"Good Evening" is not the answer

The holiday's are over and it's time to get back to a normal schedule, normal routines and to finish my 3 part series on the insights from the staff.

The number 3 most frequent complaint by the staff was a little complicated and I have held off posting about unitl I personally spoke with some of them and got some clarification.

On the survey there were a number of #3 responses.

• Don't just say Hi! when there is a problem

• 'Good Evening' is not the correct response when asked how is everything is going?

• Don't be afraid to talk to me, I am an adult!

Were a couple of the lines written into the survey. In speaking with the staff I realize that what they were trying to get across was that they see a large number of customer employees working at night in the offices and while they are polite, make small talk etc.... They do not mention to the cleaners if there is a cleaning issue. Instead they don't mention it all and remain unhappy or they wait until it gets to be a big problem and then take it to the big bosses.

The cleaning staff would much rather have you the customer point out the problems right away so they can be addressed immediately not at the quarterly staff meeting. It is a cry for communication and something that I am encouraging the cleaners to be a little more direct in their discussions with employees they see at night. Don't just nod, wave or say hello but every once in a while ask specific questions about the service, their work area and the the overall perception of our performance. All feedback is welcome at all times by everyone on the staff, we all count on our jobs for various personal reasons but keeping you the customer happy is our number 1 job to insure that we keep our jobs!

Thanks for reading this past year and I look forward to sharing more thoughts and ideas with you in 2005.
Sincerely,
Ken Galo
Co-Owner
L & K Cleaning Services
www.lk-clean.com