"ROW mistakes carry real costs that can impact your organization far beyond the check the insurance company mails to your disgruntled consumer."
By Walter J. Pfender, ME, CSC
Most ROW claims arising from cooperative trimming and clearing operations are small, although occasionally one of these incidents turns into a monster, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Large or small, ROW mistakes carry real costs that can impact your organization far beyond the check the insurance company mails to your disgruntled consumer. They also cost you time, undermine efficiency of your operations, increase your operating expenses, and sometime can even hurt your corporate reputation.
In the years that I’ve served utilities I’ve discovered one universal truth about controlling the frequency and severity of ROW incidents. It is this: The greater the degree of contact and communication between the cooperative and consumer – the fewer (and less expensive) the losses experienced. Now, if you found yourself nodding in agreeing as you read that statement, great. It means you’re half way home. Finishing the trip now only requires that you answer one more question, “How well does your organization succeed in optimizing ROW performance by consistently and openly engaging your consumers so as to eliminate mistakes and misunderstanding?”
To help you answer this question – it’s time for a little organizational benchmarking. (That just means comparing your organization’s existing practices to industry’s “best practices.”) Listed below are a series of questions requiring a simple selection of one of the three multiple choice answers. They are designed to let you see for yourself how your organization “stacks up” compared to the expectations of your consumers. Answer these questions as honestly as possible by circling the answer that describes how your organizations does each task.
When you are through, check out the actual benchmarks and their justifications, which are listed at the end of the "quiz."
Ready? Here we go!
We know our ROW program is effective because…
1) We personally contact all consumers prior to any ROW work on their property.
Always / Sometimes / Never
2) Our consumers know the planned date(s) of our ROW work on their property, they know (in advance) the name of the supervisor (cooperative or contractor) who will oversee the work, and they have a means to contact that person directly if they have questions or concerns.
Always / Sometimes / Never
3) We send a representative out to personally meet with the property owner, face-to-face, prior to any significant clearing projects for new services or line relocations.
Always / Sometimes / Never
4) During these face-to-face meetings our personnel are trained to make note of any consumer requests for the preservation of sentimental/pristine yard trees and our organization takes this information into consideration when preparing staking sheets and cutting plans.
Always / Sometimes / Never
5) Following such meetings the property owner knows the extent of the work planned, the approximate intended path of clearing, they have a general idea of the trees involved and they have signed off on the work.
Always / Sometimes / Never
6) Our organization has an active “tree swap” program and we willingly offer to cover costs of planting.
Always / Sometimes / Never
7) All cooperative (and contractor) personnel involved in cutting activities have received formal training from a professional arborist in tree pruning and sculpting (for directed growth) and for prevention of opportunistic infection and pest infestation, post trimming.
Always / Sometimes / Never
8) Six months after a scheduled trimming pass through one of our communities the trees in the neighborhood look better then they did before our work started!
Always / Sometimes / Never
9) We actively solicit feedback from our consumers when our ROW work is done and we even have an established means (phone number hot line or post card system) that allows us to efficiently gather such feedback.
Always / Sometimes / Never
10) We track ROW compliments and complaints and use the information to praise good performance internally and to prevent reoccurrence of mistakes.
Always / Sometimes / Never
11) Complimentary customer feedback on our ROW activities out number customer complaints, ten to one.
Always / Sometimes / Never
12) We incorporate customer feedback on ROW activities into the annual performance review process of ROW personnel, staking personnel and managers.
Always / Sometimes / Never
That’s it! Now that you are done, assign 5 points for each "always" answer you circled and zero points for all the “sometimes” and “never” answers. If you score fifty points or better, take a bow. A score of 50 points or more means that you’re doing the right things for the right reasons and you are probability achieving efficient ROW operations combined with excellence is customer satisfaction. Score forty-five points or less and you’ve probably got a little work to do.
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Benchmark Rationales
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Benchmark Rationales
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Benchmark 1: Open Communication (Proper Notice)
How would you like it if someone came on your property unannounced and started chopping up your trees, driving over your lawn with heavy trucks, etc? My guess – you’d be less than happy. Granted, with established ROW you may have the legal right to go in and start cutting as you wish, but disrespecting your customer is never a good way to conduct business.
Benchmark 2: Trust
A week before the utility serving my personal residence cleared the trees in front of my house, the contract crew leader slated to oversee the work knocked on my front door. Not only did he explain the work they were about to do but he advised me of the exact date of the work and gave me his personal business card with his cell phone number. He also left a brochure (from my power provider) that explained why the work was necessary. Wow, that was great! By the time he left, I felt comfortable with both him and the work that was planned. And, I was reassured by knowing how to get direct and immediate contact with the person responsible for the project, if I needed to.
