Maximize Service Return

Our current economy serves up many challenges; however, there’s never been a better time to take stock of your situation and get your service house in order. If you recognize the need to achieve a service return of 50%+ the best place to focus on is service productivity and staffing: labor is the largest and the most controllable service cost component you have.

There never seems to be the right time to “right-size” the service organization. When overstaffed there is always the tendency to say – “we will just grow into it” or “we will reduce staffing through normal attrition.” The problem with the first approach is if growth does occur, everyone is so comfortable with the current workload and pace that they will push for additional staffing rather than work harder and productivity will actually suffer. If the position taken is to reduce staffing through normal attrition you lose the opportunity for a planned cost reduction, and believe me, in today’s economy, turnover is at an all time low, so you may never get to where you need to be, and you will suffer a “lost opportunity”.

Here is a common observation relative to service staffing: When analysis concludes there is excess technician staffing the most frequently expressed justification is the need to maintain current service call response time levels. Response time tends to become the cloud cover for productivity issues associated with technical proficiency, resource planning, and time utilization. Obviously, when overstaffed, there are multiple productivity related processes that must be reviewed and changed to enable staffing reductions and still deliver quality service.

This year you have the perfect opportunity to right-size your service organization. Correct staffing levels are essential to controlling your costs, improving your productivity, and delivering the bottom line results you need. The key is determining how many resources you really need to support the customer base that you have while delivering quality service. If you have questions about how I can help you plan and optimize your staffing resources please contact me at woodard@strategydevelopment.org.