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By Joel Welch, SCTE
Reducing the number of truck rolls is the goal of every operator. Sending out a truck is very expensive, with some estimates putting the cost between $65 and $100+ each time a vehicle is sent to a customer?s home.
Obviously, there are times when rolling a truck is the only option, such as with a new installation or to replace a fallen or damaged drop. There are many times however, when a truck roll can be avoided, such as when the installation doesn?t go as planned and the technician puts in a trouble ticket so as not to miss the next appointment. Another example might be when a customer?s technical problem could have been resolved by the CSR asking a few carefully targeted questions or when several field techs seem to not understand how to troubleshoot very well and usually just swap things out.
So, how do you avoid these unnecessary truck rolls? More training? Maybe, and maybe not. The truth is, there are a number of factors that could cause these unnecessary truck rolls. Some factors affecting employee performance are fairly obvious, while others are not. Identifying the underlying cause can mean the difference between treating the symptom and treating the cause. This article will help in identifying the root cause of a variety of employee performance issues, including unnecessary truck rolls.
Identify the cause
Many times when employee behavior needs to change or on-the-job performance must improve, the manager will say, ?We need training on this.? There are times when further training will indeed cause the desired effect.
There are times, however, when training is like taking antacid because enchiladas give you heartburn. The antacid covers up the symptoms and you might feel better, but you won?t stop getting heartburn from enchiladas until you stop eating them.
You need to reduce the number of truck rolls, so you do training. You feel better about it and you hope the number of truck rolls goes down, but unless lack of training is causing many of the truck rolls, it isn?t going to do much good.
First, it is important to determine how many trouble tickets actually require that you send a truck, and how many are generated because an employee did or didn?t do something. Pick the cause of the trouble ticket type that is most often cited. Then, if a significant number of these calls are generated because an employee did or didn?t do something he or she was supposed to, you need to find out why.
Let?s say there are many more repeat trouble tickets being issued than you think there should be. This could mean that the technician who was there first does not understand how to troubleshoot effectively. Though you?ve done some training on troubleshooting, you decide to conduct refresher training.
Will that help? Maybe, but refresher training only will work if the technicians are not fixing the problem because they don?t know how to effectively troubleshoot. If they do know how to troubleshoot, but are just not doing it, all the training in the world isn?t going to help here. So what do you do? Find out what is causing them to take the easy way out.
Factors that may affect the quality of a specific task performed include: level of knowledge or skill; mental and physical capacity; performance standards; measurement of employee performance; quality and type of feedback provided to the employee; potential interference to performing the task well; and incentive for performing the task well.1 Let?s look at each of these performance factors.
Knowledge/skill
If technicians are not troubleshooting effectively because they do not know how, then you need to provide training. This is the only reason to provide training: when an employee doesn?t know how to do something well. If employees do know how, but for some reason aren?t, then you need to do something else.
Mental/physical capacity
Be careful with this one. If a person can not perform a task because of a mismatch between the job and the person?s mental or physical capacity, even if it would save his or her own life, training won?t help.
Performance standards
Performance standards are statements that indicate the specific level of performance that is expected and against which the technician?s job performance will be measured. One sample performance standard for a technician might be as follows:
One hundred percent resolution within one business day of all trouble tickets issued within the technician?s scope of responsibility and control.
- 99 percent of the time = Outstanding
- 97 percent of the time = Good
- 95 percent of the time = Acceptable
- Less than 95 percent of the time = Unacceptable
Obviously, this is an exercise requiring identification of the highest priority areas of job performance, which in this case is first-time resolution of trouble tickets within the technician?s scope of responsibility. It requires establishing specific, measurable and achievable standards of performance that apply to all technicians.
Without specific performance standards, the employee has only a vague idea of what is required. Without specific objectives, the manager?s evaluation ends up being subjective and probably ineffective. Performance standards provide the yardstick against which all employee performance is measured.
Measure performance
In 1926, Western Electric proved that ?you get what you measure.? Employee performance can be improved by effectively measuring what matters most to your organization. If you want to improve quality, then measure quality. If you want to improve productivity, then measure productivity. If you want both, find the right balance and measure both.
Measuring employee performance shows that the task or behavior being measured is important. If the measurement is done consistently, fairly and on an ongoing basis, the groundwork is laid to improve that area of performance.
Provide feedback
You likely can see that many of the items being discussed here are linked. No single performance factor is the answer. In fact, you must consider them all to enhance employee performance. Effective feedback, given to employees by someone who matters to them, can help to motivate and focus their energy on improving specific on-the-job performance.
Effective feedback is based on real-time observation (measurement) and timely, specific, practical suggestions about how to do things differently. To be effective, give on-the-job feedback often, and on an on-going basis.
