The 4 Dimensions of Total Customer Service

By Stuart McKechnie

This book is about Total Customer Service .It applies to all types of organisations large and small, private or public .It considers the ongoing changing context and circumstances such as technology, social media and remote buying which influence the relationship between the selling organisation and the buying customer .It introduces The Customer Service Hallmark, a unique Customer Service Quality Standard and guiding implementation and benchmarking framework. It takes Customer Service beyond Have a Nice Day and the obvious Surface approaches to Customer Service. It positions Customer Service as having its roots in the cultural heart of the organisation. The book adopts a holistic view of organisations incorporating Organisation Development approaches to managing improvement interventions .It positions Total Customer Service within and across all organisation functions and boundaries and includes a proactive stance to managing external environmental influences .The book provides reflective reading plus new and refreshed ideas, tools and models. The interesting presentation of the book takes the reader through the development of a practical methodology which guides, improves, sustains and maximises the provision of Total Customer Service and organisation improvement.

Anyone who has an interest in Total Customer Service and organisation performance improvement will find this book valuable and enjoyable. Vision to Action, Sub System Synergy , Hilltops ,ERUDITE Leadership, Futuristic Thinking , Competitive Integrity and Triple E touch point management all contribute to Customer Service and are some of the innovative concepts included in this book.

The book brings together organisational capacity and capability and reflects a synergistic approach which promotes cross functional cooperation and harmony .The Four Dimensions of the Customer Service Hallmark provide an integrated framework which positions Total Customer Service as a coordinated strategic response to achieving organisation improvement and strategic intent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Aug 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452516752

Stuart McKechnie

As founder and CEO of McKechnies Limited, Stuart led the company for over 20 years providing People and Organisation Development consultancy services. He has worked internationally with many well known organisations. After 10 years living and working in Australia he remains a McKechnies Director and now lives in Perthshire, Scotland.

Book preview

THE 4

DIMENSIONS

OF TOTAL

CUSTOMER

SERVICE

Stuart McKechnie

52789.png

www.thecustomerservicehallmark.com

Copyright © 2014 Stuart McKechnie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover design and illustrations by Emily Douglas Design, Margaret River West Australia. Contact Emily at http://www.emilydouglasdesign.com.au.

Balboa Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-1674-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-1676-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-1675-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910399

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/01/2014

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part One

•   What It’s All About

•   The Customer Challenge

•   Futuristic Thinking

•   The Emotion of Buying

•   Competitive Integrity and Values

•   Changing Times

Part Two

•   Introducing Frank

•   Frank’s Focus

•   Thinking of Organisation Development (OD)

•   Getting Started

•   Finding Out

•   Positive Thinking and Action

•   An Integrated Approach

•   Progress: Sixteen Action Points

•   Hilltops, Colours, and Working with the Individual Customer

•   The Customer Surface Arena (CSA)

•   Three Categories of Customers

•   The Customer-Service Chain

•   Remember the Internal Customer

•   Values-Based Transactions: Getting to the First Dimension

•   Two Dimensions: The Framework Takes Shape

•   Three Dimensions

•   Four Dimensions

•   Dimensions Plus

•   Subsystems

•   Vision

•   KSA and Learning

•   Seeking Team Support

•   The Final Framework

•   Leading Customer Service

•   The Informal System

•   Change

•   Finally

Part Three

•   Reflections

•   The End and the Beginning

•   About the Author

Endnotes

FIGURES

FIGURE 1 – McKECHNIES TRIPLE E RATING SCALE

FIGURE 2 – McKECHNIES 7C DIAGNOSTIC MODEL

FIGURE 3 – McKECHNIES OPEN SYSTEMS MODEL

FIGURE 4 – McKECHNIES HILLTOPS MODEL

FIGURE 5 – McKECHNIES 9D IMPROVEMENT MODEL

FIGURE 6 – THREE DIMENSIONS

FIGURE 7 – FOUR DIMENSIONS

FIGURE 8 – PDSA CYCLE

FIGURE 9 – FOUR DIMENSIONS AND PROPOSITIONS

FIGURE 10 – McKECHNIES FIVE SUBSYSTEMS MODEL

FIGURE 11 – McKECHNIES FIVE SUBSYSTEMS MODEL IN DETAIL

FIGURE 12 – McKECHNIES STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS MODEL

