Story:
First Line Manager: Even an Ameoba has to do this to survive

First Line Manager: An amoeba has to do this to survive

A supervisor in a central dispatch center is a different kind of first line management. I was given the Dispatch Supervisor job when our control center opened for our division. The center does not perform field work; we dispatch field personnel to do these various tasks. These tasks are critical to our customer satisfaction.

In my past jobs, I was a business office manager and interacted with the central call center and after hour’s dispatch center of our company. During the day my office handled all the customer inquiries and dispatch activities. My field employee’s perspective of these centralized departments came because of the lack of a feedback loop. They thought the central employees should have a better understanding of field work. We had very little influence on the central operation. These central employees made the decisions and established customer expectations; sometimes these were not practical.

When I became the dispatch supervisor in our new central control center I had a different perspective. I wanted to bridge the gap between the central center employees and field employees understanding of our field work.

There are two problems with central service centers. First, the centralized workers get numerous complaints from the field workers. Over time the central workers get de-sensitize to these complaints and ignore them. Second, when the field workers realize their complaints are not being followed up on; they become demoralized and say what the heck. Now, we have a real problem, desensitized central workers working with demoralized field workers. No problems brought up; no problems get resolved. Who suffers, the customer does. This is the problem with centralized departments; they must solve it. I was determined to prevent these attitudes from happening in our division.

Before I went to the control center, I discussed with a South Central Bell area supervisor how their dispatch center operated. He stated that his employees were instructed not to argue with the dispatchers, just go where they were dispatched. He stated his employees on a daily basis passed each other going to the area where each was working. He stated that this was very inefficient since the dispatchers could have given it to the person that was in the area. I certainly did not want this situation. I created a system that prevents this inefficiency. I made sure our dispatchers had a different attitude. We had a service attitude toward the personnel in the field performing the work.

How did we prevent problems? Since our dispatch center does not perform the work orders; how we interact with other departments and field personnel is critical. . This goes beyond how we answer the phones and radios, this goes to our attitudes toward our customers and fellow employees. There are three key functions our dispatch department must adhere too. Our core belief is to create goodwill for our department by performing these three functions in our dispatch center; respond, communicate, and follow-through.

Here are a few examples of how we use these key functions to create goodwill for our department and our company.

We respond to requests in a timely manner. We get requests from various employees in our company to perform actions for them and our customers. Performing these requests in a timely manner is important. If we cannot perform the request, as the employee or customer wishes, we must determine how to accomplish their request. This process is critical; we must establish a time frame for the action that we can meet. This is done by trying to find a third alternative between what the request is, and how we think we can perform it. This is a trust factor between us, the customer, and other employees. We do not commit to something we cannot accomplish.

We communicate with openness. We dispatch emergency service orders, and these must be handled very quickly. It is critical that we dispatch the field worker nearest to the emergency. We interact with the field personnel; we do not shut them out of this process. They may know something we don’t that can make this process quicker. Dispatchers know the input from our field forces is important in the process of handling this emergency. We expect input, our field employees know this. We are on the same team. Our goal is to serve our customers; we are all committed to this. We expect feedback on this process, and give feedback in return.

The central call center has a turnover of employees. This means we are always answering questions from the new call reps. Our dispatchers know to take time to explain how we do things. This is a role that is very important on the front end and saves time going forward. We consider this part of our role. This communication creates goodwill for our employees and our department.

We follow-through on routine issues that field workers cannot handle today. We use various electronic communication systems that allow our dispatch center to follow through on issues with other departments. We use these systems to make sure we give other departments and employees the information they need to do their tasks. It is imperative that we communicate all we know about an issue. We contact the customer; then, document any issues on the customer’s account in our customer service system. This is the way any employee has this information. Our customer service system is the critical communication pipeline for information as all call center employees and office employees have access to this system.

We are very open to ideas and feedback; this is how goodwill is created daily for our department. Our dispatch center is committed to handling any issue that concerns a customer, an employee, or another department in a courteous and timely manner.

Results count. I attended a customer service meeting for our company. Our company has five control centers one for each division. During the meeting there were many complaints from the call centers and business office managers about their control centers. But, the business office manager that represented our division said that our division has the most knowledgeable and service orientated dispatchers in the company. We always responded to her requests with timeliness and courtesy. She should know, her previous job was supervisor in our central call center. This is what goodwill is about. Comments like this makes our control center stand out from the rest.

Respond, communicate, and follow-through, even an amoeba has to do this to survive.

This is the original memo I sent to our employees in 1999:
This memo gets a little into the weeds but this is a complicated business.

As a dispatch group there are three objectives that need to be our top priorities:
RESPONSE
COMMUNICATION
FOLLOW-THROUGH

RESPONSE:

RADIO CALLS… This is a major safety item. When we have a crew or local lineman calling this must over ride all other matters. We have had crew members walking down right of way and one disappears… he fell in a well. We have had a local lineman cut out of a pole and fall through a magnolia tree. We have had a tree fall on a lineman. We are their life line… we need to respond when they call.

OUTAGES… We must monitor DOES and dispatch trouble as quickly as possible to the closest lineman. On single shot cases of trouble we may want to phone the customer first to make sure this is our problem… they may have an outside breaker off.

ORDER DISPACTH… We must organize and assign orders in a matter that satisfies our customer’s request as efficiently as possible.

COMMINICATION

CALL-BACK LIST Each customer must be contacted to ensure that their power is restored. Many times we find a customer has a specific problem that we need to repair. This is especially important during major storm trouble.

FEEDBACK We need to ask for feedback from customers and fellow employees on suggestion on how we can serve them better.

CSS This is the best communication tool we have. If we remove or change a meter, issue a meter order and place in the comments section the meter info, who worked order, and why. Use actions; account actions; customer contact to place memos on customer accounts. We can also make these memos critical.

CLAIM REPORTS These reports need to be made in a timely manner and sent to the appropriate employees. If we remove a meter for these reasons issue the meter order.

FOLLOW-THROUGH

“FINISH WHAT WE START” each of us must assume responsibility to make sure we commit to what we can do and that we do what we commit too. (VERIFY BEFORE WE COMMIT FOR OTHER PEOPLE) Should we not be able to follow through … we need to contact the parties involved to let them know.

Dispatching for the Western Division is a great challenge that will require teamwork. Our dispatch group cannot accomplish this alone. Coach Bryant said that a team had a sense of “ONENESS”; all members working together to accomplish common goals. He also considered the team to be more than just the players on the field … the team included the coaches, cheerleaders, band, student body, etc. Our team includes our customers and fellow coworkers, we have to work together to make central dispatch add value for our company.