World Class Service 2011

Our work over the past 5 years with a wide array of clients along with decades of operations experience has led us to update our standards as follows.

Four Fields of Service Performance

1. Behaviors
2. Tangible Products
3. Processes
4.Physical Environment

The Organisation Perspective

Service excellence from an organisational perspective means taking in to account what Prof R Parasuraman defined as the Servqual dimensions and applying them in to the four fields:

Reliability

Reliability is the bedrock of great service. How reliable are we? Do we perform the promised service dependably and accurately? In each of the four fields do we consistently deliver a high quality physical environment, consistent tangible products like food and drink, are our processes reliable and our behaviours consistent? Do we have standard systems of work so that we consistently get the basic levels right?

Responsiveness

Are we pro-active in helping guests, visitors and customers? When it comes to our four fields do we truly take account of the customer needs? Do we remain solution focused for our customers regardless of their enquiry or need? Do we offer assistance and make sure we listen and respond to what people need from us?

Assured

Are our service teams knowledgeable and qualified for the tasks we carry out? Are we courteous and do we inspire trust and confidence? Do we, as an organisation, ensure that we are assured? Do we check and test our systems in the four fields on a regular basis? Have we standardised systems so that we can continuously improve them over time?

Empathetic

Do we provide caring, personalised service to our guests and customers? Do we read and respond to their emotions or are we simply delivering a careless process? This is a key issue for UK service operations and considerable effort is required organisationally to ensure physical, emotional and logical needs are met on site. This thoughtful approach extends way beyond Access programmes and disability compliance to think about each guests needs personally. The team only needs to exceed expectations by 1% to create a strong impact but that 1% does need to be present.

The Behaviour Perspective

Each member of the service team has a high level of personal responsibility towards the customer and the behaviours of great service personnel is distinct from the skill set.

Behaviours

Positive Mental Attitude. Being solution focused is a service trait and is best identified at the recruitment stage; it is infamously hard to train. Manchester is famous for its can-do attitude, this positive outlook on future events makes for great service personnel. Do we maintain the “best way to do that is...” even if the request falls outside our remit? Do our standards expect and enable our service teams to remain positive with the guests and visitors?

Motivated. Motivated personnel tend to apply their learning, tend to be self directing and act on their own initiative. To the customer the energy and zest for life that motivated people offer can add substantially to the guest experience. This motivated outlook manifests itself in a sense of urgency to get things done; South West Airlines have developed a business edge from this front foot approach. From a guest perspective, great service usually looks effortless.

Anticipation. For the guest few things make a stronger impact than good anticipation skills from members of service team. Do we read the situation? Do we plan ahead for the customer? Do we think through the guests likely requirements and provide helpful guidance or suggestions?

Confidence. Great service personnel maintain an inner confidence that usually comes from substantial product knowledge and training. This confidence comes across as an assured organisation. Do we make sure we have well trained personnel who understand or products and services at a deep level and do we make sure we have enough information to effectively support the guest at all times? Can we talk knowledgeably about what we have on offer and do we know what is available on any given day? Is this position supported by technology, training or both?

Empathy. Do we personalise the experience? Do we avoid judging the customer? Do we build options and check our understanding? Do we ask enough questions to understand the guest or visitor needs and do we listen carefully? Are we paying attention to what the customer is saying and doing or are we focused on what we are going to say next? Great service staff avoid contradiction and interruption.

Self Management. Providing great service is not plain sailing; verbal battles, pre judging situations in disputes, contradiction, anger and moods all get in the way of inspiring service standards. A World Class performance means the service personnel manage their own feelings around customers. Very rarely are guest comments personal and good service personnel know this. The best balance we know of is Ritz Carlton’s outstanding observation that we are “Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”. Old school perhaps but the essence of service all the same.

Skills

Communication. Good verbal and non-verbal communication skills are the number one requirement of great service personnel. Research by People 1^st, the UK Sector Skills Council for Hospitality, in 2008 put communication skills at number one for customer service skills. In the UK, good English verbal skills are essential, not just for service performance but also for sales. Non-verbal skills are significant; frowning, back to the guest and sullen looks all undermine the service experience. Eye contact, visibility, smiles and acknowledgements meet the psychological need for attention from the guest.

Self Aware. Self awareness is an extension of personal presentation or grooming skills. There is no second impression, outstanding service personnel know how we come across and take steps to ensure their appearance, choice of words, recommendations and manners are appropriate to their organisation. Do we have a clear approach to uniforms and professional appearance? Self awareness also suggests that scripting is inappropriate and disrespectful to team members, greetings and social interactions should be natural and well mannered.

Welcoming Skills are an extension of self awareness; a high standard of service means that every guest or visitor is greeted. The precise approach to greeting is something that each organisation tailors to its activities, however the more personalised the approach and the sooner it happens the better the perceived welcome.