FIGURE 13 – McKECHNIES 5E DEVELOPMENT MODEL

FIGURE 14 – ROLE SET ANALYSIS BUBBLEGRAM

FIGURE 15 – McKECHNIES MODEL OF ERUDITE LEADERSHIP

FIGURE 16 – McKECHNIES CUSTOMER SERVICE HALLMARK

To my lovely sister, Eileen. She is loved by many for her kindness and generosity and her open-door welcome to people who need a friend. I love her dearly.

And to my gorgeous wife and best friend, Kath. Words cannot describe enough the support and encouragement she continues to give.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Without the support of my friends and colleagues over many enjoyable years, this book would not have been written. They know who they are, and I thank them all.

I do need to mention three of my colleagues: my long-term business partner Denise Taylor, wine connoisseur, dog lover, and now overseeing the company as managing director; Peter Eccles, an excellent consultant, ‘good bloke’, and distinguished cricketer who is still associated with the company; and Lynn McVelia, my first recruit, a talented classical guitarist and a loyal and irreplaceable personal administrative support person since day one, who has now retired. All three deserve a special mention for their help with the origins of the customer-service hallmark and more.

The Scottish town of Pitlochry in Perthshire and its visitor-information centre is mentioned in this book. I have a lifelong ongoing love affair with Pitlochry and the surrounding area, which I have visited and enjoyed since childhood. Prior to finding the Grandtully house, which now serves as home, I had for many years a highland cottage retreat nearby that enabled the recharging of personal batteries.

On a recent visit to the Pitlochry visitor-information centre to obtain permission to fish for a day on the river Garry, one of my favourite Perthshire salmon rivers, I mentioned to the young lady who helped me that it was always a pleasure to experience such friendly and efficient customer service at the centre. You should put it in your book, said my wife. We all laughed and I said to our young helpful person that I should and would it be okay if we also mentioned her by name. She said yes, in the spirit of our off-the-cuff relaxed, fun conversation.

Rachael Livingstone provided helpful, friendly, efficient, and memorable customer service, and she did it naturally.

INTRODUCTION

I am fortunate to have been able to work with and learn from some of the best people and organisations in several different countries around the world. Additionally, leading a unique, fun, and professional organisation-development (OD) and people-development consultancy for many years provided an excellent and worthwhile learning and development experience in a tough competitive international marketplace.

I have tried in this book to distil some views and considerations from over thirty years of personal learning and practical experience. I have also tried to capture and bring together what is simply my own thinking concerning the connectivity of several key ingredients that I believe support, develop, enable, and sustain successful organisations. Every successful organisation has unique features, but I suggest that what they all have in common is a consistently demonstrated commitment to their customers and a high level of customer service.

Customer service is the focal point of this book. It represents the endgame and the purpose of organisational life. Unless an organisation can attract and retain customers, it will die. It may take some time, but without enough customers of the right type, an organisation will not survive in the long-term.

I include public-sector organisations in my thinking even though it could be said that they have no competition. In fact, they compete for resources and the goodwill of the societies they serve. Their customers can force change at the ballot box, and their political masters have considerable, if not total, influence on decisions relating to strategic intent and resource allocation.

I believe that by taking a holistic view of organisations, we are more able to make sense of what is required in order to create the synergy that brings together the complex mix of ingredients that enable an organisation to be successful.

Success is directly linked to consistently keeping our promises to customers and meeting the expectations we create. Being classed as average in that respect is, of course, not good enough. Much has been written about customer delight and exceeding customer expectations. While that is commendable and should definitely be part of the customer-service mindset, it is not always realistic or achievable with all customers all of the time in many customer-related situations.

