Service cultures need more than lip service

Give yourself a few moments to think about the number of instances of poor service you recently experienced. They could be in your personal or business life. Some examples spring to mind? You probably have come up with a list as long as your arm. Why then when we see so many promises of superior service from companies, do we experience so little excellent service?

It seems that claims of superior service are relatively easy to communicate but creating excellent service requires far more than clever slogans: instead what is required is effective organisational and delivery systems, supportive corporate culture, and human resources programmes that promote change in individual attitudes and behaviours that are aligned with corporate objectives.

Superior service is a key to business performance in today's competitive marketplace but providing superior customer service whether in consumer markets, industry or professional services often falls short. Communication programmes that promote service when actual performance is lacking merely act to lose credibility for companies and damage reputation. Before communication can play its persuasive role, fundamental changes need to be made in the company's systems and culture.

It is interesting to see companies in the private sector and public sector enterprises try to 'sloganeer' their way into improved customer service after decades of treating customers with contempt and disdain. Vast budgets go into communicating superior service but the underlying organisational DNA remains the same. Unless they try to change service from deep inside the organisational structure and psyche of their people, communication lacks credibility. Service reputation damage can be long lasting as experiences of appalling treatment remains deeply embedded in customers' memories.
As a communications consultant or in-house practitioner, one needs to tackle the area of service by assessing symptoms and causes of poor service. This involves beginning with some probing questions, performing gap analysis, and even focus groups.

Research has identified five main gaps that cause unsuccessful service delivery (Parasuraman, Zeithanal and Berry, Journal of Marketing, 1985). These gaps are between:

-- Consumer expectation and management perception.
-- Management perception and service quality specification.
-- Service-quality specifications and service delivery.
-- Service delivery and external communications.
-- Perceived service and expected service.

It is clear that the gaps are mainly as a result of mismatched perceptions between buyers and sellers and lack of communication or communication that is too far from reality.

We probably each have our own subjective definition of customer service, and there's probably no harm in this. Some research done in this area, by the same authors helps to summarise the key determinants of customer service. These five determinants of quality service include:

-- Reliability - dependable performance.
-- Responsiveness - promptness and helpfulness.
-- Assurance - competence, courtesy and credibility.
-- Empathy - good communication and customer understanding.
-- Tangibles - appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.

Once these areas have been discussed, defined and surveyed, the real work of looking at the company structure begins. Philip Kotler, a marketing expert, says a distinctive strategic concept needs to underlie any attempt at improving customer service. There also needs to be systems for monitoring service performance such as comparison-shopping, ghost shopping, customer surveys, suggestion and compliment forms, service-audit teams, and letters to the CEO. Systems need to be implemented for satisfying complaint handling.

Supporting any changes in organisational structure and corporate culture requires a system for satisfying employees as well as customers. Employees need to be trained and communicated with through internal marketing, an environment of employee support needs to be created, and rewards and incentives for good service performance need to be in place. It is also critical to break down barriers between various functional and operational departments so that people in research and development, production, finance and marketing work as a team to monitor, anticipate and act on problems in customer service.

I've left it for last, but leadership is crucial to excellence in customer service. W. Edwards Deming, possibly the greatest thinker on the total quality movement said: "The aim of leadership should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers." Leaders need to understand the difference between special causes and system causes. Too many supervisors tell people to try harder when the cause of mistakes is not worker attitude but rather the system with which the workers are stuck. "It is a leader's responsibility to attack system caused problems but getting people to examine and improve the underlying system, not by falsely blaming people for situations that are out of their control."

Attempts to improve service in companies will only be sustained and enjoy further development when the underlying system is changed. Communication comes after performance: walk the talk before you talk the walk. Communicators and business consultants ignore this critical success factor at their peril.