Every business has an element of service execution / delivery. Even high tech and manufacturing businesses require some form of service performance in their day to day business. The difference in service execution, apart from main line of business, is the proportion of required service within the business.
The recent upsurge in consumer generated messages, mainly on the social media and other networks, shows just how businesses could be disconnected from the day-to-day realities of their customers. Some, like twitter are instant, during or immediately after an experience – as popularly referred to as moment of truth. Reading some of the messages in these channels, show a wide gap in customers’ expectations and actual service delivery. For instance, a customer says ‘my connection went off last week; the service provider said the fault would be rectified within a short time. What is short time? 24hrs? 3 days? One week? One month? I have no idea how long I should wait, yet my business is suffering’. Another one highlights “I have been in this restaurant for 33 minutes – no service yet! There are many other such cases and every day, as many customers find as many businesses falling short of their expectations. These are customer generated sentiments, which forms part of your customer feedback mechanism. It can have an instant impact –either build or destroy your reputation.
To enhance service delivery, the onus is on the business to review some core aspects that internally impact the end result – in meeting customer’s expectations as they fulfil their needs. From my experience around the Africa and Middle East region, I have realised you can narrow down enhancement in service delivery to three Ps. This includes the People, the Processes and the Policies. This concept has mostly been used in IT for developing accessibility and convergence, but I also think is applicable in service delivery. This is mainly in competitive markets, where there is little differentiation of products.
The people (staff) in your business are the most important asset. This starts from the CEO to everyone within that business. As the old adage goes, a business is as good as its people. There are hundreds of aspects that can illustrate this:
- That’s why some teams have higher returns and exponential growth to the business than others.
- That’s why some drivers can build your reputation by being courteous.
- That’s why some queues move faster as staff happily serve customers
- That’s why some restaurants serve their customers serve customers faster and make more sales as customers stream in and out.
- That’s why customers pick that device to write a comment or talk to others about your service delivery – a talk that can either build or put a business reputation at stake.
The list can go on and on …
We can then divide the people front can into two aspects; the skills and the spirit. Skills are the functional aspects – the primary requirements, the qualifications and experience to do the job. Having the right skills make it easy to deliver the services as a business as competent people. Of the skills and spirit, the former is easily acquired.
However, it is the latter, the spirit, that makes a whole lot of difference – it embodies the attitudinal and emotional aspects. It is this area that differentiates one business from the other. For instance, if you consider banking, some services or products may have little or no differentiation. However, customers may flock in one bank because of the people who are offering the services. That’s why some restaurant fare better than others – it is good to have well prepared food and better if one finds courteous, timely and cheerful people serving around. In most cases, customers remember how you make them feel more than just delivering the service.
Moving around the region, I have noticed the spirit matters to a greater deal – it is what connects a business and its customers, especially in diverse / heterogeneous environments. Some places like Dubai have developed service delivery in hospitality mainly through inculcating the spirit of service. With over 130 different nationalities, sometimes language is even an issue – but the willingness to serve makes a mark.
Overall, there is a need to blend and develop the two aspects as both are important. Let us illustrate this in the figure below, with descriptions:
– High competency, high service spirit: – this involves having the skills set as well as the spirit to serve. This is the ultimate people aspect. All businesses strive to push their people to this level. A sentiment for this kind of service delivery would be such as “I was served by an agent who was not only thorough but genuinely concerned with my problem, I felt so good from interacting with him / her’.
The onus is on the business to maintain the service delivery or better still, find ways to enhance it.
– Low competency, high service spirit: – “he / she was just smiling but did not have a clue of what he / she was doing”. Such concerns are common where you have misplaced skills but people who are genuinely trying to serve. However, since the basic / functional element is missing, they end up looking like ‘jokers on the job’ from a customer’s point of view.
The business can either encourage them to learn to acquire skills or offer training.
– High competency, low service spirit: – these are the people who know what they are doing, but have little or no service spirit. Customers will say something like “that staff was very good at what she was doing, but did not seem to listenwhat I was telling her’. High competency is very important, but lack of connection will have negative impact especially in highly competitive markets.
– Low competency, low service spirit:– This is a particularly dangerous point, of people who seem not aware of what they are doing and not willing to serve. The other day, I read a post about an airline where no one had a clue of what to do after a flight cancellation and also quite unresponsive to queries from the travellers. This just requires ‘radical surgery’ to revamp service delivery.
Join me next time as we look at the second P of processes.
For details, contact:
pauline@episodesresearch.com
www.episodesresearch.com
1 Comment. Leave new
This does look progisinm. I’ll keep coming back for more.