I suggest that perhaps a more reasonable, achievable, and consistently sustainable position for suppliers to adopt—is to ensure that they do the following:

• Invest in learning and development opportunities for all staff.

• Develop a customer-service culture within and across all functional areas.

• Never promise what they cannot achieve.

• Respect customers and never let them down.

• Constantly try to add value for all customers where possible.

• Never distance themselves from the customer.

• Respond quickly and positively to resolve instances of customer dissatisfaction.

• Engage the total organisation in delivering quality and continuous improvement.

Realistically, more often than not, customers will not experience the level of delight advocated by much of the published customer-service literature every time they make a purchase. For example, when they leave a supermarket with the week’s groceries, they will probably settle for feeling comfortable and pleased that service staff were polite, all of the products they wanted were available and easy to find, and what they bought represented value for the money. It may well be that they do not even think about their buying experience, because there was nothing to feel disappointed about. On the other hand, a customer purchasing a new car or an expensive holiday or any item that raises the level of his or her emotional state may well expect to be delighted by the customer-service experience.

Perhaps a reasonable starting point for suppliers is to ensure that they understand the relationship between their products or services and the expectations of their customers.

Customer service requires the connectivity of all functions within the total organisation, and in this book I have tried to address a range of integrated topics for you, the reader, to consider. I hope that together we can critically review and make sense of how organisations make the crucial links between the components that help to attract and retain customers. Some of the topics we’ll consider are OD, strategic intent, systems thinking, business-world influences, leadership, learning, quality improvement, behaviour, cross-functional harmony, implementing change, and other aspects of organisational life that impact on delivering what I refer to as total customer service.

I do not claim the expression total customer service, although I have used it for many years. I cannot recollect its origin, but somehow it surfaced within my company, and I do understand the merits of embracing it. From my own experience, however, I can say that much of the literature concerning customer service simply addresses the more obvious aspects of customer service and does not consider how all aspects of organisational life should be aligned with customer service.

The overall concept of this book is total customer service. Total customer service positions all aspects of organisational life and activity as integral components that influence the ability of an organisation to engage in a high level of meaningful customer service. It goes far beyond the have a nice day surface level of customer service and involves the contribution of the total organisation.

This book is concerned with positioning customers at the forefront of strategic intent. Achieving strategic intent assumes the involvement of the total organisation; if not, then we are inferring that parts of the organisation are redundant. Customers are crucial to any organisation but are often not given adequate prominence in terms of strategic intent. If not, then a question for many leaders of organisations is, Why not?

Though the book will be of interest for people who work in what may be viewed or positioned as designated functional areas of customer service, it’s not limited to that audience. Total customer service requires everyone in the organisation to wear the customer-service hat. By taking a holistic view, this book helps to make links into all organisational functions and activities that can affect what everyone is trying to achieve at the individual, group, and organisational level.

Organisation leaders, managers, supervisors, functional specialists, and business students—in fact, anyone who is concerned with the process of how organisations manage inputs and outputs and the relationship with how they attract and keep customers—will find worthwhile information in this book. I have tried to include a wide variety of useful models and concepts that together represent a mix of new and established tools and approaches that support the thinking behind this book and the development of total customer service.

The route to achieving total customer service is guided by what is presented in this book as the customer-service hallmark. The hallmark is a customer-service quality standard. It consists of four integrated dimensions of customer service. The dimensions are supported by propositions for action. Each proposition is guided by a set of required demonstrations that, if met, will not only produce a wide range of added-value organisational benefits but will also culminate in the provision of total customer service.

In writing this book, I have drawn from personal life experiences, sharing my perspectives as a customer, a CEO, an OD consultant, and a supplier of services to a wide range of client organisations in seventeen different countries. The experience of working with McKechnies Limited, the UK-based consultancy company I started and was fortunate to lead for over twenty years, has significantly influenced my thinking. We provide consultancy in three integrated areas: OD; leadership, management, and personal development; and design and delivery of management qualifications at a post-graduate diploma level.