Conflict Resolution/Recovery Skills. Mistakes do happen and sometimes a guest can arrive unhappy through no fault of our own. Our responsibility, however, is to remedy the cause of the upset to the best of our ability and that usually requires a clear approach to recovering situations. Well trained service personnel know the scope of their authority to fix things that go wrong and have a professional and structured approach to keep themselves safe and provide the best outcome for the guest.

Disability awareness. The Disability Discrimination Act protects disabled people from discrimination but good awareness of possible disabilities is a skill that we value. It may be that the guests’ age, visual impairment, hearing impairment or illness means that they can’t easily access services. Do we make it easy for these guests to enjoy our services?

Basic numeracy. Bills, invoicing and calculations have to be correct.

Cultural awareness is the foundation of communication and it involves the ability to stand back from ourselves, becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions. Why do we do things in that way? How do we see the world? Why do we react in that particular way? In hospitality and cultural attractions do we value diversity and, most of all, do we respect the guest regardless of their background?

Local Awareness. Closely aligned to product knowledge, local area knowledge and pride in the local area is a key feature of good service standards. Can we provide effective directions to guests? Can we suggest products, producers and activity suggestions locally? Do we offer a full concierge service? Do we know where principal financial, retail and religious service can be found?

IT Skills. Whilst not everyone on the staff needs to be ICT qualified, ensuring that someone with a basic knowledge of onsite technology is on hand on every shift is an increasing requirement. Can we support guests to go online? What are our restrictions on these services? Do make sure all our standard technology works?

Foreign Language skills are undervalued in the UK but Brazil, Russian, India and China are developing and the first thing people do when we gain wealth is to travel. Do we make these guests welcome in their own language? Sterling remains significantly devalued to 2008 peaks making the UK attractive to Euro zone visitors and guests, how well do we greet and welcome them?

The Tangible Products Perspective

There is often a tangible product in service organisations whether it’s a theatre ticket, performance, event, food or drink. The tangible product will be part of a wider value proposition but from a service perspective, the reliability of the product, its conformance to advertising and promotional statements, its presentation, availability and sensory impacts all need to align with the service ethos of the service provider. Does the tangible product exceed the customer expectations by 1%?

Which needs do this product meet? Is it quicker, more sustainable, more reliable, more local, more impressive, more fashionable, healthier, more substantial, more comforting?

Which senses do this product enliven?

How clean and how safe is this product?

From a standards perspective, good practice suggests there will be “boundary samples” somewhere in the organisation; specification, photographs, training events which set out how tangible products should be displayed and presented.

The Process Perspective

The processes that we expect a guest to comply with say something about our service performance. Are processes easy to follow and understand and are we quick? Are we actually enjoyable?

How much work, walk and waiting do we expect the guest to do at any point on our processes?

Have we recorded the steps from a guest perspective? Have drawn a diagram of the guest movement on site or en route? Have we eliminated waste and duplication? Have we established a point of difference in how we handle key processes to make them easier? How are the brand values reinforced to the guest during these processes? Whether it is buying a ticket or a drink have we mapped the process established timings and ensured that the service personnel can carry out the process with a minimum of waste?

How much work, walk and waiting are the service personnel expected to carry out? Have we considered any value addition activity and factored this in to the process? Have we removed any activity that does not add value?

Have we considered demand at any points in the system? If we could know a particularly busy phase in the day have we planned staff to cover this?

Is way finding on site easy and are signs up to date and accurate?

Are these systems standardised. If we believe that individual members of the team excel and can work it out for themselves then the process is random and outstanding personnel can only ever add one more way to increase the chaos. Processes should be clear, documented and meaningful from a customer point of view. Processes should also be clear, documented and improved upon from an organisational point of view.

In short have we reduced waste, defined clear processes to achieve the best value for the guest or are the processes simply designed to help the organisation achieve its “numbers”?

The Physical Environment Perspective

If first impressions count for our people then the physical environment must also be considered vital. In retail “kerb appeal” matters. Have we thought through what the physical appeal is supposed to look like and taken actions to bring that to life? The physical environment offers an experience long after the staff have departed and continues to provide impact and ambience when during service exchanges.

From a World Class Service Standards point of view, the physical environment needs to be considered in line with the value addition process for the customer. Is it flawless in appearance and clean? Are glass walls and doors clean and free of grease marks? Are barrier mats clean and well presented? Are surfaces well maintained and well presented? Is the space free of odour and appropriately lit? Are vents and intakes free of dust? Is the temperature comfortable? Are floor surfaces well maintained and clean and are any displays fresh and well presented? Are service hatches and access points closed and free of finger marks? Is maintenance equipment out of site?

If service staff are maintaining the building are we well presented and courteous?

Are there enough lifts? Are the lifts clean and efficient in the role? Do we feel safe? Is route finding easy and is sign posting easy to follow? Are the WCs well maintained and clean? Are stairs and landing areas clear and nosings all in good repair?

