Services
I have been investigating services for a very long time and there is something which always prevails, which when you know and truly believe it, you can use to your advantage. That is that good beats bad every time, so why is service often poor?
If you have just got off the phone from a call centre or left a service provider feeling annoyed, you might think this cannot be right, the default has to be bad not good. Well, whilst you might have been the recipient of poor service, I can guarantee you the person delivering that service will be feeling disappointed too. What I have learnt in service provision is that no one sets out at the beginning of their day or shift keen to do a bad job. So why does it happen?
The obstacles are positioned in the wrong place on the course
Putting obstacles in the way of good service is never done on purpose. Just as service providers don’t want to do a poor job, people running the organisations don’t either but it still happens. One of the main reasons it happens is because there is a need to hit a particular target and that this target is not the same as the reasons the customer wanted the service. Generally, it’s because the organisation has a need to either save money or make more of it and obstacles are put in to either control (aka help the leadership team) or have evolved organically as a result of long term tinkering often based on some perception about what the leadership team want from their service teams.
So put the obstacles in the way of poor services and clear the path for good service to prevail
We have spent the last ten years re-imagining service performance and helping organisations design the sort of outcomes they want by redesigning their course. This means taking positive action to ensure that any command and control measures used in the organisation are there for the good of everyone, not just the leadership team. It also crucial that the people delivering services can see the finish line and that when they get across it they are rewarded, perhaps not with a medal but with something everyone in services love, some appreciation, either from the customer as well as from the team in charge.
Usain Bolt would not do nearly so well if the finish line changed regularly and he was asked to run the steeplechase course at the last moment. If he worked in services he would want to be measured using Halo, because he would then be able to see the start, middle and end of the race. He would be able to see how he was contributing to the overall success of the event and be sure to know where the finishing line was positioned and when the celebrations could start. This is what we do for the organisations that use Halo. We have shown how end user satisfaction can be doubled over three years by focussing on the right things and by removing obstacles to success. It makes a difference to everyone; staff, customers, stakeholders and also to the leadership team who can get cracking on their next big challenge.