Within the customer-service context of this book, three ingredients of the McKechnies approach are worth a mention:

• The first ingredient is our commitment to customer service. Our approach to total customer service gained recognition from many of our clients—our customers—and led to many long-term public- and private-sector relationships. One example is the UK’s Chartered Management Institute (CMI). We were awarded and retained year after year the coveted recognition and status of being a Centre of Excellence in honour of our support in developing and providing the institute’s management qualifications and for our unique practical and cost-effective approach to on-the-job assessment.

• The second ingredient, and the most important, is our team. For me gathering good people around you and making sure that they have the skills, knowledge, and resources to do what is required of them is a fundamental leadership role. Nothing worthwhile happens in any organisation without the involvement of the people. We were recognised as an organisation that demonstrated ongoing commitment to the training and developing of our team by adopting the Investors in People (IIP) quality standard.

We were, in fact, at the forefront of the introduction of that standard. It was launched in the United Kingdom and is awarded to those who engage in the training and development of employees at all levels in order to achieve business improvements and organisational objectives. We designed and for several years provided the training for the UK national investors’ assessors who investigated and decided whether or not organisations achieved the standard, and also for the advisors who guided organisations on their journey to receiving the award.

We provided assessor and advisor services to Investors In People, the awarding body, and to our clients. We were excited and honoured to have the status of being the first qualified IIP assessor by assessing the first recognised investor company worldwide to achieve the award, Derby-based Appor Limited. We also assessed several other successful applicants that achieved the award, such as Nissan Manufacturing UK.

It is worth mentioning that the international IIP quality standard is an excellent guide for any organisation wishing to align training and development with strategic intent. Our belief in the training and development of our own people and our inclusive and quality-focused approach meant that we had a great team of competent, committed people who worked well together. Achieving, retaining, and being able to proudly display the IIP award above our brass nameplate on the wall outside our office premises was a bonus.

• The third and vitally important ingredient is that we had fun while still being able to be serious about what we were trying to achieve together. In my very first job, I worked for a controlling autocratic civil-servant boss for whom a culture of silence and conformity was the name of the game. I never wanted to replicate the demoralising climate that existed in that organisation. Fun is one of the must-have items on our job descriptions. I cannot remember a day when laughter was not heard in our office as we went about our business. We had no room for pretension or inflated egos. Being serious about your business while not taking yourself too seriously is, I believe, an important quality for leaders, teams, and people in general. Add to that the recognition that although we may have different roles, everyone is deserving of respect, and we have a couple of building blocks for team spirit and team effort.

Providing customers with quality of product or service at the right price where and when it is required is of course a taken-for-granted absolute necessity for achieving the bottom line in business, whether that means private-sector financial profit or being able to consistently meet public-sector objectives. Quality of product or service has to, at a minimum, satisfy customers. I suggest, however, that the difference that enables improved long-term bottom-line performance is a demonstrated belief and commitment to total customer service supported and enabled by a confident, switched-on, competent, and motivated team. All are important ingredients that formed the basis on which we tried to achieve success.

Strategically focused demonstrations of commitment to customers and engagement in competency development within a supportive culture enables movement from the vision of what will make a successful organisation to the action that will create and sustain that vision. This concept is called vision to action (V2A), and it is an important aspect of total customer service.

We live in a global business world. Having a wide range of clients in seventeen different countries helped us to appreciate that the strategic value of customer service embraces and is achievable across many cultures and all types of organisations. I include our experience with large corporations, small family businesses, public-sector organisations, charities, academic institutions, governments, and many well-known, blue-chip, household-name, private-sector companies. We have enjoyed, for example, the summer heat of Mauritius, Cyprus, the Virgin Islands, and South Africa, and coped with the sharp snowy winters of North America, Russia, Canada, and the Czech Republic.

We understood that if customer service is to be successful, it has to involve the total organisation. If leaders of organisations cannot or will not position customer service as a strategic priority, then overcoming mediocrity and struggling for survival can become the dominant organisational issues to manage.

