Underground Conduit Infrastructure (Part 4): Underground Neglect

Example: An Everyday Situation
Sometimes, even the technician cannot diagnose the real cause. Now three parties (Mark, the technician, and the customer) are frustrated and without a solution, resulting in wasted money and time for everyone. Little do they know, the problem often lies under their feet. Perhaps another provider has hijacked the space causing service to be slower. Maybe a cable has been improperly installed and as a result suffered abnormal wear-and-tear over time.
Mark struggles with how to appease unhappy customers. Wanting to do a good job, he is bothered by the lack of resources to help him quickly identify service problems. Mark decides to take a different type of position at another company to relieve his distress. Similarly, angry customers grow weary and switch providers.
Like Mark, many customer service representatives and field technicians feel this frustration, regularly asking the unanswered question: where does the real problem lie?
Internal Disarray: Underground Problems Manifest in the Office
For some (not all), it may seem trivial to lose one customer here or another employee there, but the numbers add up and prove an ongoing cycle. Our research illustrates how companies are losing money from underground infrastructure damage, violation, and trespass above the ground.
1. Employee Turnover Rates
If service providers have underground damage, violation, or trespass creating unhappy customers, and are unaware at the highest levels, many employees feel helpless to solve the issues at hand. Customer management can be stressful when emotions arise due to problematic service, but especially when reps have no solid solutions to provide their customers.
2. Employee Loss Contributes to Revenue Loss
It typically costs businesses about $6,000 to replace one employee at a $12 per hour rate, according to the Quality Assurance and Training Connection. This means that businesses spend roughly $360,000 each year to replace call center customer representatives.
These costs include factors such as:
- Gaps in staffing and unclear roles
- Human resource training spend
- Placing ads to fill open positions
- Operations staff on overdrive to fill the gaps
- Administrative costs of new hires (such as background checks)
- Poor customer service
With losses high in the call center department, it’s likely many feel overwhelmed to fill in the disparities.
3. Employee Loss Contributes to Customer Loss
Customer satisfaction and employee longevity play in to each other, all while asset owners struggle to find cold, hard facts about customer loss, ROI, and other unanswered budget questions.
At the end of the day, underground damage, violations, and trespass not only affect the real estate itself, but the entire business. Knowing where assets are and their condition can solve a multitude of problems from the ground up.
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