Dear Reader,Interesting conversations with folks this week regarding whether bad service is acceptable. Some use the excuse that big corporations should "get a free pass" because, well, they are big.
This reasoning must be why deficits are too high in government and customers need to heed to the poor service from financial institutions. It is, after all, just they way it is.
A recent post I made about an airline has caused great ire from employees of that airline claiming that all companies make mistakes. This is true. The problem is when they become persistent and repeatable - same mistakes different day.
Customers can feel isolated, especially when they deal with an organization with relative infrequency. The customer sometimes feels they must be the only one until they talk with others with similar bad experiences. This is beginning to end as the internet allows customers to more easily talk to each other in ways not previously achievable before social media.
Because of technology, bad service has less of a place to hide. Service organizations with poor customer policies or systems that produce poor service with persistent regularity cannot label that service as isolated.
What this means is that service organizations have to get in touch with how their service is performing. Is the bad service systemic or isolated? How would an organization know?
Service organizations need to understand their systems - and I am not talking about IT - I am talking about all things people, processes, measures, design of work, management thinking, etc. "Know yourself" is a great place to begin, this means understand the delivery of service you give.
When you discover areas that have systemic issues, blaming the customer is going to haunt your organization.
Many companies believe that good service costs more and is expensive - I have never found this to be the case. Good service costs less (see:
The Zero Sum Game). Blaming the customer leads to failure demand (calls, emails, etc.) or blog posts and social media buzz that compromise a service organization's reputation - this adds to costs and loses revenue.
Knowing how to identify bad service is the obligation of every service organization in remaining a viable and lasting one.