If there is technology present, such as screens or machines, are these services all in working order? If not is the house signposting well presented and consistent?

There is a great deal of detail in the physical environment issue and this section simply points at the way a Standard can develop. The essence of good physical environment standards are that the environments should always be clean, safe, legal and well presented and in line with the overall value proposition. Of all these features cleanliness is probably the most significant, older properties can get away with their long years if well maintained and clean. No amount of technology or modernity can compensate for an unclean space. Nowhere in the property is housekeeping more important than in kitchens and dining rooms with WCs and bathrooms a close second.

World Class Service Ltd works with its clients to help develop these exacting standards into customer journey maps and touch points to provide the basis for reliability and to help train and refresh the delivery team. If you would like World Class Service Ltd to work with your team to develop your standards contact us through this web site or by telephone on 0161 456 6007

29 Barriers to Service Value Addition

1.Poor training and induction
2.Inaccurate training
3.Poor instruction
4.Poor supervision
5.Failure to understand common cause faults
6.Failure to share information
7.Poorly selected suppliers
8.Poorly selected input materials and goods
9.Poor procedures
10.Unserviceable equipment, machines or technology
11.Inaccurate timings
12.Poor light
13.Excessive noise
14.Excessive humidity
15.Uncomfortable uniforms
16.Emphasis on hitting the numbers not the quality
17.Excessive walking
18.Excessive waiting
19.Excessive reaching
20.Stock outs
21.Poor staff scheduling
22.Poor team communication
23.Lack of preparation space
24.Poor planning documents
25.Poor cross departmental communications
26.Lack of product knowledge
27.Poor language skills
28.Low levels of guest anticipation
29.Low morale

Customer Service 5:15 Rule Explained

In European cities personal space is perceived to be around 5’ (In the US this is 18 - 48” ) Japanese folk tend to stand about 10” apart defining a smaller personal space which can feel slightly pushy if you are not used to it. The 5:15 rule or 4:10 rule refers to the distance at which we as service personnel greet people. In Europe hotels that use this guide use 5:15.

The text book approach defines intimate space as less than 6” – do not enter! personal space as 18” – 48” - greeting distance and normal distance for talking to people we know and at receptions, social space as 4’ – 12’ the distance we normally stand from strangers and therefore acknowledgement distance and over 12’ as public space. There are lots of situations where these distances change but at work If you want people to feel comfortable the golden rule is keep your distance.

The service implications is

Within 5’ we make eye contact, smile and provide a personal greeting . Within 15’ we make eye contact acknowledgement only. This is a helpful ground rule, particularly for young or new staff. In practice, if you stand in a lift with a guest you would say good morning rather than stare at the carpet, likewise if people are in the lobby you would make eye contact though not necessarily greeting them. Warning for the over confident – do not put your arm around someone you have just met, they may smile but they certainly don’t mean it! Less that 6” of distance means either intimacy or hostility.

The best book I have ever read on this issue and I still refer to it is, not surprisingly, “The Definitive Book of Body Language” by Allan and Barbara Pease. If you spend your time watching people in a foyer or a lobby this book alone turns your world in to the ultimate theatre!

Forget Average

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there
was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

Forget average

Forget average

Nothing average ever stood as a monument to progress.
When progress is looking for a partner it doesn't turn to those
who believe they are only average.
It turns instead to those who are forever searching and striving
to become the best they possibly can.
If we seek the average level we cannot hope to
achieve a high level of success our only hope is to avoid being a failure.
A. Lou Vickery

In Praise of Creativity

Sometimes people do things that just push the limits on what you think is possible. The Adidas Originals Street Party on Coronation Street is a case in point. Last night 500 party goers, VIP's and artists arrived at the Corrie set for the street party of a life time; teas and cakes of course, bunting obviously but personal message from Snoop Dogg! Star Wars cast (brilliantly done by the UK Garrison team), Badly Drawn Boy doing busking outside the new Adidas shop on Coronation Street. The whole thing became a little surreal and a lot of fun and that's before we heard from The Whip and Bernard and Stephen from New Order in the their latest outfit; Bad Lieutenant.

Sometimes its really good to push the imaginative boundary. Why can't we do this every summer.

Congratulations to Gary and all the team at Sparkle Street who had the wit and imagination to make it happen.

Future Everything

Manchester has a track record for creating outstanding live events and lord knows that after seven years at the Bridgewater Hall and Urbis I have played my part in that but as someone who has focused more on production activity I was blown away by the team at FutureEverything last week.

The new arrangement for this former festival took account of an intelligent diverse audience providing an amazing kaleidoscope of activity and urban ideas. I found myself thinking about new ideas, seeing new things, hearing new things and meeting new people as well as old friends leaving this particular veteran of the live scene inspired.

