Training helps foster customer satisfaction
A training scheme for all frontline staff, introduced by Hong Kong-based Synergis Management Services, has resulted in a sharp fall in complaints from residents at three luxury residential projects in Macau.
Catherine Chu, director of strategic development and corporate services of Hsin Chong Construction Group, which owns Synergis, said that since the launch last year of the programme, 'Service Pioneer in Macau Property Management Industry', more than 90 per cent of frontline staff had met the service standards.
She said the number of complaints from residents had dropped by 53 per cent, while customers' satisfaction rate increased 36.7 per cent.
Ms Chu said the programme aimed to foster a culture of continuing improvement among the staff. The programme has a benchmarking exercise in which groups of frontline employees visited casinos and hotels to identify differences between their own working environment and that of the hotels.
Pictures were taken for group discussions afterwards. Employees were encouraged to propose ideas for improvement.
'This process allowed staff to take ownership of their own working environment,' Ms Chu said.
Since the majority of frontline staff, targeted by the programme, came from the mainland, and were in their 60s, motivating these employees to accept change was a challenge.
In order to encourage these elderly employees to participate in classroom discussions, the trainers played a popular mainland film, which depicts bad service at a market, and this struck a chord with the elderly staff.
The participants of the programme were encouraged to practise in the role-play sessions. This was followed by on-site coaching in which residents were present.
After coaching, the site supervisors continued to monitor frontline staff for two months to ensure that the best customer service was maintained.
