped and stressed than ever trying to find qualified candidates for positions that are growing in relevance, such as qualitative analytics. This is because, as times change, hiring practices have not. Pre-qualifications that are borderline discriminatory to a good portion of essentially qualified applicants are eliminating an entire potential workforce.

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One of the best ways to organize your thoughts is through Mind Mapping. This concept has been around for a while and it is one of those rare things in life where there is no right or wrong. Mind Mapping can be used for planning team projects or just as a personal way to keep track of your thoughts. Let's take a closer look at the concept.

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Service level is an important KPI in a call center. Basically, service level is defined as the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. A common SLA metrics example is 80% of calls answered within 30 seconds. This response time SLA is sometimes considered an industry standard, but customer service is about more than just a speedy response. Let's take a look at some of the other factors involved in setting service level goals and service level objectives.

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When it comes to making business decisions involving employees, things can become a little difficult for any business, no matter the size, to navigate. If one is very involved with the employees, it can be difficult on a personal level. Even though studies have shown that getting to know employees on a personal level, and not just in a business setting, increases happiness in the workplace. However, management of all forms and levels are often discouraged from getting to know employees on a personal basis for this reason.

This difficulty is often amplified when a business needs to be letting go of employees. Whether it is in the process of downsizing, or simply has to cut out employees because of technological advancements and integration, here are three things to keep in mind:

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Sometimes it is necessary to apologize. Apologies usually come after a mistake has been made. The idea of acknowledging that there is something to apologize for is off-putting to many businesses, but the fact is, mistakes sometimes happen. Whenever your company is dealing with customers who would like an issue addressed or have a complaint to make, an apology is a good place to start.

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Conflicts between colleagues are inevitable. However, there are several measures to help avoid and mediate conflicts. Through an interview with CIO.com, Kumud Kalia, former CIO of Direct Energy (now CIO at Akamai Technologies), details why conflicts arise and how to deal with existing and potential conflicts in the future.

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