The support that has been given to this project over the past year has rewarded its stakeholders, their investment has allowed this project to achieve a new confidence and positive outlook at a time when I think we all need the encouragement. Looking ahead through 2010 the Future Everything interventions and happenings look likely to keep capturing our imagination and involvement.

Let's here it for all those planners, volunteers, participants, PR folk, journalists, audience members and funders who made it such a treat.

Confident Sales Wins Approval

We ran the new Sales and Business Development Training programme at The Lowry Hotel for the first time last week, the reviews from attenders were great. I tried to make sure the programme feels practical and contemporary and to blow away the myths of selling for people who have to do the job every day so they can confidently get on with the task in hand. On the basis of the reviews we have decided to run it again in June on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th.

If you would like join the programme we keep the course small, just 15 people, we keep the surroundings and food stunning so it's at The Lowry Hotel and we keep it affordable at £295 + VAT, how could you resist!

Here's the reviews....

“I would recommend this programme not only to employees but friends who work in the hospitality business”

“The structure, starting from a wide focus point that sets everything in context and then bringing that down to how it all sits with your business and personal sales goals”

“I felt the tasks involved were productive and could be made specific to my own role”

“Course was first class”

“Brilliantly delivered; not too much techie jargon or buzzwords”

“In general I found this one of the most honest and genuinely helpful training courses I’ve been on. Real experience shared rather than just the theory from people who haven’t been in those situations”

“Content was focused and clearly presented. Comprehensive structure based around softer sell techniques much better suited to my personal style”

“Really useful tips and advice that I think will be easy to apply”

“Content was relevant and inspirational”

“I feel confident to ‘bring it on’ and not allow negative responses to get me down I have given so many tactics, tools and guidelines to use which will help me perform and progress in my role”

“This course helped me to consider my goals from a number of perspectives and having an arsenal of techniques means I can find a system which works for me”

Christopher Rodrigues CBE Confirms Appearance

Christopher Rodrigues CBE will be heading an outstanding line up of speakers and tutors at the first Strategic Leadership Programme for Hospitality in Manchester this July. Mr Rodrigues who has led Visit Britain since 2007 will be using his 30 years of experience including his substantial experience in banking and the travel industry to explore the challenges of the next 5 years. Other speakers from the Manchester Business School, industry and research organisations will provide vital insights, strategic tools and techniques and personal development advice to an elite group of just 25 hospitality business leaders and business owners.

The residential programme will be based at the five star Radisson Edwardian hotel in central Manchester and includes visits, receptions and dinners.

To reserve your place contact Howard Raynor at World Class Service on 0161 456 6007 or by e:mail at howard@worldclassservice.co.uk

Peter Saville Confirms Appearance

Branding and Communications jedi Peter Saville has agreed to speak at the forthcoming Strategic Leadership Programme taking place in Manchester from 12th - 16th July 2010. Peter will be addressing issues relating to hotel design and what does luxury mean in 2010. Expect expert opinion and controversy.

If you would like to attend this week long summer programme contact World Class Service through the web site at www.worldclassservice.co.uk

The One Thing More Expensive Than Training...

is Ignorance

Making the most of ourselves and making the most of our people requires us to think about our own performance from time to time. The context of our activities is changing, we are changing and our people are changing. Stopping to draw back and take a view of the business and the industry can reveal opportunities and efficiencies that we don't see by driving the desk or the till or the venue all day.

With this in mind we are running two workshops; in April on the 15th and 16th I am leading a programme on Sales and Business Development, this two day non course is based at the outstanding five star Lowry Hotel in Manchester. Full details are available from the new World Class Service site. Expect some good basic refresher on sales and some magic when it comes to business development.

On 20th and 21st May I am running the Service Leadership programme again at the Lowry. This open programme is non-residential and specifically focuses on the issues around service leadership. My experience is that there are lots of generic leadership programmes and any number of books but key questions for leading people to deliver outstanding service are left unanswered. Expect great trends and market information, international insights in to service excellence, some useful models and tools and some lively discussion between the course attendees. Full details are available from the new World Class Service site .

High Standards don't mean Depersonalised!

Running publicly funded arts organisation in the current climate is no mean feat. The vagaries of funding are potentially catastrophic. What can be done short and long term to minimise the impact and improve other income streams?

One answer is to focus on the customers and the trading side of the operation.

The idea of developing trading income doesn't have to be a fraught with risk, World Class Service are running sales and business development programmes this spring to help deal with this issue but there is a wider backdrop for every customer or visitor that we need to be aware of; every customer has three critical dimensions, their transaction value, their life time value and their referral value.

Trading successfully and gaining goodwill with the audience requires us to see all three dimensions of our customers. It seems to me that a lot of organisations get trapped in seeing only the transaction value and even that is poorly understood. The idea of the customers lifetime value isn't considered at all and their referral value is only dimly understood. If arts organisations want the public on side and to maximise their value they need to see that every individual has the choice to spend more, come back more often, stay loyal and to refer their colleagues, friends and fanily.