Adopting a holistic view of an organisation is a well-used approach to conducting OD interventions, and this approach is reflected in this book. The approach supports the positioning of total customer service within and across all organisation functions and boundaries and includes adopting a proactive stance to managing the external environment—the business world we live in. In terms of total customer service, as in all aspects of strategic intent, it is important to be able to define whatever it is we are trying to achieve, not just as a guide but also as a point of reference or benchmark. This book provides a customer-service standard and guiding framework through four crucial integrated dimensions of customer service that any organisation can adopt to guide its customer-service provision.

By adopting a holistic view and taking an OD perspective, we are more able to achieve total customer service. It follows that we are more able to integrate customer service into all aspects of organisational activity and take customer service beyond have a nice day and the more obvious surface aspects of looking after customers.

Of course, we cannot dismiss or reduce the relevance and importance of managing the surface or touchpoint aspects of customer service. Touchpoints are contact points experienced by customers as they engage with a supplier. Examples of touchpoints would include any contact involving the following:

• people

• advertisements

• press releases

• websites

• reports

• tradeshows

• telephone calls

• e-mails

• service points

• invoices

• receipts

All contact points—including all transactions that invoke physical and psychological experiences—are included among the touchpoints that contribute to the customer experience. Touchpoint management should be geared to maximising the feel-good factor that captures the customer’s positive emotion rather than negative.

Managing the touchpoint experience is vital, but on its own is not enough. In order for customer service to be meaningful, we need to think beyond touchpoints. We need to adopt a holistic approach that considers external environmental influences and the relationship between all internal organisational functions, systems, and processes and the people who make them work. By taking the holistic view, we are more likely to successfully capture the meaningful contribution of all aspects of the organisation and more confidently enable the provision of total customer service.

Operational activity within organisations requires the establishment and maintenance of appropriate systems, processes, and standards that, when implemented together through the behaviour of the organisation’s people, achieves whatever is designated as being the organisation’s defined desired outcomes. Desired outcomes exist for all individuals, within all teams and functional areas, and when these are added together, they enable the provision of products and services to customers. A desired outcome can be said to include hard and soft factors. A hard factor could be the production of a piece of machinery that is passed on to another function for completion, or a report on a project. Soft factors concern how people feel—for example, a feeling of self-worth for a job well done or the feeling that comes from being committed to give one’s best effort or from simply being treated with respect by others. Desired outcomes for internal and external customers need to address all hard and soft factors.

Without customers, there will be no organisation, which means that customer service has to be strategically included in the desired-outcomes provision for customers. Achieving total customer service is possible when a customer-service philosophy is established within and across all functional areas and is supported by an integrated guiding framework. Ultimately, we need to have in place a level of customer service that retains existing customers, attracts new customers, and influences what I refer to as the customer desire-to-buy quotient.

When we think of our customers, some of us choose to adopt an inward-facing focus, which is to consider our goods or services and then decide how best to sell them to customers. An outward-facing customer focus, however, is an alternative and perhaps a more meaningful paradigm to adopt. This means that instead of a selling to customers mindset, we think more of how we might help customers to buy. This involves considering what customers want, need, and expect, and how we can make it as easy as possible for them to work with us.

Helping Customers to Buy is in fact the title we gave to an extensive and intensive customer-focused learning and culture-change programme over several months. We designed and delivered the programme in strategic support of the sales and distribution division of a well-known international motor-vehicle manufacturer as they set up and established their national network in the United Kingdom. We liaised closely with our client, and the purpose of our work was twofold:

• We worked with the leaders and managers of each dealership to develop a customer-focused culture throughout the national dealership network.

• We designed and delivered a series of learning modules to provide the specific appropriate knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitude for staff at all levels within the various functional areas of all distribution dealerships within the national network.

Our approach enabled staff to combine customer-focused knowledge, skills, and behaviour within their defined job roles and to develop supportive internal cross-functional relationships that added value to customer service.

No matter the type of organisation we are in, as suppliers of goods or services we need to identify and reduce the negative aspects of the desire-to-buy dilemma that customers can experience when considering purchases. This means that we need to be customer-focused, make it easy for customers to engage with us, and understand how to positively influence the customer’s decision to buy.

