Behind the Scenes: HON Customer Solutions

Please join me for a virtual tour of HON Customer Solutions! I will take you through four prevalent activities that are practiced here in HON CS.

Support

As we strive to deliver an effortless customer experience as an organization, providing valuable support to our customers in Customer Solutions is our number one focus. Our department encompasses Business Relations Specialists (Regionalized teams), Government Solutions Specialists (Government Solutions Team), Commercial and Government Order Entry, Product Solutions Specialists, Commercial and Government Project Coordinators, Tailored Solutions, Dealer Services Group, and Integrated Design Solutions. Members of all divisions work near to other members of their team to maximize communicative efficiency.

Pictured: Business Relations Specialists answering customer phone calls and emails

Pictured: Integrated Design Solutions team busy working on design projects and specs and answering customer phone calls

Learn

We value training and continuous learning in Customer Solutions as part of a Rapid Continuous Improvement mentality. Our training room serves not only as a classroom for new members, but for all department members during frequent training sessions on important business updates.

Pictured: Training class in Customer Solutions training room

Pictured: Training class in Customer Solutions conference room

Collaborate

We employ a strong sense of community in Customer Solutions. I believe this to be driven by our support of one another through collaboration. Our department is furnished with several collaborative meeting areas that allow for impromptu meetings to share ideas or touch base; or to simply take a break.

Pictured: Collaborative meeting area

Pictured: Collaborative meeting area

Refuel

Breaks are important for maintaining consistent productivity. Members are able to visit the kitchen steps from their workspace to grab a coffee, soda, or a snack from the vending machine.

Pictured: Customer Solutions kitchen and break room

Pictured: Members are treated to movie theatre style popcorn on special occasions!

Five Ways to Make Your Meetings More Productive

At times, finding an open window of time to meet with an entire project group can be difficult. How can you make the most of your time? Let’s look at a few ways to keep meetings on task and more efficient.

Share Expectations
In the meeting invitation, include an agenda and attendee expectations. The agenda gives the attendees an idea of what will be discussed.  This allows them to have their thoughts together so they can join into the conversation. Letting attendees know if they need to have anything prepared will make sure everyone is ready to share ideas and keep the meeting rolling.

Set Your Space
In preparation for the meeting, ensure the room you reserve meets all of your space requirements. Determine if there is enough seating for all those attending the meeting so you aren’t searching for an extra chair when the meeting should be starting. Make sure the meeting space offers the equipment you need, whether this is a screen and projector or flip chart.  Having your space prepared for success will keep the meeting running smoothly.

Get Started
Start on time. The attendees know what time the meeting was scheduled to start. Therefore, it’s important to be respectful of their time, especially if it is just a short window of availability. Begin the meeting at the start time and immediately start covering items on the agenda.

Offer Support Materials
Bring handouts for all attendees if necessary. And if you will be handing something out, make sure you have enough for each attendee. Handouts can be helpful if a large amount of information is presented in a short time to allow the attendees to have a hard copy to review.

Close the Loop
Recap the meeting and the follow-up activities. If there are action items coming out of the meeting, it is good practice to send out a follow-up communication summarizing those items.  Be sure to include what tasks will be completed by the next meeting and/or specific deadlines.

What tactics do you use to keep your meetings productive?

College: What They Don’t Teach You

As a recent college graduate, my first weeks at HON seemed like an intense internship. Learning new processes, being introduced to my co-workers and finding the closest source of Dr. Pepper, it was all familiar. Then it hit me—like a dodgeball to the face at the HON National Sales Meeting (that happened)—this is the real deal. Devoting my professional existence to a sole job was a new venture for me, but one that I was excited and prepared to take. However, there were a few things that I was not necessarily briefed on during my college classes.

They don’t teach you how to schedule a meeting. I quickly learned that meetings are the go-to method for organizing thoughts, delegating tasks and brainstorming ideas in the workplace. Scheduling a meeting is a fine-tuned process that requires extreme attention to detail and strategic timing. Ensuring that Person A’s schedule is open when Person B is free, and making sure Person C has enough time to get to their conference call, can be a difficult task. Breathing slowly and taking your time scheduling  will ensure your meeting time is set for 1:00 p.m. instead of 1:00 a.m.

They don’t teach you how to manage emails. In college and high school, a new email in your inbox usually consisted of spam, a professor reminding you of homework due or your mom sending you pictures of the family dog in a sweater. Once at work, I discovered emails are precious pieces of information that should be treated with dignity and respect. Accidentally deleting the wrong email could lead to embarrassing follow-up emails and ultimately leave you at a loss of information. I recommend immediately organizing important emails into sub-folders so you can easily find them at a later date.

They don’t tell you work can be enjoyable. After numerous professors’ lectures discussing their days roaming the halls of large corporations, the prospects of finding an organization to work for after college that was fun and exciting seemed bleak. I soon learned that the words boring, slow and lazy are not in HON’s vocabulary. Working for an organization that is rapidly changing and continuously improving can make your workdays seem more like just days. It doesn’t feel like “work”. I wholeheartedly believe in the phrase “life is what you make it” and believe the same idea can be translated into the workplace.

I’m sure as my time at HON continues I’ll come face-to-face with other tasks I was not taught how to accomplish while in school. That’s the great thing about life though; you are never fully prepared for anything. New experiences will happen and new lessons will be learned, that’s how we grow as humans.

What was something you weren’t taught in college, but quickly learned?