Improving performance as an organisation requires a step change of thinking particularly in the field of service delivery. At the moment the idea of standardising service is given short shrift, there is a perception that standards depersonalise the experience; this is the defence of random. Without high standards then anything is pretty much acceptable, poor self awareness, poor communication skills, lack of anticipation, lack of urgency and poor empathy are all acceptable. The failure to identify acceptable service levels for our customers leads to the long standing TARP finding that 68% of customer drift away due to feeling of indifference that they perceive from the business they are engaged with.

Having high standards shows you care and that is the start of the customer relationship. High standards do not depersonalise the service experience in fact they are likely to significantly improve perceptions and improve transaction and lifetime values. High standards are a referral issue, if we encounter good service we do talk about it...its rare!

The hard work of high standards is not just about attention to detail, which appears to be unfashionable, but about how we make high standards an enjoyable thing to deliver and this is the crux of the issue. If an organisations can work out how to motivate its people to deliver high standards they will see a winning approach start to emerge.

I firmly believe that high standards of service and success in trading performance are linked..

Cod Gets Time Off at The Palace

All hail The Palace Hotel, Oxford Rd, Manchester. Cod, the mighty white fish we all love has not been served in The Palace Hotel for two years! When you think about this huge hotel and the hundreds of thousands of people who have met, dined and conferenced there over the past two year not one of them has been served with Cod. This is a huge achievement and much needed for the recovery of Cod stocks.

How did they achieve this thoughtful and much appreciated feat? They substituted other tasty white fish like the marvelous Pollack, most of us would not be able to taste the difference. Pollack is a fantastic fish and it isn't threatened.

I also hear that the Palace have been doing their bit for lobsters too. Tiny lobsters can now thrive in British coastal waters thanks to the Marine Act which came in to force last year allowing conservation areas to be developed so that some sea creatures can restore their population with protection. The Palace has been leading the charge at their end by suggesting to customers that they make a £2.50 donation and in return they fund a tiny lobster down on the South Coast. Cute.

Why take this kind of care you might ask, well General Manager Richard Morrell is keen on fish and takes action. Simple really. I think its admirable. Well done to the kitchens and The Palace for having some imagination, well done to Richard for taking action and smile when you think of all those cod still enjoying the towering seas and young lobsters peering out of their rocky homes.

Is it good for business, well it seems it is, corporate CSR programmes mean companies are paying more attention to the places they do business. Having a clear and committed environmental policy is good for business. The other story I heard this week concerns a florist who use grey water to water their plants, on making this fact known they won a number of local authority contracts. It seems that if you apply your CSR programme well and with imagination AND tell people about it you will find new customers and new markets.

EVERYONE'S A WINNER

Michael Winner's outspoken remarks about the North West makes for an interesting comment on how one man's struggle to stay at the top of the midden heap lead him to tactless personal remarks. Michael's comments, which presumably reflect his personal experience, call up some interesting questions about the role of the critics in a world where we can all blog, youtube, flickr and facebook our own personal experience.

Michael is not blessed with better insights, understanding or better cooking skills than the rest of us. And nowadays we all get to have an opinion of service and we all get to broadcast it using social networks. Regrettably for Michael that includes him as a critic.

In my experience and the experience of millions of customers in the North West is we enjoy fantastic produce cooked and served well by passionate committed people who understand food and their customers, the fact that an insurance salesman with a TV show to promote has a desire to put these people down with such tactless stupidity say more about him than it does about a region and its food. And that is my experience of his remarks, see what I did there.

Fortunately we live in an increasingly open source world where we can all use our critical faculties to praise or offer criticism of the service we receive. It will be interesting to see whether vitriol and bile are the way forward.

TripAdvisors is a bell weather for this I think. If the media trains the public that criticism and bile are the best ways to improve a system then a fundamental rethink is required.

In the mean time I think we should remember that 2% of customers cost more to service than they ever return to the business and as a result we should seek to stop doing business with them.

Go for Launch

The World Class Service web site is now up. Its about 85% there at the moment, there are some good things to come but we are pleased with the new site. Lots of thanks to Andrew Glester here and Louise and VCommunication who have built our second site.

All that remains is for the folk who love us to take a visit and let us know what we did right and what we need to improve. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Enjoy

http://www.worldclassservice.co.uk/

Inspiration from Oldham!

It's a surprising thought that in the quiet back streets of Oldham here in the North West just yards from the M60 there is a truly inspiring collection of materials, ideas, layouts and design thinking going on. The collection, badged as The Venue is aimed at boutique hotels, restaurants and clubs and is underpinned by a highly regarded steel fabrication business that do kitchen fit out and bar fit out work nationally. They can actually build solutions not just sell attractive ideas.

