Having travelled around a fair bit recently and had plenty of conversations with groups around the topic of ‘conflict’ I started thinking about how this plays out for many people working within water companies.
My thinking was immediately drawn to the idea that water companies operate a kind of ‘break-fix’ system, that’s to say that something breaks and then we fix it. This hasn’t changed for many a year but in current climate I do wonder if systems like this now have a higher level of ‘difficult conversations’ attached to them.
If you think about front line staff, whether that’s in the call centres or out in the community, they are now having conversations with people who have not only had a pandemic to deal with but are now living through a cost of living crisis. Some people will be struggling to pay their bills, some people will have issues on their own properties that they just can’t afford to get fixed and some developers will be even more stretched in their cashflows. The current situation points to a raised set of emotions on the customer side and therefore the potential for greater levels of difficult conversations.
As the world changes and the dynamic of these kinds of interactions shifts, it’s important to ensure that people are supported in being able to cope with the change in demand. Just counting the number of contacts, the time it takes to deal with them and how many are closed does not take account of the skills required from people to be able to not only move towards a desired account that everyone can gain closure from but to build their own resilience to maintain their own health whilst delivering in difficult circumstances.
So for any Water leaders who are currently leading teams that face off to Customers I would urge you to think about…
How best you can support your people so they are equipped to deal with a shift in the demand they are facing?
How effective are your people effective in dealing with conflict in a way that is consistent with your company values?
If you want to achieve your CMEx/DMEx goals, paying attention to the HOW and not just the WHAT