Along The Way

I went to a face to face meeting with the Head of Human Resources of a large telecommunications company in Kampala a couple of years ago. After waiting for about thirty minutes the receptionist told me that my meeting had been rescheduled due to a previous meeting that ran over.

The following week I came back and the same receptionist, to my surprise remembered my name. It is true what Zig Ziglar said that the ‘’sweetest sound in anybody’s ear is the sound of their name’’. Now on this occasion I was impressed that the receptionist took the time to notice and remember me the next time I showed up. I don’t know if it was part of their customer reception training or experience but it felt that way.

Now As I go through each day, it has become customary for me to make mental notes or take pictures of people or places or products that deliver extraordinary service. It brings great relief because there is no shortage of the opposite – poor, thoughtless or flat out bad experiences. Here are a few of the great ones and not so great one.

Take for example, The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent I encountered at the airport in Salt Lake City, in the United States. The TSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that has authority over the security of the travelling public in the United States. While going through the long line at the airport, I noticed that the agent took time to have a short conversation with each passenger. After which he handed the passports or other forms of identification back to the traveller. What I experienced was a ‘’Hello Mr. Egbuson, thank you for coming through today, have a safe flight’’. Wow, from a TSA agent who sees over one thousand passengers each day?. Here is one job where you don’t need to be nice and we will understand especially in these times of global terrorism. Not this agent. When I asked if I could take a picture of him, he gladly obliged.

In the hotel where am writing this in Lome, Togo, I asked to have my laundry done earlier, and I was told that ‘’today is a Saturday, we only do laundry Monday-Friday’’. Now, am sure there are reasons for not doing laundry on a weekend but it will be nice to consider the customer need. I ran out of shirts and under clothes with the thought that I could get them laundered. Maybe on check in, the receptionist could have told me that little known fact the weekends are no laundry days. Certainly we can discuss the brilliance of such a policy but that will be for another day.

Then there is great attempt that happened to me today in absentia. My favourite 5 Star hotel in Kampala sent me a birthday cake and card. It was delivered to my office and to the amazement of my colleagues who asked ‘’who is this for’’, ‘’it is for Francis, today is his birthday’’ was the polite response from the hotel staff. Wow, what a thought and touch of excellence, except my birthday is in September!. I know the General Manager and his staff, who are also clients of mine meant well and were determined to do the right thing.

To be fair, a staff of this same hotel wowed me a few years ago when he came to my office with a similar gift. At that occasion he met me and when I asked how he knew it was my birthday, he said he kept record from the previous year when I came to dine with friends on my birthday. Twelve months later there he was wishing me a happy birthday.

You see to serve with pride and offer remarkable experience is a choice that individuals and organizations make. Some people who are propelled by their passion and devotion will deliver the service experience with pride and delight. These folks will look for ways to make the customer come back. And some organizations have also built this way of doing things into their DNA while others are content to displease you each time.

If you reflect on some of the encounters above, you will find the following common themes;

1.   People who deliver great service make a choice to do so and are not constrained by rules like ‘’no laundry on Saturday’’. See the restaurant manager who took hand notes of customers who came to dine and went out of his way to wow them on their birthdays. It takes passionate and devoted (some people call it engaged) staff to do this very time.

2.   Teams and organizations who deliver great service think through the entire service experience – from check in to check out – not just the touch points along the way. That is why the Emirates Airlines experience makes for great dinner conversations. For example, on a trip to Dubai, I noticed business class passengers not only had a separate conveyor belt but their luggage actually came out in record time. Not to mention the welcome at the ticket counter where the attendant thanked the passenger for their last trip (date and destination mentioned) before attending to the details of the present trip.

3.    The customer is at the centre of the experience and not the comfort of the service provider. That is why a restaurant manager will remember your birthday twelve months later. Even the not so great attempt at delivering a cake on a date other than your birthday, the thought is still important – the genuine attempt to anticipate the customer and exceed their expectation. Since, we now know through the work of Parasyraman et al (1985) that the best way to satisfy customer is to exceed their expectations every time.

According to the folks at the Retail Banking Academy, there are five key dimensions for professional delivery of banking services that increase the likelihood that customers’ perceived value of bank service exceeds prior expectations. I dare add that these dimensions are true for a Bank as there for Hotel or Airline or my local Barber shop.
a) Reliability, which is regarded as a core dimension. It is outcome-oriented. Reliability of service creates a customer expectation that the delivery and quality are both dependable. It is also, more crucially, dependent on staff quality and having the right person with the right behaviour in the right job. The other four dimensions are aimed at creating a positive customer-bank relationship – that is, a positive customer experience.
b) Assurance, which refers to the personal disposition of bank staff in terms of competence, courtesy and credibility. Actually, credibility of bank staff is absolutely necessary for a trusting relationship with the customer; competence as reflected in functional knowledge is required to gain customer credibility. Simply put, customers want to be assured that they are dealing with bank staff that are knowledgeable and ethical and will serve customer needs first and foremost.
c) Responsiveness, which refers to the promptness and helpfulness of bank staff as perceived by the customer. The combination of reliability and responsiveness is interesting and shows that customers want a service that is of a high standard and is delivered without errors on a timely basis.
d) Empathy, which means that the bank employee must make every effort to act solely in the interests of the customer. It is interesting that when assurance and empathy are combined we see that customers want professional bank staff that are courteous, act on their behalf and respect them. Some academics propose that the quality of the customer-bank staff interaction as reflected in the combination of assurance and empathy is crucial for customer service quality. While outcome matters, it is this interaction that will create long-term benefits for the bank. Finally,
d) Tangibles, refers to the appearance of the physical surroundings (e.g., bank branch) where the service is being delivered, or the user-friendliness of technology for alternative bank channels. It is not surprising that banks have invested in modern and user-friendly branch designs that incorporate the most recent technologies such as iPads, touchscreens, LCD walls and augmented reality. It is noted that tangibles also include the quality of communication materials as well as appropriate dress code for bank staff.