Great customer service hinges off four key factors;

The behaviour of the staff,
The processes of how we meet customer needs,
The personal touch points and
The physical environment where the service is being delivered

The Venue with the des res address of Unit 3, Albert Street! carries the physical envionment and touch point game to a very high standard. When I ran venues it was all too easy to become building blind, I was unable to see what new customers see because I saw it every day, "practice makes mindless" as the saying goes. What The Venue does is provide some bright ideas in real physical settings. You would think in this day and age when you can survey Wallpaper, Coolhunter, Trendwatch and the like from your favourite screen that there would be no place for an physical think tank like this. Yet, as Neil Guest proved to me today, you would be wrong. Seeing and touching is inspiring; understanding how materials feel and look together in multiple colourways made me think. The new layouts made me think about what's possibl and what's next.

It's a great place to visit with your team or even meet. You don't have to be designing or specifying a venue to get the point. They also offer bar skills training. If you're as intrigued as I was, here's the start point....

http://www.thevenue.uk.com/index.php/gallery/53-the-venue-building.html

It's also worth noting that the rather modest location means that you aren't paying a fortune for a glamorous showroom that your customers will never see. I think The Venue is a space to watch and even better visit.

Empathy Shortage in Paris

It seems that the European supply of empathy is as scarce as the UK grit supply was last month. BBC correspondent Jane Kirby’s fine comment on contemporary life in Paris suggests that whilst French may have a deep professional respect for service delivery they are confused about the business issues.

The original article can be seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8500246.stm

Service professionals aren’t confused about servitude; great service is about value addition close to the customer or to get analytical about it close to the active user. Great service requires a clear understanding of how to align behaviours, the service environment and the processes with the customer expectation and then take that 1% step to be just a little better than the customer had expected.

The result for our French colleagues is that the customer now has three magical gifts; firstly their transaction value in the case of the waiter or the taxi driver this may be a tip, it may be that if the waiter really is focused on our well being we might spend more in the restaurant. Secondly the customer may bring their loyalty, they may choose to visit that restaurant on a regular basis or phone that cab number more often, and they may even put the restaurant or taxi in their phone as the number of choice. Finally, the customer may bring their ultimate gift, referral power. The customer has the ability, power and technology to relay their experience to their friends, colleagues, acquaintances and even readership in Jane’s case. Good experience travels well, we do tell our friends about an amazing restaurant or great service, as customers we recommend what we like and what we prefer. The self interested taxi driver or waiter has to realise that bad news also has an audience. Just sticking with the Sunday Times a moment here AA Gill didn’t build his reputation out of helping restaurateurs; he built a following of readers out deep criticism.

From a World Class Service standpoint Jane’s article has a more profound implication, one that has a direct bearing on UK service delivery and that is the presence or absence of empathy. Research suggests that empathy is the most troubling absence in UK service. Empathy, in service terms, means the ability to read, understand and effectively respond to the emotions of the customer. This is a skill to be sure, some people are naturals when comes to empathy and some of us have to think about it, great waiters, concierge’s or taxi driver don’t judge, they simply provide the helpful options and suggestions that create a better sense of well being for the customer and this is the moment where their professional skill is leveraged. As customers we love it when they do. Service magic in action.

We don’t know which rooms a hotel has available or what the restaurant has in its wine cellar or the quickest way across Leeds but the service professional does and the best know when to offer assistance to the customer. Good observation can tell you when a customer is anxious, bored or lost and a little proactive support can deliver that 1% moment of customer happiness, that life is not pointless and people do care.

Empathetic service isn’t the same as proactive service, being pro active can be tiresome if it isn’t well managed. Imagine the business traveller who clocks hundreds of thousands of air miles each year travelling through an airport, they don’t need proactive assistance they need empathy and that require the service professional to read the situation and respond accordingly with a bias for questions if they aren’t sure.

As service professionals we become what we think about, if we only see the role as subservience or as slavery then we can see the resentment streak coming a mile away. If we think about the well being of the guests and the gifts they can bestow on our business then the virtuous cycle is plainly in view. The great restaurant managers and hoteliers know this and Britain does have some outstanding examples. There are some real service “jedi” who don’t deliver service for the return they do it out of blind belief in great service, Expertise, lovingly combined with boundless enthusiasm was one organisations description but the CEO of Tablet Hotels seemed to sum up the mental outlook best with; “For us it’s a fine line between persistence and stubbornness, Optimism and delusion. While we believe that our clients are loyal for good reasons, we go beyond reason to make it work”.

The strangest thing about empathy is the hugely asymmetric effect it has on the customer. It costs nothing on the part of the service personnel but creates a massive impact on the customer. Empathy is part of a good competitive strategy nowadays and it can be taught; there are key traits and behaviours that highlight empathetic behaviour it is a matter of training and coaching these behaviours so that they become part of a professional approach. Shame the French, who are so brilliant on hospitality and design appear to be off the pace on the day to day delivery of welcome and guest happiness.

