Personally, I have been experiencing some dreadful service these last few days. From a certain phone company. It's an ordering-and-billing saga that, in a kind of Kafka-esque nightmare, seems to be on an endlessly repeating loop. And writing about the specifics here is neither good for my sanity, nor yours, nor particularly the point of what I want to say...
What is the point is to ask you to imagine the following scenario.
You walk into a restaurant. A big one. It used to be the only one in town, but now it isn't.
You have a problem. You are are hungry. It takes a while to find a table, but you do eventually. You sit down. In front of you is a menu.
On that menu are written the words
"Hello and welcome to our restaurant! To help you with your order, you've got 6 choices. To order a starter, wave to the waiter with the red hair. To order a main course, call the waiter with the bushy eyebrows. To order a dessert, attract the attention of the waitress with the long legs. If you want something to drink it's the waitress with the blonde bob. To get cutlery, attract the attention of the old guy in the corner. If you'd like to pay get up and walk over to the corner and stand about. For anything else, including a bread basket, condiments or napkins, ask for the Manager. If you'd like to read these choices again, just go to the top of the page."
You really want a meal. That's a meal. You want many of the elements listed in front of you but ten minutes ago you conceptualised your need as one thing, not six or more, and you quite like that thought. You quite like the idea of a meal being essentially a collective noun for a grouped set of related needs which is easiest to think of in the singular. You do that, because somewhere, you are using a model that uses a single emotional outcome. You want to look back on your dinner, bring the various aspects of it together, and feel better for having walked in...
Turns out this restaurant thinks you're wrong about that.
You try and attract the attention of the guy in the corner. But fourteen other tables are waiting for him too, and it takes a while.
While you are waiting, a man walks into the restaurant and places a small card on your table.
It says
You try and attract the attention of the guy in the corner. But fourteen other tables are waiting for him too, and it takes a while.
While you are waiting, a man walks into the restaurant and places a small card on your table.
It says
"Your order is important to us. We are experiencing an unusually high demand for the old guy who puts out the cutlery at the moment. You are in a queue. Don't forget that if you prefer, you may wish to go home and get your own cutlery and bring it back with you. Your house is open 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. Thank you for your patience. To pass the time you may wish to hum".
You wait. And wait.
Eventually it's your turn. The old guy comes over.
"I've been waiting 15 minutes" you say. "I'd like some cutlery."
"I would like to apologise for the delay, we have been experiencing unusually high cutlery demand at this time," says the Old Guy. "My name is the Old Guy who does the Cutlery and I'm here to help you with your cutlery needs today".
"Well actually I wanted a meal, maybe you could you take my order for me? I have been waiting a long time, and my stomach is starting to hurt it is so empty," you respond.
"I can only do cutlery" he says. "But I can tell you where the waiters who bring food are"
You sigh.
"Well in that case, I'll have a fish knife, and a fork please. I thought I'd have the plaice."
"Ah" says the Old Guy. "I'm afraid I can't help you with a fish knife. You see that's actually part of Fish, not Cutlery. You'll have to speak to Fish. Would you like me to try and find him for you?"
"Why isn't it dealt with by you?" you say.
"Because specialist cutlery is dealt with by a different department."
"Right," you say.
And off he goes.
And you wait, and you wait. And you wait...
And eventually someone else appears in front of you.
"What do you want?" he says.
"I'd like a fish knife" you say.
"No-one told me," he says.
"I see. Right. Let's start again then. I'm very hungry indeed, I've been in here for a long time now, and I wanted to order the fish. So I wanted a fish knife."
"Well, I'll need to get Cutlery over. It's their area. Everyone knows that".
"But they just told me it was your department".
"No. Absolutely not. Our system only involves fish and other water-based food groups. Definitely not cutlery. I can put you in a queue for Cutlery. It looks like we're experiencing unusually high demand in that area today though. Can you hum?"
I could go on...
At the heart of all this is a very very simple issue.
The customer in this scenario is one person. One life, one set of needs, one desire. The customer approaches the restaurant with no interest in the range of systems and disciplines which must be called upon to meet his or her needs. These factors are irrelevant. He or she wishes the problem solved, the brand to take responsibility, to recognise and respect his or her needs. To deal with them.
Many organisations have no real concept of this still. They put the customer on some kind of Model-T style production line and wheel that customer from one discipline to the next (and sometimes back again) not because the customer finds that easiest, wants it, or because it meets that customer's needs. They do it for themselves, to accomodate large volumes of business, not particularly well. At their heart, they exist for themselves, and are broken into internally-manageable operational silos that prevent cross contamination of discipline because they don't trust their staff to go beyond a tight operational remit. What the customer feels, and wants, is at a deeply and systemically level irrelevant - despite the "your-call-is-important-to-us" white noise.
What should they be doing? Well, there's a clue in the phrase 'Customer service'.
In fact there are two. I wonder if that phone company can guess what they are?
Luckily, the restaurant business came up with this whole new approach some years ago...
