The definition and measurement of service excellence is often a subject of great debate. What exactly is service excellence, and can it be quantified? For example, I can easily time in minutes how long I have to wait in queue at a supermarket. However my perception of how tedious the wait is can vary by the day of the week. While I would be very willing to stand in queue for 5 minutes on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I would very likely perceive this same 5 minute wait to be excessive and unproductive if I was using part of my lunch break from work to get some grocery shopping done.
An added consideration is our search for a useful, quantifiable definition of service excellence is that all of us perceive and experience service through our own lenses. While I may enjoy waiting in line at a supermarket check-out on a weekend, my best friend, who is more impatient than I am, is unlikely to feel the same. A popular indicator businesses use to gauge service performance that takes all these considerations into account a is customer satisfaction.
Again, what is service excellence? The definition that aptly explains service excellence in my opinion, is one by Frances Frei of Harvard Business School. She defines service excellence as a product of design and culture. The former is the design of business model, strategy, systems and processes while the latter refers to the values that guide decision-making and practices in an organisation. Hence a part of the focus is in recruitment and training of employees. Bringing on board individuals with personalities that are aligned with the corporate values as well as implementing training programmes to ensure employees are competent and capable of performing their responsibilities.
In a survey that we conducted jointly with The Business Times in 2011, we asked senior executives about interventions that they implemented in the preceding twelve months that were effective in raising service levels. Consistent with the definition above, seventy-one out of 161(44%) responses cited a combination of increasing employee engagement and providing training. Thirty-three of the responses indicated a redesign of performance management system. This reinforces our understanding of service excellence as one that is based upon a combination of design and culture.
Service in the eyes of customers
However these are measures internal to the organization? What about the customer? Service also encompasses exchange and interaction between the organization (as service provider) and the customer (the recipient).
Customers play a crucial role in service. Service excellence is construed in the eyes of customers as recipients of service. In my view, the design of services that a business offers is incomplete without the inclusion of customer who will be a participant of the service experience. While a company can easily standardize the production of a tangible output like, a model of car, I would imagine that the same company will find it hard to standardize the maintenance service that car owner receives. Even if one does really well in producing consistent service delivery, the likes of Singapore Airlines, customers receiving the service may react differently to the same service offered.
Customers shape the experience and outcome
In services, employees have little control over the end-to-end experience. As an employee, I will be able to gain all necessary tools to perform my job and my performance can be enhanced over time with good support structures. Through training I can be exposed to different service settings, but I have little control over the types of customers that I will encounter and their state of emotions.
Put simply, customers bring with them varying expectations of service. These different customer expectations and behaviors will add variability to a service experience. These unknown variables can affect the service performance. I may prefer to visit the branch on a Saturday morning when not working but the office clerk who is responsible for cheque deposits will need to visit the branch regularly every Monday. Most operations will review historical customer arrival patterns to forecast arrivals and plan staff schedules. Restaurants would schedule staff shift schedule to overlap during peak periods and reduce the number of employees on duty during lull periods. Some even deploy a permanent part-time group that acts as a SWAT team to work short but intense periods during peak periods.
I have seen restaurants that had two or more different entrances when in fact one entrance with a dedicated staff to attend to walk-in customers would be sufficient. Having two or more entrances add unwarranted complexity to operations. Customers may choose to enter through any entrance and are mostly re-directed to join other customers to queue at another entrance. Moreover I have personally observed potential customers walked away after a long wait as there were no one assigned to manage the additional entrances.
Customers call a hotel reservations hotline at different times of day with varying levels of communication abilities. Most call centres equipped their call centre employees to handle the wide variety of language expressions used for similar requests.
Customers have different requests for their hotel stay, such as the need for morning call or specific instructions for laundry. Most hotels put in place processes and systems that can accommodate different customers’ request. Customers also bring with them varying levels of capabilities. In a financial services setting, some customers are at ease with technology and easily assimilate with internet and mobile banking services independently. While others would need more guidance with new technology. In a healthcare setting, customers invest in varying amount of efforts at the recovery stage. Some put more effort into the rehabilitation process despite the lack of family support. Others may require more prodding to follow-through a rehabilitative activity.
We all as customers have different preferences. While I am happy to use any toiletries provided by the hotel, my best friend prefer to use only her favorite brand of toiletries. In a restaurant setting, customers like to express their preferences for seating. When the design and positioning of the stations were not optimal, customers may choose tables in service zones without a service station that stores cutlery and utensils. Staff members in charge would be challenged to focus their attention on customers while retrieving cutlery items.
A suggestion for restaurants may be to operate only those selected service zones during non-peak periods. Through the use of independently controlled lighting system, some restaurants may elegantly steer customers towards the operational service zones. Individual spotlights could be installed to form a corridor that would guide customers to the desired operationally ready seating areas, illuminated in a warm and inviting manner. Meanwhile the lighting in closed zones would be dimmed and most customers would get the signal that the dimmed areas are not operationally ready.
The point I wish to make here is, think about the role of customers in your drive for service excellence. In other words, while organisational culture and design are crucial elements for service, companies may wish to consider shaping the role that customers will play in the service experience. Customers perceive excellence through their lenses; they contribute directly and indirectly to their own experience. Therefore it will be useful for companies to shape what customers will expect through their services and influence how customers should behave with the service provider.
Service workforce instant feedback transportation in CAG(SWIFT)
CAG had successfully established Changi Airport as the world’s most awarded ‘Best Airport’. CAG was committed to the customers. The company strived to provide customers a unique Changi experience that fulfilled even the unexpressed needs of the customers through not only in the form of hardware but also in the form of software. All kinds of capabilities and resources were incorporated to translate its value into employee behaviors that focus on customers. CAG evaluated and improved its process for determining and addressing customer expectations with high technology. The new technologies provided most up-to-date and accessible platforms for connectivity, usage and exceptional customer.
Service Workforce Instant Feedback Transformation (SWIFT) was a new automated feedback system that enabled CAG’s staff to be more efficient and faster at their jobs while responding to service or facility failures. SWIFT improved the output of service providers, such as toilet cleaners, trolley retrievers, estate management officers and other service workforce staff.
To ensure that the highest standard of cleanliness is maintained at all times, SWIFT has been introduced at selected washrooms in Terminal 3. Passengers are invited to rate the cleanliness of the washrooms via an interactive touch screen based on a five-point scale. For less satisfactory ratings, passengers are then prompted to indicate the reasons for their rating by selecting on-screen icons to indicate their dissatisfaction, e.g. ‘wet floors’, ‘no toilet paper’, ‘dirty basin’ etc. Once any of these options is selected, a mobile alert is immediately transmitted to the smartphone of the cleaning supervisor, who will then initiate the necessary corrective action.
Conclusion
Service excellence is a journey that is fraught with challenges. These challenges lie both internally within the organisation as well as externally, with competitors and in face of rising customer expectations. To excel, companies may wish to look beyond employee training. Consider educating customers on desired values and behavior.
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