Inspiration from Chicago

God bless Chef Charlie Trotter, an inspiration to us all.

If you are feeling a little worn or a little complacent, try reading this alound.

"I have always looked at it this way: if you strive like crazy for perfection – an all out assault on total perfection – at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a lifeplan”

Charlie is the inspiration behind two excellent books, Lessons in Excellence and Lessons in Service. If you need to up you game here's some serious flat out service excellence for you to think about.

Welcome 2.0 Awards

The Welcome 2.0 Awards are coming. Stand by for details.

World Class Service Ltd are teaming up with Manchester Airport Group to develop a brand new event celebrating best practice in hospitality, tourism and technology. The aim is to champion the outstanding use of social technology in welcoming visitor and to share these inspiring developments with the wider visitor economy community.

The awards experience will be like no other. We are going to create a different type of solution to the humdrum run of awards events. The event is about how UK tourism is facing up to the huge changes arising from technology shifts, social networks, environmental changes and new opportunities.

These awards are about the best experiences, the best ideas and the best people. Winning is only about bragging rights we are planning to create a lot more than a gong and a hangover.

We will release more on a dedicated web site... coming soon.

Demings 14 Points

Dr W Edwards Deming was a key influence on me and thousands of others in the 1980's. Just thinking about his book Out of the Crisis reminded me about his 14 points. A lot of people think Ed Deming was just about variance and manufacturing but here are his 14 points standing the test of time:

1.Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2.Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change. He was writing this is the 1980's, new economic ages seem to be more frequent than you would imagine!

3.Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product (or service) in the first place.

4.End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimise total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust. Ideas of total cost of ownership and best value are important considerations.

5.Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6.Institute training on the job. The adage training is better than hoping is as true as ever.

7.Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of an overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.

8.Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9.Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production and front line service roles must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10.Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11.a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership. This perhaps requires further explanation - Deming put method first, if we get our method right we will out perform the arbitrary goals that so many managers dream up at budget time.

12.a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly paid worker of his right to pride in workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.This is a s true in service as it is manufacturing.
b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and engineering of their right to pride in workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and management by objective. Deming believed that outputs were the product of a system of work not an individual. This one will run and run but you can see a vital point in quality being made here versus the gargantuan greed of some of the financial community.

13.Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14.Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job


Thinking about that list in January 2010 Demings insights are as helpful as ever and they aren't just relevant to manufacturing. He does point towards a lif a less ordinary. Which of the above list makes the most impact on you personally?

Pierre Aumonier, Greatly Missed

Pierre Aumonier was not only the Clerk of the Course at countless motor sport meetings including the Le Mans 24hrs and the endurance races at Silverstone he was also a human dynamo when it came to Opera, specifically Central Festival Opera. Over 20 years Pierre created an entire catalogue of performances which took place all over the UK. The most the rest of us did was help.

He invited me to join him at Glyndebourne one summer after the new Opera House opened, it was a real treat; fantastic company and from what I recall a very good performance.

Pierre was a truly impressive man, he had real character and style which set him apart but he also had a metiulousness that was awe inspiring without being intimidating. Accurate, detailed and insightful. He passed last summer. The memorial concert in Northampton last night was a fitting tribute to a well loved member of the opera community. I felt sure he was there. If he wasn't he was almost certainly organising a choir or band of angels for their first production!

God bless

Integrity 2010 - Thinking about Arts Organisations

Integrity 2010

When I was a lad the world was a different place; computers came with bundled applications, Sony mini disc was the future and BMW’s were fashionable. It’s hard to imagine this now of course but they were simpler times. In customer service training the beef was that unhappy customers would tell between 12 and 15 other people which is why customer service mattered. Imagine that now! Imagine what BT thought when the unhappy customer on You Tube passed 10,000 views for his complaint on You Tube or the United Airlines of their customer who clocked over 5 million viewings of his complaint. Imagine their dismay when copy cat complainants mounted their own videos on You Tube to complain about their service. Imagine their fury when they realised that their advertising pound will buy them less impact for their message and over 10% of all marketing spend will be on line by 2011. There is no doubt that times have changed. I suppose they shouldn’t fret too much they are in good company; KFC, Jet Blue, Ikea and more get the same pasting.

