Better Service for Coin Collectors

everal years ago, members of the public who ordered products from the Mint were told to expect to wait at least eight weeks for delivery, which in effect meant "between eight weeks and infinity," says assistant director for customer service Kevin Cullinane. Today they're told to expect to wait four weeks, and they often receive their orders faster.

"We were very good at protecting the assets of the United States government," Cullinane says. "As part of that, lots of people would get involved in every transaction. It would take a lot of time to accomplish any transaction. As we were going through reinvention, we all had a tendency to say, 'It's because of the system that we can't do any more.' We were 90 percent wrong on that. It was all of our complex labor procedures."

Before the customer service operation was reinvented, the Mint didn't have good figures on such basic issues as how long callers waited on the phone before being helped. Now the agency has a standard-answering 90 percent of calls within 17.5 seconds-and the results are posted on a bulletin board in the phone department each hour.

The rewards for meeting goals range from doughnuts or pizza after particularly heavy days to formal citations and cash awards. The computer system also tracks length of calls, products ordered, which representatives are not on the phone and how long it's been since their last call, how long calls spend in the wrap-up stage and other data. Such tracking not only gives the agency information on how well it is doing at the moment, but allows for longer-term planning to handle peak work periods. Managers of the various departments at the 50-employee office in Lanham, Md., meet weekly to go over performance statistics.

"We are religious about tracking on a continuous basis," Cullinane says. "We know exactly where we are at all times. We have gone in two years from responding to what happens to us to where we control our lives and control the service we deliver to our customers. From a manager's standpoint, it is much more pleasurable and much more satisfying to be in this position."

Cutting out steps has improved response times in many areas. For example, returned products, which typically are sent to the mint that produced and shipped them, often would go unopened for several days, then would be logged by hand. The reports would then be mailed to the service center, where they would pass through many more sets of hands-resulting in about a six-week turnaround before a refund or exchange was issued. Now, returned items are opened every day, reports are faxed, returns are processed in one day and the accounting department has three more days to wrap up the matter. A new computer system being installed will speed the process even further.

Similarly, in the correspondence section, average turnaround time on letters from customers is down to two to three days on queries ranging from the status of orders to detailed questions about the manufacture of coins. Letters are scanned into the computer system, eliminating the need to keep hard copies. A report on the types and status of correspondence is posted daily on a bulletin board, along with letters of thanks from customers. Unlike customer service representatives at some agencies, those at the Mint do not hide behind anonymity; their correspondence contains their names, addresses and phone numbers. One result has been that they get to know certain customers.

"Our customers feel like they are our only customer, and we have tried to treat them like that," says consumer affairs representative Gwen Manley.