Influencing the desire to buy is often regarded as a marketing challenge, while retaining customers and building customer loyalty is considered a customer-service challenge. The reality is that marketing and customer service work best when they are part of the same total-customer-service mindset.

Of course, there are other elements to consider. Commitment to customer service, quality of product or service, customer-focused systems and processes, and demonstrated understanding of customer perception of value are obvious prerequisites to winning the hearts and minds of customers. Operational effectiveness and efficiency where quality is built in at all stages is fundamental.

I have tried in this book to raise the profile of customer service and position it as having its roots at the cultural heart of the organisation. By doing so and by providing a guiding integrating framework, we are more able to achieve total customer service. I hope that this book will stimulate thinking by offering reflective reading, a range of new and refreshed ideas and models, and some devil’s-advocate proposals that you can question, accept, or refute. I acknowledge that I am guilty of repeating what I consider to be worth repeating, perhaps several times, so please indulge me; it is well meant.

Earlier I referred to the outcome of the thinking that led to this book as being a customer-service quality standard. The standard is represented as a guiding framework contained within the four dimensions of the customer-service hallmark. We developed the original version of our four-dimension model way back at the start of this century, and since then I have come across other more recent references to dimensions with models ranging from two dimensions to ten dimensions. The four dimensions contained in the customer – service – hallmark are different to other models I have come across but I suggest that all ideas be investigated as to their merits. I hope that this book will enable many suppliers and customers to benefit from the thinking behind it.

Briefly, the dimensions I consider to be four integrated aspects of customer-service performance are as follows.

• The extent to which an organisation positions customer service within its value stance

• How customer service beliefs and values are reflected through service-delivery action in respect to consistently delivering service quality

• The importance of building and managing positive mutually beneficial relationships with customers

• The need to understand and influence customer perception of the organisation and to generate and react positively to customer feedback

It is important that the framework provided by the customer-service hallmark allows for a flexible approach, and it does. It is a guide to customer-service quality improvement (CSQI). It is also provides a benchmark, a self-assessment process, and much more. It provides an integrated series of things to demonstrate that should be met if total customer service is to be achieved and sustained.

Total customer service requires the identification and integration of people and systemic contributions that together can improve not only customer service but also the overall performance of an organisation. We talk of organisations doing this or that, but in reality it is the people within the organisation who actually do this or that or enable it to be done. For ease of writing, I also refer to organisations when I really mean the people and things that constitute an organisation.

Examination of how well the customer-service dimensions, the defining-proposition statements, and the demonstrations of action are established within the organisation will clarify the extent to which total customer service is achieved and indicate the focus of any required remedial action. The variety of models, concepts, and tools included in the book will help with the diagnostic aspects of establishing the organisation’s present state and also provide guidance on how to engage in action that will establish, direct, and achieve the vision of a future state.

The framework of the customer-service hallmark is deliberately designed to provide a flexible and adaptable approach that organisations can respond to in a way that is thought to be appropriate and fits best with strategic intent. All types of organisation, whether business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C), large or small, public sector or private sector, product- or service-oriented, can apply the customer-service hallmark in the way that is best for them.

I intimated earlier that the original version of the customer-service hallmark and our concept of four dimensions of total customer service have been around for some time. We presented and tested the validity and rigour of the earlier version of the hallmark with several organisations including, for example, across four UK cities with a high-profile international call-centre organisation. We involved directors, managers, team leaders, technical staff, and front-line staff in the process. The result was a comprehensive positive report that endorsed the hallmark. Over time, the customer-service hallmark has been further developed and improved.

The winter publication of McKechnies’ quarterly company magazine at the time of introducing the first edition of our hallmark included comments from Paul Cooper. At that time Paul was the business-development director of the North East branch of the Institute of Customer Service in the United Kingdom. Paul said:

To achieve greatness in customer service usually requires a change of culture within an organisation, and many companies do not always know what is really going on with their customers. Programmes such as The Customer Service Hallmark provide organisations with a way to find, and then improve their performance within a structured, practical framework.

