By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals, Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239.
Virtually every company has its own "way of doing things." In the larger companies, this protocol normally is reduced to writing and called a "policies and procedures" manual, an "operating procedures" manual, etc. But even in the smallest companies, there are unwritten employee "guidelines," i.e., "the way we do things around here."
To be sure, the efficient conduct of business for any company, regardless of size, necessitates having some type of "standard operating procedures." Otherwise, chaos could easily reign. Problems can ensue, however, when these procedures are so inflexible that they literally tie the hands of the "frontline" customer service employees, who are forced to focus more on doing things "right," i.e., in strict accordance with the company’s policies and procedures, than in doing the right things, i.e., that which will enhance the efficiency of the business and result in satisfied customers. We’ll use a recent example of our own experience to illustrate the point.
Several months ago, we moved our business to a new office building. As part of the move we of course had to have new phone, fax and Internet lines installed. What could possibly be easier than that? The phone jacks were already installed in the office suite because it had been occupied earlier by another business, so it seemed logical to assume that getting up and running with the phone lines would essentially be a matter of "flipping a switch." Oh, how wrong we were! Nothing about the process was as simple as that, and certainly the procedures, though probably "right" according to the telephone company’s operating procedures, were hardly the right thing to do for us the customer.
The first step in the process was to place our order with the telephone company by (what else!) calling them. While you’re probably used to dealing with "phone mail" systems, if you haven’t dealt with the telephone company lately, their system is indeed a wonder to behold. First, you’re connected to the "main" mail box, then you must select from a menu of options, none of which is likely to fit your specific needs, but you go ahead and select what seems to be "close." This gets you into another mail box, then another and perhaps even another, depending upon which options you select. (Throughout this initial process we, as ignorant customers who didn’t have a thorough "understanding" of how the phone company’s procedures were designed to work, made the "wrong" selections twice and had to start the process all over again!)
In any case, after several tries we actually got to speak to a real live person! This pleasant lady was really quite helpful. We told her the number of lines we wanted activated and she put us on hold temporarily in order to obtain the telephone numbers that would apply to each of the lines. Very fast, very efficient. We encountered the first of many stumbling blocks, however, when we tried to arrange for activation and installation. The earliest possible date this could be accomplished, we were told, was on week hence, a virtual lifetime for a business to be without phone service! Nonetheless, we would have to simply make do by working out of the new office and periodically checking messages on the phones in the old office, not a very efficient way of doing business, but it was in keeping with the telephone company’s established "policies and procedures."
On the appointed day of installation and activation, we waited with great anticipation, after having been "phoneless" for a week. We were told the expect the service person to arrive "sometime between 8 and 12." When asked if they could be more specific as to arrival time, there was a long pause on the other end of the line, as if we had asked a question that was incomprehensible to the telephone company representative. No, the young woman said, that was as specific as possible, again, according to the way the telephone company conducted its business. In any case, when noon arrived and no service person had arrived, we panicked and called the telephone company. "We have a problem," said the young woman. (We?) It seems the numbers we had originally been assigned were actually not appropriate for our locale, so the computer wiped them out, again, according to the telephone company’s standard operating procedures. What’s more, as was the telephone company’s custom, installation and activation would therefore automatically have to be rescheduled, with the earliest possible date available being two days later!
Two days later. The telephone service person arrives, about five minutes to 12 noon. (We of course had arrived at the office at 7:45 a.m., in order not to miss the service person if he or she arrived right at 8 a.m., found no one available and simply left without performing the installation and activation!) Rather than to come in to our office, as we had requested, he headed immediately for the circuit box located on the outside of the office. We ran out and asked him if he would come into the office so we could show him which of the many phone jacks we actually wanted activated, since we didn’t want them all activated. No, he said, showing us his duly executed work order, he was instructed only to connect the lines on the outside of the building. All "inside" work was the responsibility of the customer, again, according to the policies and procedures of the telephone company. He said he was "authorized," however, to come inside and get us up and running if we would agree to pay a $40 an hour labor fee. (What choice did we have?!)
Once the service person checked out the inside configuration of our telephone system, he informed us that he would have to run new lines to the outside junction box because the phone jacks in our office had been originally hooked up to a "key" system (whatever that was!) and no lines ran outside. OK, we said, run the outside lines, which he did.
After one week of waiting for installation, then two more days added to the wait because of a snafu, and about four hours actually doing the installation, we had telephones! Were we pleased? To finally have phones, certainly. At the way we had been "jacked around" by virtually everyone we came into contact with at the telephone company, certainly not! But, then we thought. . .in fairness to the telephone company employees, virtually every single one of them probably had operated in strictest accordance with the policies and procedures established by the company! Could we really fault these employees? Put another way, these employees had done nearly everything the "right" way, according to their employer’s guidelines. The real problem was that they hadn’t done the right things, i.e., those things that would have resulted in us the customer being satisfied.
Let us hasten to add that we’re not singling out the telephone company for undue criticism for doing things "right," instead of doing the right things. Anyone who does business in the world today knows this phenomenon certainly isn’t limited to the local telephone company. It’s so prevalent in businesses of all kinds today as to be commonplace. And, with the economy experiencing its best performance in a quarter of a century, most companies conducting business this way undoubtedly will continue to do reasonably well. However, when the economy begins cooling¾ as it most certainly will eventually¾ these companies could easily and quickly find themselves in dire straits, unless they take a really good look at their "policies and procedures" and make sure they are not only doing things "right," but even more important, doing the right things. Only by taking this approach can companies reasonably expect to produce legions of satisfied customers who will stick with them through both "up" and "down" economic cycles.