Customers give Coor the good and bad news
Every year, Coor conducts an extensive survey of its customers. Some 17,500 service users and 2,500 clients were questioned during September on how they perceive their services, and how well their collaboration with Coor is working. The aim is to measure how well service delivery works, and to understand what could be better.
This customer survey is conducted by an external research firm, which questions the client's contact responsible for delivery, as well as the customer's staff. The results are followed up on several levels, and are central to Coor's work on continuously developing delivery to customers.
"We do a lot of work on preparation and analysis. The results are reported for all contracts and sites, who prepare action-plans for weaknesses, but also for our services developers who analyze the results per service," comments Magdalena Aspengren, Coor's Environmental and QA Manager, and project manager of the customer satisfaction survey.
This year's customer satisfaction survey had its highs and lows for Coor. The overall result was in line with last year's. Apart from every contract and side continuing to work on the results, they're also being discussed at country and group level. One group-wide action taken with the aim of improving results next year is the introduction of strategic development-plans (more in the article 'Coor cultivates intelligent culture').
"This year's results were good, even if we had hoped for a clearer improvement on last year. But now we're really motivated and stimulated in our mission of achieving better results next year," continues Magdalena.
High-scoring segments, from Coor's contacts and service users, were customer care and quality of service. And one segment that Coor clearly needs to improve is invoicing.
"We're focusing specially on developing the invoicing module of our new case management system," continues Magdalena, "as it rolls out, we hope our customers perceive our invoices as clearer."
At an overall level, Coor's Finnish customers are most satisfied, but broken down by contract, one of Coor's most satisfied customers is located in Norway. Some of the best overall results were on the Oslo Skolerne contract, where Coor is responsible for real estate services for two schools. Coor achieved a contact index* of 87, while service user delivery satisfaction** was 100. Trygve Strand, Coor's Contract Manager, thinks that primarily, this is due to the good and close dialogue Coor maintains with its customer:
"We're developing our delivery to the schools at Høybråten and Persbråten in close partnership with the customer. We've tailored our staffing and delivery on the basis of the specific needs and standards of these schools, and are constantly endeavoring to be proactive, resolving any potential problems that arise quickly," commented Trygve.
As for specific services, there are some patterns in the higher-scoring and lower-scoring services. Services close to the service-user, and where customer care is important, score highly, such as receptions, service centers, mail and freight services, plus telephony. Other services that Coor's customers generally rate highly are security services, such as entry systems, as well as some industry-related services like process cleaning and decontamination.
Lower-scoring services include indoor environment (e.g. air, temperature, sound and light), interior buildings (such as surfaces) and exterior buildings. Working on the results of these services is problematic because they often depend on the quality of existing buildings. Other examples of services that generally score lower include cleaning and restaurants. But the variation between sites is substantial. In this year's customer satisfaction survey, one site in western Sweden scored full marks (100) for cleaning.
"This survey is extremely important to us at Coor. We take the results very seriously, which form a natural jumping-off point for our work on continuously developing and improving our delivery," concludes Magdalena.
Hi, there...
...Jan Gunnar Braathen, Principal of Høybråten School, one of Coor's most satisfied customers. At this site, the contact index* was 87, while service-user delivery satisfaction** was 100.
Why do you think Coor has been so successful on this delivery?
"Because there's a close collaboration between Coor and the school management, plus a good dialogue and closeness to consumers (service-users). Coor also has a high level of specialist competence."
What's most important to you for service delivery to work well?
"That you deliver a good-quality product, and are competent. When problems arise, they should be solved quickly and effectively, without consumers being unnecessarily inconvenienced."
What standards should apply to an external service provider?
"They should have specialist competence and the ability and willingness to solve problems quickly."
* Total of the specialist questions that clients and customer contacts respond to. These questions related on how well the collaboration with Coor is working.
** Service-user responses to questions on how they perceive the services that Coor delivers.
Want to know more about our customer satisfaction survey?
Contact Magdalena Aspengren.
