Some of the golden rules that have remained unchallenged in factory management do not hold good for management of services. One such is: if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.
Research findings clearly indicate that customers rate a service organisation as excellent – the sort they will return to and also provide very positive referrals for – when it exceeds their expectations on intangible aspects such as “speedy resolution of customer problems”, “delivering on their promises right the first time”, responsiveness, accessibility, flexibility, courtesy, front-line competence and communication.
Organisations such as HDFC, Taj Hotels, Indigo and Landmark are rated highly not because their top management personally serve every customer. It is their front-line staff who deliver the customer experience through every “moment of truth” (MoT) — defined by Jan Carlsson, former CEO of Scandinavia Airlines System, as “every instance when an organisation provides an opportunity for a customer to make an assessment of the quality of the organisation”.
Lest it be thought that such MoTs are only a few, let me share the results of a research project I supervised on the experience of lady customers entering fashion garment outlets in India. In less than a minute, such customers decide “whether or not the shop is likely to have the sort of merchandise they would like to purchase”. There were about 150 MoTs that impacted them in that minute — a few tangible aspects, such as visual display, layout, aisle space, hygiene, smell, sounds and colours, and many intangibles like frowns, smiles, greetings, willingness and competence to help. Observing all of these MoTs, let alone measuring them, is an impossible task. Nor can one anticipate the MoTs that make all the difference.
What, then, is the solution to measuring quality of service? As Deming had suggested, quality is best assured through those who produce rather than by third-party inspections. In the service context, front-line staff who deliver service are in the best position to assure service quality. When they are trained and motivated (intrinsically) to achieve the right quality, and provided with clearly enunciated customer-defined standards to aim for, they will seek to achieve the right results by themselves. Many of these standards are for intangible aspects of service such as courtesy, friendliness and approachability, which do not easily lend themselves to hard measures. The only way to score highly on these standards is for front-line staff to be intrinsically motivated to do so.
A true-life example of how this works in practice is what happened at the UK’s Anglian Water (AW). A customer rang AW customer care on a wintry Friday evening, with temperatures close to zero degrees. The customer said there was no gas supply to heat their house. He suspected that the AW workman who had been sighted repairing the water pipes outside had inadvertently damaged the gas pipe. With two young children at home and the wife away, he was at the end of his tether. The 22-year-old AW employee who received this call thought on her feet and told him: “As it is late Friday, it might be difficult to get British Gas to repair the gas pipes till tomorrow. So, could you please check into a local hotel for the night with your family and tell me what number I can reach you tomorrow before noon? Meanwhile, I will try to get the problem fixed and let you know when you can get back home. We will be happy to reimburse you the cost of the hotel rooms up to £50.”
Far from reprimanding the employee, the Customer Service Director of AW went around the company telling everyone to try and emulate that young lady. Not surprisingly, AW was rated #1 in customer service among all UK utility companies for several years in succession. An essential point to learn from this is that the AW management could not have anticipated an MoT like this, let alone go about micro-managing it.
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Unfortunately, many organisations that are locked into the manufacturing paradigm have fallen into the trap of measuring what they can. Call centres, for example, measure the number of calls per agent per hour, time per call and the number of rings before taking a call. Some even measure the time taken for every toilet break an employee takes. No customer would suggest these irrelevant measures, as some of these measures work against their interests. For example, with a view to improve their productivity, call-centre agents hurry customers to the extent that they might not even listen to their complaints properly.
One is reminded of the driver searching for his car key under a street light. When asked how sure he was that he had dropped the key there, he answered that he had actually dropped it somewhere in the dark alley beyond. As there was no light there, he chose to search for the key where there was adequate light, he explained.
Rather than spending time micro-managing irrelevant tasks, it is best to try and emulate the likes of AW, who spent years trying various ways of putting a genuine smile on the faces of empowered employees, and letting them run with the ball.
The writer, a former corporate executive, was the founder-director of the Centre for Service Management at the University of Buckingham, and is now MD of Chennai-based VSM Consulting Services.
mahesh@vsmahesh.com