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Why consistent service delivery is so hard 12 Oct 2015

It is not uncommon to find service and/or excellence as part of the core values of organisations. However, the attainment of consistent service excellence remains a myth in most firms. Too often, there are many disconnected and disengaged employees in the workplace.

Let me share two experiences.

Prepared in Lagos, served in Barcelona

In May 2014, a friend was looking forward to his trip to Barcelona. He planned to attend a leading conference there. In the true African tradition, he brought along a painting he had commissioned. He wanted to present it as a gift to the organizers of the conference.

He arrived at Iberia’s check in counter at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos in good time. Check-in was seamless and the wrapped painting was accepted and labeled as fragile.

Eleven hours later, we were in Barcelona. After an uneventful flight, a scene of epic dramatic proportion was about to unfold. He went to retrieve his painting, but got a shocker - the painting had been damaged in several places.

My friend was in palpable distress. Besides being an expensive painting, it was now inconceivable that the painting was in any state to be presented to its intended recipients.

He approached the Iberia desk at Barcelona airport to lodge a complaint. In a condescending tone, the agent he met stated that it was his “fault because the painting should have been wrapped in cardboard paper”. My friend reminded the agent that the Iberia team in Lagos should have rejected the painting or requested that it be re-wrapped. The agent could not be bothered. She bluntly refused to assist further and frustrated my friend’s efforts to speak with her supervisor.
 
All this time I had been a passive bystander. Clearly this agent could have been having a bad day. However, this does not excuse her complete lack of empathy. She did not examine the damaged painting and had no kind words for the airline’s customer. Her attitude can be summed up in the last words she uttered about the issue: “It is not my problem. It is your problem”…“I don’t care. I was not the one that damaged your luggage. I was not the one who received the painting in Lagos. It’s your fault you should have wrapped it better. My duty is to simply send a report. Do you want me to make a report or not?”

Though she had two colleagues with her, none made any attempt to resolve the matter. Rather, they engaged each other in friendly banter while my friend looked on in abject resignation.

Beyond technology – Attitudes

The second case happened in Lagos. Domino’s Pizza is a new quick service restaurant (QSR) in Nigeria that has redefined service, class, style and innovation in the industry. A key highlight of its quest for service through operational excellence is anchored on the use of technology to improve waiting time. At Domino’s Pizza, customers’ names are requested as they (customers) place orders. Each order is displayed on a screen that is visible to customers. The screen displays the name of the customer, number on the queue, time it will take for the order to be ready and the stage of the order. These details are updated on a real time basis.

Customers’ phone numbers are captured in the system during payment.  This serves as a unique identifier that is retrievable during return visits. Its point of sale systems are integrated with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Its sales personnel use the touch-friendly Point of Sales interface to quickly record a Bill, its Payment and the resulting Inventory reduction. The system is able to generate reports about purchase history for specific customers. This enables loyalty incentives such as discounts to be offered.

Eventually, discerning brands will be able to drive communication with customers helping to improve customer retention. Domino’s has shown that queue management and building customer intimacy is possible even at busy sales points of QSRs.
 
I was again reminded of one of the key issues why service fails – and that is people. On this particular day, I was at one of its flagship outlets. Ordering pizza was seamless and in 9 minutes the on-screen instruction indicated that my order was ready. On getting to the counter, the attendant was busy with a customer. It was obvious that this was going to take a while. I could see my order on the shelf some metres behind her. At the background were five attendants enjoying what seemed like some animated and friendly discussion. This baffled me and I demanded to know why one of the others could not assist in handing over my order. It was when I demanded to see the outlet’s manager that someone took the initiative and handed over my order. It is one thing to have great service strategy and technology. It is another to ensure that your people play their part.

Beyond service manuals

Organisations like Iberia and Domino’s Pizza usually have service standards manuals. These manuals help to create and continuously drive the culture of service throughout the organisation and at every stage of the customer value chain. Issues covered in service manuals include handling complaints/issue resolution, escalation/reporting and handling difficult customers. Moreover, many structured organisations reinforce these service values through training and retraining.

I found it hard to believe that this was the way Iberia’s agents are trained to respond to such an issue. Even the basic etiquettes of doing business should have imbued in the agents a sense of greater responsibility.

What is the essence of winning the argument and losing the customer? No one deserves to be treated this way. This level of disconnection and disengagement of the Iberia Barcelona team was shameful and a great disservice to the brand.

The team at the airport refused to take ownership of my friend’s valid complaint. Their attitude reminds me of Ms Irving in Dave Carroll’s United Breaks Guitars video, who said “pass the buck, don’t ask me attitude” and “sorry, sorry, your claim can go nowhere.”

On the part of the Domino’s team, this was the exception and not the norm. While the attendant was apologetic, the others had failed to help the organisation achieve its operational excellence objective for this customer.

Such disconnected and disengaged employees have no place in any organization in this digital age. Are your employees sinking your boat?

Engaged employees

It is unlikely that any organisation can on its own guarantee that its employees are satisfied and happy with their organisations. While it is good to have satisfied employees, it is better to have engaged employees. To an employee, satisfaction might be about making a personal commitment to “doing his/her job” with eventual “personal success.”

Engaged employees are mutually committed to making their organisation succeed. Engaged employees stand out in the manner in which they make service come alive for their organizations’ customers. Engaged employees don’t just “do their job”. Rather, they go above and beyond their call of duty. In both cases highlighted earlier, the employees in question did not even meet the basic minimum set by their organisations.  

Every employee, whether in the back, middle or front end is part of the service value chain. Their influence on customers should be felt by customers sometimes for years to come. Employee engagement should not be a department or an activity during team bonding exercises. Employee engagement is the key process that unlocks and turns employee potential into high performance. Like communication, employee engagement is a two-way interaction between the organisation and the employee. This process must be initiated and driven by the organisation. The end product of engagement is that employees are likely to put in discretionary efforts as they relate with customers.

The reward for discretionary effort

While it is easy to find the culprits in incidents of service failure, many managers and organisations do not recognize the extra efforts put in by a team member to meet and exceed service promises. Punitive measures and sanctions are easily meted out while exceptional conduct is taken for granted. Won’t it be great to celebrate those who keep your boat afloat for a change?