Eliminate interference
Conflicting goals, poorly defined procedures and lack of resources are a few things that can prevent an excellent employee from performing well. Over-scheduling and lack of suitable test equipment are other issues.
Setting the bar for quality and quantity at an unrealistic level will result in one or the other, but never both. These kinds of interferences not only lead to poor on-the-job performance, but also lead to excessive employee stress, burnout and turnover.
Evaluate incentives
Different employees gain satisfaction from different things. For example, one employee may be motivated by challenge. Another employee may see learning about new technology as a reward. Still another employee wants to get ahead, and is willing to take on extra responsibility to do so.
The point is that all of your employees want to get something different from their jobs. Find out what each person needs, do your best to fulfill that need, and as long as everything else is in place, you?re likely to get one happy, highly motivated employee.
Application
All this is good in theory, but how do you discover what to do to reduce truck rolls? First, identify the primary cause of a majority of your truck rolls. In this example, we?ve been talking about ineffective troubleshooting, so we?ll stick with that.
Now that we know what we want to fix, start asking questions. You?ll need to talk to yourself (healthy sometimes), your employees and your peers. Ask a lot of questions! Although this is not an inclusive list, the sidebar on page 40 highlights some examples of questions to ask.
Once you find out which factors are addressed insufficiently, you have a much better chance of improving quality and productivity. It will require more time and effort to plan effectively how to address the issue, but now you know you are putting your energies into the correct place.
There is a danger in considering only a few of the factors affecting employee performance as it relates to reducing truck rolls. If all factors are not addressed or are addressed ineffectively or inconsistently, the result will be poor on-the-job performance, and the number of truck rolls will not go down.
Each factor is key to enabling high performance levels. Neglect one or several of these factors, and you end up enabling poor performance and treating your heartburn with antacids instead of eliminating its cause. Now where is that guacamole?
Endnote
1 Based on ?Training Needs Analysis Workshop,? Langevin Learning Services.
Joel Welch is SCTE?s director of certification and program development. Reach him at . For information about how you can enroll in SCTE?s Certifications, visit www.scte.org.
Did this article help you? Email comments to .
Sidebar
Pinpointing the Cause of Truck Rolls
Before you can reduce truck rolls, you?ll need to identify their cause. One useful technique is talking to your technicians. The questions below can help you identify the main reasons for rolling a truck in your system and guide your plans to resolve the issue.
1) Knowledge/skill
? Were the technicians ever trained to troubleshoot effectively?
? Was the troubleshooting training effective?
? Did they troubleshoot live drops during training?
? Could they effectively troubleshoot immediately after the training?
2) Capacity
? Could they troubleshoot well if their lives depended on it?
3) Performance standards
? Does our department have specific performance standards covering resolution of trouble tickets?
? Are the standards clear and specific?
? Do the technicians know about and understand the performance standards?
4) Measurement
? Do we track the number of times a technician goes to a customer?s home and it results in a repeat call?
? Is anyone spending (real-time) time in the field to figure out why there are so many repeat calls?
5) Feedback
? Is the technician given effective and specific feedback about his or her troubleshooting technique?
? How and when is this feedback given?
? Is feedback given by the technician?s supervisor or manager, or someone who doesn?t matter to the technician?
6) Interference
? Does the technician have the minimum amount of test equipment required to effectively troubleshoot most problems?
? Is the technician?s workload such that one person can accomplish it with minimum overtime?
? Is support available if the technician legitimately runs behind?
? If the technician takes the time to troubleshoot effectively, are there unintentional negative consequences?
? Is completion of all trouble tickets given priority over resolution of all trouble tickets?
7) Incentive
? Do the technicians see reducing truck rolls as worthwhile?
? Is there an internal or external incentive (not money) for effective resolution of trouble tickets the first time?
? Does good performance draw attention?
? Does poor performance draw attention?
? Is poor performance unintentionally rewarded? (Rewarding quantity and not quality.)
? Is good performance unintentionally punished? (Rewarding either quality or quantity, but not both.)
? Is there peer pressure for high productivity and first time resolution of trouble tickets?
Bottom Line
Cut the Cost of Truck Rolls
Sending out a truck is expensive?somewhere between $65 and $100+ each time a vehicle goes to a customer?s home. It?s dangerous to consider only a few of the factors affecting employee performance as it relates to reducing truck rolls. If all factors are not addressed, the result will be poor on-the-job performance, and the number of truck rolls will not go down.
Factors that may affect the quality of a specific task include: level of knowledge or skill; mental and physical capacity; performance standards; measurement of employee performance; quality and type of feedback provided to the employee; potential interference to performing the task well; and incentive for performing the task well.
 Back to December 2003 Issue
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