Benchmark 3: Accurate Exchange Of Information
Sending a letter or making a phone call to the customer telling them that your crew will be out next week cutting a twenty foot ROW through their tree line is one thing. Physically sending a staking engineering out there with a can of white spray paint (to physically mark trees along the proposed cutting path), meeting the customer and personally answering their questions is something completely different. Face-to-face meetings help make sure that your customers understand the exact extent of the work planned and allow them to have their concerns addressed on the spot. If your goal is to avoid misunderstanding (and the claims they bring) then this latter approach will yield far more impressive results then just sending a letter.
Benchmark 4: K = P (Knowledge Equals Power!)
If you don’t know about it, how can you avoid it? The primary causative factor leading to most ROW claims stems directly from “not knowing.” Your customers have wants, needs and expectations, too. Knowing them (and working to satisfy them) leads to work results that accomplish cooperative goals while leaving the customer happy, too.
Benchmark 5: Shared Vision
If the customer sees, understands and accepts the scope of the work before it happens there is far less of a chance of complaints and claims after the work is done.
Benchmark 6: Compromise
Webster’s Dictionary defines “Compromise” as an amicable agreement between parties to settle differences via mutual concession. The key word in the definition that you should focus on is “amicable.” Always remember that the alternative to cooperative/consumer compromise (settling differences between parties via friendly negotiation) is usually a long, protracted, adversarial fight between lawyers which leaves both parties mad and which generally winds up costing twenty times as much. Which approach do you think makes more sense? To learn more about Tree Swaps see Tree Swapping - A ROW Solution?
Benchmark 7: Respecting The Property Of Others
Have you ever lent a car or a tool to a neighbor or friend, only to get it back broken? How did you feel? You probably felt the same way your consumers will feel if they consent to give you new ROW only to wind up with seriously damaged and misshapen trees that detract from their property value. Most cooperatives “ask” for ROW, they don’t buy it. Is it then unreasonable for the consumers to expect that the coop will be a good steward of their trust? And, remember this, too -- property owners that are once bitten will be twice shy, the next time you ask for ROW.
Benchmark 8: Results Speak For Themselves
If you judge your ROW program success strictly on the basis of reductions in blinks, dims and outages, you’re in trouble. Granted, your consumers want reliable, uninterrupted power. In fact, they demand it. However, they will never be willing to get it at the cost of curb appeal for their personal residence. None of your consumers, not even one, will remain silent if they find themselves “wincing at your handy work” every time they pull in their driveway.
Benchmark 9: Feedback
No business activity takes place in a vacuum. Without feedback from your consumers (good or bad) your organization loses the opportunity to see if your ROW efforts are satisfying not only your organization’s needs but also meeting (or hopefully exceeding) the needs and expectations of your community, too.
Benchmark 10: Learning From Things That Go Wrong
There is an old adage that says, “People who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.” Guess what? This definitely applies to ROW mistakes. About three years ago I visited a coop that had just experienced a $30,000 ROW claim for cutting trees without permission because of a property line mistake. Well, we wound up spending about half an hour during that meeting talking about how the coop could use common public records to make absolutely certain, going forward, that they had verified proper property ownership and contacted the correct party, prior to starting work. Well, I made a follow up call on the same organization about a year later and guess what? They’d had two more incidents, virtually identical to the first one. Why, you might ask, did the same type of loss occur three times? Simply because the organization in question didn’t change the way they conduct business after the first incident. They failed to learn from their mistake.
The bottom line is that when accidents or mishaps occur it is critical that your organization learns from what went wrong and makes changes to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. To learn more about this important subject take a look at the articles on Post Accident Review, from the Jul-Aug-Sep issue of RE-marks, using the "Archive" button above.
How would you like it if someone came on your property unannounced and started chopping up your trees, driving over your lawn with heavy trucks, etc? My guess – you’d be less than happy. Granted, with established ROW you may have the legal right to go in and start cutting as you wish, but disrespecting your customer is never a good way to conduct business.
Benchmark 2: Trust
A week before the utility serving my personal residence cleared the trees in front of my house, the contract crew leader slated to oversee the work knocked on my front door. Not only did he explain the work they were about to do but he advised me of the exact date of the work and gave me his personal business card with his cell phone number. He also left a brochure (from my power provider) that explained why the work was necessary. Wow, that was great! By the time he left, I felt comfortable with both him and the work that was planned. And, I was reassured by knowing how to get direct and immediate contact with the person responsible for the project, if I needed to.
Benchmark 3: Accurate Exchange Of Information
Sending a letter or making a phone call to the customer telling them that your crew will be out next week cutting a twenty foot ROW through their tree line is one thing. Physically sending a staking engineering out there with a can of white spray paint (to physically mark trees along the proposed cutting path), meeting the customer and personally answering their questions is something completely different. Face-to-face meetings help make sure that your customers understand the exact extent of the work planned and allow them to have their concerns addressed on the spot. If your goal is to avoid misunderstanding (and the claims they bring) then this latter approach will yield far more impressive results then just sending a letter.