His comment regarding culture and change was valid then and remains valid now.

Customers will always be the ultimate judges as to whether an organisation deserves their business. Organisations need to believe in customer service and reflect the belief within the culture and through the organisation’s behaviour that makes it happen. Organisations need to deliver quality, build relationships, and know what customers think of them and feel about them. Organisations need to find a way to generate and deserve customer-service accolades.

My experience working with organisations of many types and sizes over the years has led me to believe that most leaders of organisations believe in customer service but that the extent of belief varies or is not always reflected through demonstrated action. Often customer service is not positioned as a strategic priority, and therefore the organisation does not fully do what needs to be done. Additionally, not all leaders are able to deliver what their organisation publicly promises or what its image represents.

There is a desire-to-do level that relates to the degree of motivation that influences people to decide to engage in activity or not. Organisational leaders have to decide their desire-to-do level in respect of engaging the total organisation in contributing to total customer service.

The idea of this book is to encourage people in any organisation to have a go at improving customer service. Having a go will require people to have, or develop, a high desire-to-do level. In my working life with a wide range of organisations, I have met many people who have a high desire-to-do level. When I think of them, I envisage people who are positive, determined, customer-focused, and willing to demonstrate that they want to improve the relationship between supplier and customer both internally and externally. They will also be astute enough to understand the relevance of customer service to the bottom line.

It’s a cliché, I know, but even though we attach overhead costs to things like recruitment, learning, and salary-related expense, our people are in fact our best assets and the key to organisational success. People get things done.

Total customer service is not just about working with the collective customer base, which is the identified group or segment of the customer population that a supplier considers to be appropriate. Total customer service is also concerned with addressing the needs of the individuals within the customer group. Included in the book is a concept we began referring to in the early 1980s as hilltops. The concept addresses some of the specifics required to successfully work with individual customers—for example, when agreeing on contractual issues or just conducting a review with the person we are dealing with.

Robert Burns wrote, Look abroad through Nature’s range, nature’s mighty law is change.¹ Adopting the customer-service hallmark will involve people in engaging with organisational and personal change, but complacency or continually accepting the status quo is never good enough.

It is said that in his later years, Pablo Picasso was not allowed to roam an art gallery unattended, because he had previously been discovered in the act of trying to improve on one of his old masterpieces. Picasso is also quoted as saying, I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.² It seems that Picasso believed in continuous improvement and enjoyed the personal challenge of change.

Sometimes personal and organisational change can feel scary, and so embarking on required change is avoided and only implemented when there is a crisis. I have heard that there are two characters in Chinese writing for the word crisis. One character represents danger and the other character represents opportunity. A proactive approach to managing change identifies opportunities to avoid crisis and can turn potential crises into opportunities.

Individually, we have four options relating to adopting and influencing personal change. We can choose to do the following:

• Change ourselves.

• Change the situation.

• Do nothing.

• Leave the situation.

A fifth option could be:

• Do a combination of the above.

As a consultant working with individuals on personal change, I guess that I generally try to encourage initial consideration of the first two options. More often than not, a combination of both represents the best course of action. Doing nothing may be appropriate in the short to medium term, but it is almost always a nonchoice in the longer term. Choosing to leave the situation as an option may turn out to sometimes be a reasonable temporary choice, but it is probably not the best ultimate choice unless the building is on fire.

We can apply the same choices to organisations. Organisations facing the need to change their approach to customer service require committed visionary leadership that can make informed market- and customer-focused strategic choices. Organisational-change options in respect of customers are as follows:

• Implement a people-related behavioural change.

• Influence the situation.

• Adopt a wait-and-see stance.

• Leave the market or customer concerned.

• Do a combination of the above.

Unquestionably, the pressures of organisational life mean that change is a constant feature and some form of action involving management of change is ongoing. Achieving change requires the input of appropriate behaviour through people. Systems and processes do not change on their own. I suggest that the ability to influence people and to engage in situational change is high on the list of required leadership attributes and competencies.

