TO SERVE WITH LOVE

This year , a long-standing dream of mine was fulfilled. A visit to the Mecca of tennis – WIMBLEDON. Something I’ve wanted to do for  ages .

But  when I look back on my  Wimbledon  experience , what sticks in my mind is not the center court or watching Andre Agassi , Pete Sampras , Llyton Hewitt  or the Williams sisters playing or eating strawberries and cream and having a draft beer in the brilliant London sun but the experience and ambience of the place . It is truly amazing – an excellent  lesson  on  Service Quality and Delighting the Customer.

How hundreds of people – mostly volunteers - get together for two  weeks in a year to give thousands of tennis fans an experience of their lifetime is something  that every business can learn  from the British Lawn Tennis Association . The kind of attention to detail and the extent to which everyone in the tournament  go to look after the visitors – stewards, officials, security personnel, information desks and whatever – is truly remarkable.

What do I mean by this ? Let me share  an  incident .

I wanted to locate the umpire’s office on the grounds. I stopped an official with a “steward”  band passing by and asked him . an oldish gentleman , he looks at me, scratches his head smiles and says “ you know something , that’s a question I haven’t been asked  in  all my years here. Well , today is a good enough  day to find out. “  He then takes me to an information desk. The lady doesn’t know off hand.  She makes a couple of calls and gets directions to the office and explains it to me . The official is standing by me all the time. What does the official do? Leave me saying - you’ve got the way and should be able to locate the office ? No.  He says maybe I will walk you to the office so that you don’t get lost. He actually escorts me to the office , wishes  me a happy stay at the tournament and then moves on.

This is the same with all the  officials on the grounds. No one says – I don’t know and turns away. The reply is invariably – I don’t know but let me help and find out.

How do they do it ? How do over 1500 catering staff , 112 toilet attendants , 270 drivers , 425 security staff  and a whole host of others make the Wimbledon visit a memorable one for every visitor ?

The Wimbledon experience brought out clearly the essence of what organizations need to keep in mind at all times. Every institution – government or private , product or services, commercial or otherwise  exists for only one reason. Because someone wants their output -  what they do. Manufacturing companies exist because people want their products, a passport office because people want passports, airlines since  people  want to travel, schools and colleges because people want  education and so on. These  people who want the product or service are the customers. Without these people who want the services – the customer – the organisation ceases to have a reason to be around.

It is therefore the  responsibility of every organization to ensure that all systems and people within the organisation work with only one purpose – to make the customer happy and give her what she expects from you, Anything done which does not add to the customer experience must be questioned and reviewed.

Does this actually happen in the real world? Sadly no. At least not in most areas  . And most  definitely  -  not enough.

What can we do to make it easier for customers to deal with us?  More often than not , systems and processes are designed to “protect” the interests of the organizations. Customers and customer satisfaction are  often victims of bureaucracy and inter departmental politics and conflicts.

How often do we get currency notes in the denomination we want in banks. Or a draft in some reasonable time ? One  often gets the feeling that the bank is doing you a favour by giving you money. And it’s your money !

Look at the queues outside the telephone department or electricity offices – all good , conscientious customers waiting to pay their bills. What about the people behind the counters ? Do they care that you have been standing in the line for hours when in fact you should be doing your own work. Do these departments do anything to make life easier for you ? No.   It’s almost as if  these departments are doing you a favor by accepting your payment and being there.

Credit card companies charge a penal interest for  delayed payments as per their terms of contract . Which is fair.  After all why should they suffer when you make a mistake by not paying on time.   But do they compensate you when they make a mistake? Do they accept responsibility for their failures after making commitments ? What about the customers’ time and energy wasted in undoing the error  – for no fault of the customer.

Some time back, a leading international credit card company did not pass a charge card request of mine because I had not paid the  previous month’s bill. It was a different matter that in the previous month there was a postal strike and I had not received the bill. It also did not matter to the company that in the previous six years that I had been a card member , I had not defaulted once on payment. All that the well-trained customer care representative could quote in a very polite manner  was ” Company Policy “. They not only hot listed my charge card they also did not allow me to use my credit card.  So at 5 in the morning I settled my hotel bill using another card of a competitor. I settled my bill immediately on return to Bangalore along with the penal interest for delayed payment. Two days later when I went to use my credit card I was again told that it was hot listed. On checking up I found that they had released my charge card but not the credit card. I again used the card of the other company and promptly came back and terminated my membership of this card. And what  did I get from this multinational world-class company. No compensation , no acknowledgement of the inconvenience . Not even a word of apology . In fact , not even a question as to why I was closing my account with them after so many years. Did they care about service or the customer ? If they did , I could not see it . 

I am sure we have all gone through the experience of being shunted between people to get a clarification or information to a query. Why? Because of the - its not my job - attitude.

In today’s world most  products and services are  almost identical .What differentiates the winners from the also ran  is Customer Service . Companies need very strong mechanisms to acquire and retain customers for continued growth. This can only happen if each person in the organization is tuned to concept that the customer is everyone’s   responsibility .  With this approach  things become very clear within the organization. Process design becomes easy and roles and responsibilities become obvious.

The question that organisations need to ask themselves is do they realize that the customer is the only reason for their existence ? Do they really enjoy serving the customer ? Does the service come from the heart ?  The ultimate message is that everyone in the organization is in effect a Customer Care Representative. All other job descriptions and responsibility are to help them to this end. As Sam Walton of Wal Mart said – “ There is only one boss – the customer. He can fire anybody by spending his money elsewhere. “  The quicker that organizations acknowledge and reorient themselves to this reality the better.

Or else it will be Game, Set and Match to Competition.

( Article appeared in Deccan Herald 16 December 2002 )