Benchmark 4: K = P (Knowledge Equals Power!)
If you don’t know about it, how can you avoid it? The primary causative factor leading to most ROW claims stems directly from “not knowing.” Your customers have wants, needs and expectations, too. Knowing them (and working to satisfy them) leads to work results that accomplish cooperative goals while leaving the customer happy, too.
Benchmark 5: Shared Vision
If the customer sees, understands and accepts the scope of the work before it happens there is far less of a chance of complaints and claims after the work is done.
Benchmark 6: Compromise
Webster’s Dictionary defines “Compromise” as an amicable agreement between parties to settle differences via mutual concession. The key word in the definition that you should focus on is “amicable.” Always remember that the alternative to cooperative/consumer compromise (settling differences between parties via friendly negotiation) is usually a long, protracted, adversarial fight between lawyers which leaves both parties mad and which generally winds up costing twenty times as much. Which approach do you think makes more sense? To learn more about Tree Swaps see Tree Swapping - A ROW Solution?
Benchmark 7: Respecting The Property Of Others
Have you ever lent a car or a tool to a neighbor or friend, only to get it back broken? How did you feel? You probably felt the same way your consumers will feel if they consent to give you new ROW only to wind up with seriously damaged and misshapen trees that detract from their property value. Most cooperatives “ask” for ROW, they don’t buy it. Is it then unreasonable for the consumers to expect that the coop will be a good steward of their trust? And, remember this, too -- property owners that are once bitten will be twice shy, the next time you ask for ROW.
Benchmark 8: Results Speak For Themselves
If you judge your ROW program success strictly on the basis of reductions in blinks, dims and outages, you’re in trouble. Granted, your consumers want reliable, uninterrupted power. In fact, they demand it. However, they will never be willing to get it at the cost of curb appeal for their personal residence. None of your consumers, not even one, will remain silent if they find themselves “wincing at your handy work” every time they pull in their driveway.
Benchmark 9: Feedback
No business activity takes place in a vacuum. Without feedback from your consumers (good or bad) your organization loses the opportunity to see if your ROW efforts are satisfying not only your organization’s needs but also meeting (or hopefully exceeding) the needs and expectations of your community, too.
Benchmark 10: Learning From Things That Go Wrong
There is an old adage that says, “People who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.” Guess what? This definitely applies to ROW mistakes. About three years ago I visited a coop that had just experienced a $30,000 ROW claim for cutting trees without permission because of a property line mistake. Well, we wound up spending about half an hour during that meeting talking about how the coop could use common public records to make absolutely certain, going forward, that they had verified proper property ownership and contacted the correct party, prior to starting work. Well, I made a follow up call on the same organization about a year later and guess what? They’d had two more incidents, virtually identical to the first one. Why, you might ask, did the same type of loss occur three times? Simply because the organization in question didn’t change the way they conduct business after the first incident. They failed to learn from their mistake.
The bottom line is that when accidents or mishaps occur it is critical that your organization learns from what went wrong and makes changes to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. To learn more about this important subject take a look at the articles on Post Accident Review, from the Jul-Aug-Sep issue of RE-marks, using the "Archive" button above.
Benchmark 11: Mission
Smart organizations strive for excellence in performance and they seek in all aspects of performance to do each job right, the first time, every time, all of the time, starting from the first day. So where does the validation of this success come from? Granted, some of it is determined internally (within the organization) by managers, setting goals and evaluating performance. I would submit though that your consumer’s perceptions and the feedback they provide are an equally valid validation or repudiation of success, too, don’t you think?
Benchmark 12: Meaningful Measurement
What gets measured gets done. What gets measured and rewarded gets done well. If you are rewarding ROW staff, staking engineers and managers strictly on the basis how much they cut (quantity) at the complete exclusion of consideration of how well the work was done (quality) in the eyes of your consumer then you’re only evaluating half of the truthful performance measure and completely ignoring the perceptions of your client base. This is a potentially dangerous misstep for any service business – particularly for a cooperative that is owned by those they serve.
Smart organizations strive for excellence in performance and they seek in all aspects of performance to do each job right, the first time, every time, all of the time, starting from the first day. So where does the validation of this success come from? Granted, some of it is determined internally (within the organization) by managers, setting goals and evaluating performance. I would submit though that your consumer’s perceptions and the feedback they provide are an equally valid validation or repudiation of success, too, don’t you think?
Benchmark 12: Meaningful Measurement
What gets measured gets done. What gets measured and rewarded gets done well. If you are rewarding ROW staff, staking engineers and managers strictly on the basis how much they cut (quantity) at the complete exclusion of consideration of how well the work was done (quality) in the eyes of your consumer then you’re only evaluating half of the truthful performance measure and completely ignoring the perceptions of your client base. This is a potentially dangerous misstep for any service business – particularly for a cooperative that is owned by those they serve.