19 Nov Spotlight on customer care with our Diane Micallef
Diane Micallef, our business administrator, speaks about delivering what the customer needs.
How do you feel at the end of a crazily busy day?
By nature women generally tend to be good organisers and instinctively know how to prioritise. Without thinking about it, most women often juggle between work, home, friends and family on a daily basis effortlessly, which naturally is a valuable skill in any workplace.
I like to think that I am no different from most busy women, and the key in my opinion is to prioritise efficiently, knowing which tasks need my immediate attention and which don’t without nasty consequences.
Another important element is communication and making sure I have a full and complete understanding of what is needed before I start; there is nothing more frustrating than having to redo something because of missing information.
At the end of my day I aim to feel satisfied with my accomplishments so that I can sleep soundly with the knowledge that I did my best, whether it was meeting a deadline, handling a customer issue, or supporting a family member or friend with a problem.
As long as I feel my time has been used productively then I’m happy.
What do you bring to the Sammut & Associates team?
As the oldest member of the team definitely maturity, but more than that I hope my experience in other industries especially in relation to our customers’ expectations, brings value and quality to the services we offer here.
One of the most common problems in delivering true customer value often lies in poor or insufficient communication at the start, hence being unable to identify what each customer wants or needs. I help to bridge that gap ensuring we supply the customer with the correct service for their requirements. We are all capable of wanting more than we actually need, so I have the task of mediating between the customer, our engineers and technical people to ensure that we not only meet customer expectations, but exceed them by offering added value to our solutions.
Delivering quality customer care is not done by accident, it is achieved by clear communication and attention to all the small details. Our aim is to work together with our customers to offer tailor-made services that fit like a glove and in order to do this it is crucial that I identify customer expectations clearly and relay the right information back to them.
Also keeping customers informed and reassured along the way is crucial, it is a very important part of the whole process of delivering customer-oriented solutions that benefit our clients.
What challenges has Covid 19 presented this year and how has it impacted the workplace?
From the very beginning of the outbreak of this contagious virus we have taken all precautions to ensure our customers and colleagues feel safe in our work environment. Knowledge is power, so in the work place signage is visible and strategically posted in areas to constantly remind us all of health and safety checks. Apart from the usual regular cleaning of our office, we are all doing things on a daily basis like washing our hands more frequently and sanitising work surfaces and common areas.
Being a small team, we can easily keep our 2 m distance from each other in the working space and we have adopted many remote and online alternatives to communicate and to continue working efficiently. In fact, my colleagues with young children who have recently returned to school are now working remotely from their homes as an additional precaution.
All that being said, Covid 19 has undoubtedly disrupted much of our normal routine, and affected various aspects of our work and socialising. As the end of the year draws close, we look back at a very unusual and challenging year, and the many ways it has taught us to cope with the unexpected, and look forward with renewed hope and expectation for a more joyous year.