As far back as 2005 when Expedia were only wreaking havoc with package holiday firms by fuelling Trip Advisor.com, cultural organisations could stand back and smile; at least we only had the arts critic from the papers to deal with and if you live within 25 miles of London you might get a broadsheet crit’ turn up. Of course that’s changed too art galleries and cultural institutions are turning up on Trip Advisor complete with “customer” rating in the city. This social network has amassed 15 million registered users, almost 36 million visits a month (January 2010) and includes 30 million reviews and opinions covering 23,000 cites. Trip Advisor also boasts more than half a million candid traveller photos. What’s more is they are making more fun to use. To see for yourself click http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.html

If you don’t think this on-line transparency issue is going to affect your organisation you are out of date. You Tube, Flick’r, Face Book, Twitter and My Space are arguably a new tyranny. I know hoteliers who check Trip Advisor every day as a form of customer service survey. Companies that leave a gap between the image they create for themselves and the actual delivered experience are getting caught out.
When you get to my age “Which” magazine is an appealing read, a comfortable grumbling port for the sensible footwear type middle aged, the detailed blow by blow factual analysis of the products being examined provides a North Star in the world of the customer. No hint of emotion is shown in these unblinking reports. “Which” is a rational stance based on object analysis from a panel of experts. Trip Advisor, Twitter even day to day sites like Late Rooms aren’t based on “Servqual” type analysis, these are very often raw emotional comments based on something that hasn’t gone well or by serial commentators.

As our customers increasingly rise to the challenge of being on line reviewers and broadcasters, and after all commerce has been training customers to complete satisfaction surveys for a long time, what does this mean for us as venue operators and service professionals? I think it calls up two distinct issues.
Firstly it means we do have to manage our service delivery, people will forgive a show they don’t like but they won’t forgive a scruffy venue or poor employee attitude. It looks like we don’t care and they can get not caring from utility suppliers, the milkman, the local garage in fact most places in this country.
Secondly it means that when we are under pressure as organisations we could have an audience which is far more vocal and media adept to argue our case.
Taking the first issue, I hope you will agree that bluffing quality is over, love them or hate them Disney are right about customers; they do want to feel special, they do want to be treated as individuals , they do want to be respected and they would like to be more knowledgeable. Funders, boards and management all need to recognise that the physical environment, our employees and volunteers, our delivery system whatever our cultural form is, fellow customers and back office support needs to be effectively aligned around our purpose and the customers’ expectations. If we fail to do this then perception gaps start to appear and it’s only a matter of time before that starts to appear in the on-line environment if not the press.
I am well aware that given the choice between change and getting busy on the evidence that we don’t have to change at all we are all too keen to get the evidence. The fact is that in the first half of this decade and no matter what our funding position is, alignment of the organisation in to one encounter, a clear integrated proposition is essential. The team, by which I mean our people, our service partners and our stakeholders, needs to think and act as one to get this integration straight and whilst flexibility of thinking and delivery must be maintained the whole experience of the institution needs to underpin its values. If it fails this perception gap becomes noticeable and the feeling of being somewhere special starts to dwindle. The master of this field is A.Parasuaman, he has been writing about perception gaps for years but his “I told you so” t-shirt never looked so timeless.

Taking the second issue; assuming we do use induction, training, performance review, professional development, capital investment, technology and communications to reify the values and vision we have for our organisations then we have a new vehicle for support. Customers will be more willing to cheer on the institution, to their friends and of course and to their on-line community and in the end the wider media. If the media and indeed our own marketing departments have been training customers to review, blog, comment and rate then our job needs to be to give them something worth writing about and give them further encouragement.

Web 2.0 is no longer new; social networks, participation and customer created content can be used to the arts advantage but only if arts organisations are prepared to embrace the rigours of transparency. Aligning all our resources in to a simple clear proposition is not easy, the idea of a twenty first century organisation may sound glib but the inherent conservatism that lurks in many creative organisations is going to see some of the community go to the wall.
The struggle to excel in this environment is a helpful challenge, it makes us look at our own organisations and think about them from the outside more. Reading those online reviews can be sobering and encouraging. We have to really grasp what it is that our audience sees in us. Measuring innovation and improvement of our offer remains a problem and even the best in the commercial business world are struggling with effective measurement; footfall, dwell time, revenue growth, satisfaction ratings and loyalty are all handy but commerce is first to accept that measuring experience peaks and experience trends is more voodoo than science. Bring to that the unique challenge of the arts and objective measurement goes out of the window; so all the more important that when we do see progress, when we are seeing customer respond, when we have got organisations that are able to assimilate this new environment we need to make sure they are well rewarded and recognised, we need to make sure knowledge is diffused to others and that the original pathfinders are encouraged.

We should also reflect on the fact that in five years time we will look at this time and think it was all easier then.
ENDS

Lifestyle Industries Summer School

If, as a business manager or owner, you had the opportunity to get an update on sector issues every couple of years what would you ask for in that package and who would you ask to provide it?

My thinking is to develop a summer school in association with some of Manchester's best talent from the field of service research, marketing, economics, HR, technology and deliver a 5 day programme at one of Manchester's leading hotels.

Start date is this Summer - July 2010. 5 days, 20-25 lucky individuals, the best speakers internationally, the best academic talent and some new insights from related sectors. Watch this blog for more details and postings.