Failure through Excellence

by Andrzej Gorecki and Susanne Siggins

[As published in Company Director, October 1995]

Can good service actually lead to failure? Yes warns Andrzej Gorecki.

In 1994 a large oil company organised a seminar for its Head Office managers. Attracted by a special offer from a nearby hotel, the company decided to try its function services.

The seminar was a great success. It was well organised, the room was set to perfection, and the service was smooth with all needs promptly met by helpful staff.

When the oil company needed to stage a gala dinner a month later, the hotel didn't even have to ask: it got the job by default.

What followed was like a black comedy. The room was not prepared, and it was too small anyway. The staff were disorganised, meals were late and cold. The guests, some of them from overseas, walked out in disgust.

The organisers were enraged and vowed never to use the hotel again. Yet, the first function in the hotel was perfect. What went wrong on the second occasion?

Have you ever had a similar experience? Been badly treated in a place you had learned to trust? Or, are you on the other side of the fence? Has your organisation alienated some of its customers, in spite of your best efforts?

What are the reasons for such disappointments? What causes customer service to be inconsistent?

People and the process

Customer service continues to be one of the hottest management issues. The media and professional journals keep talking about it; service seminars and workshops abound.

New buzzwords and cure-all service ideas keep popping up. 'Awesome service', 'Exceeding customer expectations', 'Total customer service', 'Delighting the customer'. The list goes on.

Many organisations have responded to this new trend by investing substantial sums of money in trying to improve the quality of service. The typical vehicle used has been a customer service program. Staff training (often supplemented by a service kit or some other handout) is usually the core element of such programs.

Organisations attempt to transform their staff into cheerful people, who approach customers with a smile. On the surface, focusing on staff appears logical. Isn't it the staff who delivers the service? Isn't it the staff who work face to face with customers? It follows that to improve service; one needs to educate the people.

Yet, unless supported by a genuine in-depth transformation of the business, staff-focused customer service programs invariably fail and customers continue to receive uneven levels of service. Like the oil company, they are 'sucked in' by more courteous and committed staff, and feel great disappointment when service quality slips. If they recommend the service to others, they feel embarrassed as well.

Many organisations simply do not make the distinction between customer service and customer encounter, focusing mainly on the latter. They fail to see that even smiling and courteous staff in a retail shop are ineffective if the required stock is unavailable, damaged or soiled, if the aisles are poorly lit, or if cash registers are slow, forcing people to wait.

These organisations also fail to appreciate the concept of process variation and process capability.

They don't realise that unless the capability of the entire service delivery process is continually measured and its variation monitored, there is little point in embarking on process improvement. Even if we are successful in improving the process, without a proper measurement system we will never know for sure whether we really are.

Only when variation in the service delivery process is minimised can we start working on process improvement to make it more efficient, simpler, more intuitive, and less dependent on people and their skills. In fact, in an ideal service delivery process no procedure-related staff training should be necessary.

Once we satisfy ourselves that the process dimension of the business is fully handled, we can start working with the staff to further augment the service. However, courteous staff will always remain the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

Until the service industry recognises the importance of working on the entire service delivery process, we will continue to witness millions of dollars spent on customer service which still disappoints. (Of course, it is assumed here that the marketing homework has already been done; that the service is, indeed, required, and its formula is designed to meet customer expectations. If this crucial step has not been contemplated, neither smiling staff or excellent service processes will be of any use.)

Key guidelines for good service

There are five major guidelines for delivering consistently good customer service.

They are:

The entire service delivery process needs to be analysed and improved: The process must be mapped down and reviewed. All process elements should be looked at, and those vulnerable to variation due to reliance on people need to be changed, to minimise this dependence.
The service delivery system needs to be formalised: This should be done by using the principles of Scientific Management. These principles include clear rules, quantitative process design, unambiguous allocation of responsibilities and accountabilities. Consistency requires that the service delivery process be stable.
Staff should only be trained to enhance their skills and abilities: Training in tasks and procedures should be minimised. Why? It costs money, if the task is not performed frequently the training is soon forgotten, the widely used 'train the trainer' approach leads to training degradation, and with staff turnover it is difficult to track who was trained and who still requires training. In order to eliminate task and procedure-oriented training, the process of service delivery must be made intuitive; in effect, staff needs to be guided by the system in what to do and how to do it. The service delivery system needs to be based on a set of intuitive, self-guiding checklists and procedures, supplemented by graphical operating manuals and even specialised tools. (The metal scoop used by McDonald's for filling boxes with French fries is an excellent example of such a tool. Instead of training staff in putting the right volume of fries into a box, they are simply shown how to use the scoop, which controls the volume automatically.)
Staff who work directly with the customers must have the right personality: To achieve this objective it is necessary to abandon the dream of educating employees in how to be nice. Many useless hours are spent in training staff to be charming, courteous, and pleasant. The truth is that if you want nice people in your organisation, you need to employ nice people in the first place.
Continuing improvement: Once all these components are in place, you can safely embark on the process of continuing improvement, to deliver service that is not only consistently good, but also getting better all the time. Some might argue that the above is pure theory or Utopian. Not so, as the experience of many organisations confirms that these guidelines work. Indeed, in one business all new staff who were to deal directly with customers were selected according to personality profiles, which resulted in the rating of staff by customers gradually increasing from merely "good", to "excellent" in nearly 100 percent of cases.

The next step

The challenge faced by service organisations is to develop service excellence and to increase the export of those services. To achieve these aims, we must be able to deliver high quality service in a consistent manner.

We must eliminate customer 'entrapment', where 'victims' are created by exposing customers to high quality service on one occasion, and harsh treatment on the next. But while consistently high quality service is the real objective, average service that is consistent is still preferable to very good service that at times fails. The latter creates high expectations, making the inevitable disappointment more painful.

By working with the entire service delivery process rather than with staff only, we can create an environment that will help staff do a better job, and deliver reliable, measurably good service. This in itself will improve morale and make staff more amiable.

Only when the process consistently delivers high quality service can we embark on programs to educate and enthuse staff. With a strong and dependable system behind them, they will respond well. They will no longer have to be embarrassed in front of customers, trying to offer excuses for the failings of a system over which they have little control.

If you too want to improve your customer service, start by questioning the level of service offered by your organisation. Do you provide good service — like the hotel in the opening example did — which leads to failure?

If at times you do, start working on your service process now, and leave your people alone. Most likely they are already doing their best, and now is your turn to do the same.

Andrzej Gorecki is a Director and principal consultant with Melbourne-based Retail Directions Group, which develops and supplies state-of-the-art software solutions for retailers worldwide.

Top

References

(1) C. Gates and P. Taylor, The Greatest Stuntmen, CORGI, USA 1986.

(2) The US Business Review, Fisher, Annual 1988.

(3) Up, Up, and Away. The Pitfalls of Supersonic Aviation, National Aviation, United Kingdom, June 1981.

(4) On a Wing and a Prayer, GPS and Aeronautical Options, Science, U& December 1989.

(5) R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, St. Press, 1981.

(6) W. Edwards Derning, Out of the Crisis, University Press, 1986.

(7) Paul Sheehan, Singapore's Roar, Australian Business Monthly, Australia, July 1993.

(8) Akio Morita, Made in Japan. United Kingdom, 1987.

(9) Andrzej Tomasz Gorecki, Why TQM May Never Work, Management News, Singapore, July-August 1994.

Top