It is fairly obvious, then, that adopting the customer-service hallmark as the benchmark to measure and maintain the provision of total customer service will require a willingness to engage in a process of change involving people as well as systemic and situational factors.

Later in the book, the scenario of a developing case study will be introduced. The case-study approach enables the presentation of some of the thinking behind the development of the hallmark and of this book. The approach helps to position the thinking and ideas behind the customer-service hallmark and its application as it develops and evolves in an organisational context.

The case study involves a consultancy organisation. Any similarity in the text to my former company and colleagues, however, is a mix of creativity, coincidence, appropriateness, and also contradiction in order to illustrate my thinking.

Writing this book has been thought-provoking. It has provided another learning experience and has reinforced for me yet again that learning continues unless we irresponsibly decide to no longer be open to it. I believe that this applies to both individual and organisational learning.

In relation to the customer-service hallmark, we use the term hallmark in its general sense as it relates to the distinguishing characteristics of the framework that supports the customer-service hallmark. Historically, in the sense of precious metals, hallmarks were applied by a trustworthy person often referred to as the guardian of the craft. We would like to believe that every organisation has its guardians of the customer-service craft. We hope that our customer-service framework is considered to potentially provide the distinguishing customer-service quality stamp on any organization that can achieve the standard required.

I sincerely hope you find this book to be enjoyable, interesting, and thought-provoking. I hope that you find the framework provided in the McKechnies customer-service hallmark to be helpful and meaningful. Constructive feedback is always appreciated. Requests for advice on how to work with any aspect of this book, including assessing your present state or moving toward a desired future state are also welcome.

Good luck with your provision of total customer service.

Stuart McKechnie

PART ONE

It’s not the employer who pays the wages.

Employers only handle the money.

It’s the customer who pays the wages.

—Henry Ford³

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE HALLMARK AND MUCH MORE

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

The customer-service hallmark takes customer service beyond have a nice day and what we often see as the usual, obvious, surface approaches to attracting and retaining customers. The framework addresses the concept of total customer service and provides a unique customer-service quality standard that is appropriate for all types and sizes of organisations. Adopting a holistic view of organisations is a recurring theme of this book. The customer-service hallmark has been developed by taking this view and by considering organisation-development (OD) approaches to managing improvement interventions.

The framework provides a practical and flexible methodology that guides, improves, sustains, and maximises customer-service effectiveness. It identifies four key integrated dimensions of customer service. The dependencies and interconnectivity of the four dimensions take into account functional relationships that position customer service as a coordinated strategic response from within and across the total organisation. Specifically, the four dimensions of customer service are as follows:

• Value stance to customers. Dimension one is concerned with ensuring that the organisation believes in and takes action that engages in satisfying customers’ needs, wants, and expectations, and that customer service is positioned as a dominant value stance within and across the organisation. Beliefs and values influence an organisation’s culture and climate. They drive macro (organisation) behaviour and influence micro (individual) behaviour. Most people will agree that what is openly valued and promoted is more likely to be adopted as something to be strived for.

• Service delivery. Dimension two is about making good the espoused value stance through the provision of meaningful customer-focused service-delivery action. Service delivery is concerned with all aspects of the organisation that influence or have the potential to influence quality and customer perception. Service delivery sits in the leadership-accountability box of things I have to make sure are done. For everyone else, service delivery sits in the responsibility box of things I have to make sure I do. Service delivery is concerned with continually trying to improve all aspects of organisation performance, including internal touchpoint management.

• Relationship management. Dimension three is concerned with maintaining ongoing mutually beneficial long-term relationships with customers. Relationship management involves continuous customer contact, generating information that enables understanding of customer needs, wants, and expectations—and then meeting them. Relationship management supports customer loyalty and retention.

• Customer perception. Dimension four involves proactively seeking and responding to information concerning customer perception of the actual felt experience of dealing with the organisation. Customer perception arises from the experience of being touched by the organisation. It influences customers’ decisions on being involved in future business. Customer perception influences the wider view of the organisation’s image. It is about managing