Ever since I was a little kid, on TV and the radio and from people talking, I heard stereotypes of “government workers.” The stereotypes were never very positive. They talked about the slow speed with which the employees did their work, the lack of passion and energy with which they communicated, and the low level of responsiveness.
But most of the folks that I and my company work with in government are not anything like those stereotypes. Yet, it’s still interesting to see what those industry stereotypes have done to the perceptions of employees who work in that industry. Employees in that industry are stereotyped as being non-responsive, lazy, slow, non-productive.
Those stereotypes come from perceptions that relate to characteristics of customer service. We believe that customer service at the highest level is comprised of two primary things:
- The Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge of employees.
- The Processes within which the customers experience the business.
The stereotypes that I refer to relate to judgments and perceptions that residents have of the employee attitudes and processes at municipal governments and other state and federal government agencies. It’s amazing that those perceptions of negativity so often relate to the perceptions of the customer service.
In other words, what many customers perceive or believe about an industry or an individual organization are based on what they perceive of that industry’s or that organization’s customer service.
If you want to change the perception of your organization or your industry in your customer’s eyes, start by improving your customer service.
