+1 862 207 3288 In the case study, “Customer Service innovations at the Seattle Solid Waste Utility,” there was a myriad
of policy decisions that plagued the Seattle Solid Waste Utility, but the agency also faced mounting
customer dissatisfaction from consumers and the press who were becoming more vocal about problems
at the Utility.
Using the research findings from any three articles studied in class, create research-based Human
Resources guidance for management to improve the functioning of the Seattle Solid Waste Utility. Your
five recommendations must be reinforced with research points from the articles. Please use in-text
citations (Example: (Ingraham, 1993)) and provide a list of references.
Note: Do not use more than three research articles and do not include more than five
recommendations. Each recommendation should receive about a page in which you apply the reSearch
findings and develop the argument. Your paper should also include a brief introduction and conclusion,
putting the total page count at about 6 pages (not including references list.)
CUSTOMER SERVICE INNOVATIONS AT
THE SEATTLE SOLID WASTE UTILITY (A)
Rate Shock
When John Anthony, director of Customer Services at the Seattle Solid Waste Utility
(SWU), was hired in April 1987, things could not have been worse. Angry customers
were still calling to complain about the 65% garbage rate increase that had gone into effect
August 1, 1986, and rates were scheduled to go up another 15% in two months. The 1986
increase had been a lesson in how not to implement a rate change. The city council voted
July 22 to raise the garbage rates effective August 1. Customers received no advance
warning of the increase. Nor were they given the opportunity to adjust their service level,
which determined the rate they were charged. Previously, customers paying $1 1.85 per
month for a two-can rate were allowed to put out two additional bags of waste.
Beginning August 1, all customers signed up for two cans (and two bags) were
automatically charged the new four-can rate of$21.75 per month because the bag option
had been eliminated. So for many of the 138,000 residential customers, garbage rates had
nearly doubled.
Throughout the fall of 1986, customer service representatives (CSR’s) in the Phone and
Billing Unit of the Customer Service Office were buried under phone calls, letters and
office visits by irate customers who wanted to reduce their service leve1 from the $21.75
four-can rate to the $15.15 two-can rate. Liz Kain, a lead CSR in 1986 who had been with
the Utility since 1979, described the effect the rate change had on the service
representatives’ work: “Usually, six CSR’s worked in groups of two, and each group was
responsible for answering two telephone lines. One group took the two busiest lines,
while the other CSR’s filled out or filed billing or service change forms. We would rotate
the phones so that no one group got stuck with all of the calls, and so the paper work
could be completed more quickly with fewer interruptions. After the August increase, all
six lines rang all of the time. There was no relief, and we get way behind on the paper
work.”
Customer Service innovations at the Seattle Solid Waste Utility (A)
CSR’s were especially frustrated because they had warned Utility managers that the
Customer Service Office would be overwhelmed with complaints and requests to adjust
service levels if customers received no prior notice of the rate change. As Liz Kain
recalled: “We knew there was going to be a lot of people sending letters in. We knew it,
but even we didn’t know how bad it would be.”
Eventually, a conference room at the Utility was designated as a mail room for the
approximately 80,000 letters that arrived from customers complaining about the rate
change and/or requesting to change their service level. It was impossible to process so
many requests in a timely fashion, so customers wrote more than once, called repeatedly,
or called the mayor’s office to complain. Temporary workers, unfamiliar with the Utility
and working under six month time limits, were hired to help process the service change
requests. When Anthony arrived at Customer Service in April 1987, the CSR’s were
bumed out from months of antagonistic phone calls and letters, and staff morale was at
an all time low. So was public confidence.
“True Crisis”
The 1986 rate increase had followed 011 the heels of a well publicized landfill crisis.
Thanksgiving day 1985, twelve families near one of the city’s two landfills were evacuated
from their homes when near explosive levels of methane gas were found in their
basements. The methane leaks and other environmental concerns forced the closure of
both landfills, and left the city with no place to put its garbage. The city negotiated with
King County to take the city’s garbage for two years until another disposal option could
be found. Facing high landfill closure costs and high fees for space in the county’s
landfill, the Utility had no choice but to raise rates substantially in 1986. In the midst of
the landfill, disposal and rate crises, a new director was hired in Janualy 1987 to lead the
Utility through this turbulent period. Although not the only pressing problem in the
Utility, the new director Diana Gale saw that the problems in Customer Services had to be
faced:
“At that point the SWU was in true crisis. There had been a total lack of preparedness for
the 1986 rate increase and for the public response to it. By the end of 1986, the customer
service representatives were burned out, worn out, had stacks and stacks of letters and
weren’t answering a high percentage of their phone calls. We couldn’t ignore the
problems any longer because another rate increase would go into effect in June. The
office was a huge mess and had significant management problems. I needed to make
some leadership changes, to hire the right person to head that section. Customers were
very frustrated, and they felt that the Utility wasn’t interested in helping them with their
problems.”
Director Gale continued:
“The Utility was also trying to work 011 a comprehensive waste management plan that
would encourage customer recycling and waste reduction. In fact, the mayor told me
when I was hired that I had to have a city-wide recycling service in place by the end of
Customer Service Innovations at the Seattle Solid Waste Utility (A)
1987. With all of the negative publicity the Utility had received, the mayor wanted a
“win,” a successful program that would restore the public’s confidence in the Utility. So
in the spring of 1987, we were preparing for another rate increase in June, trying to close
the landfills, preparing to launch a new recycling program, and researching long-term
disposal options! On top of that, we were getting ready to completely restructure garbage
services during 1988. But the success of everything we were trying to do to improve the
Utility’s operations depended on quality customer services. We had to have the support
of our customers and the only way we could gain that was by proving to them that we
could do a betterjob.”
Gale, a veteran of city departments, figured that if anyone could tackle the problems in the
Customer Services Office, John Anthony could. Anthony had worked in different city
agencies for over twenty years, and had a reputation for turning troubled departments
around. Moreover, city council staff and the mayor’s office respected him. Although an
analyst by trade, Anthony got along well with people, and his “can-do” attitude was
infectious. In August 1986, Anthony was hired by the head of the Engineering
Department to work on a rate increase proposal that was due to city council by the end of
January 1987. Gale was impressed with his work on the rates proposal, and thought
Anthony was savvy enough to resolve most of the problems in Customer Service by
himself.
As Gale said, “John virtually ran the rates study by himself and he had good connections
with the Office of Management and Budget, so he was able to take some of the politicking
off my hands which freed me up to tackle other pressing problems, like the landfill
closures.”
In April, Gale hired Anthony to be director of the newly expanded Collection, Customer
Service and Finance section. (See attachments 1 and 2 fora comparison of the
organizational structures in 1986 and 1988.) Previously, the CSR supervisor had been
responsible for several other sections like the Contracts Administration Unit, which
negotiated with the private garbage companies. Now Anthony would oversee the CSR
supervisor and provide some much needed guidance and leadership. He could also lobby
the city councii for resources the CSR’s needed to improve customer services.
Ultimately, it would be up to Anthony to decide how day-to-day operations in Customer
Services would be improved. Right away he began to analyze the way the section
worked. Before any changes could be made he needed to know what systems were in
place for staff to handle customer complaints; how staff worked (or didn’t work)
together; and what resources he needed to acquire to rejuvenate his burned out staff and
get them excited about providing high quality customer service. Most immediately, he
needed to make sure that the June 1987 rate increase wouldn’t subject his staff to the type
of chaos that the previous rate hike had.
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