Here is an excellent article by Bob Livingston, author of "How You Do... What You Do: Create Service Excellence That Wins Clients For Life
Great Service Companies and the people that comprise them have many traits common to them all. More than most traits, proactive behavior makes an almost immediate impact and generates visible results. When you observe proactive behavior, you identify with it immediately. When you experience it, you know it. When someone is proactive on your behalf, you are very grateful. Clearly, this is an important trait in the pursuit of Service Excellence.
The definition of proactive behavior can be elusive, so I would like to share a great illustration of this trait in action as I observed it last fall. I was moderating a Client Advisory Board meeting for the Nielsen Company at the W Dallas Victory Hotel. As we were getting ready to start our meeting, I saw one of our board members in the lobby. He appeared to be leaving the hotel, so I asked where he was going.
"I’m headed back to the airport. I grabbed the wrong luggage."
The W Hotel’s alert concierge overheard our conversation and said, "Let us take care of that for you. It happens all the time."
The concierge located the owner’s luggage ID tag and placed a call to the cell phone number on his business card. She was successful in reaching him, and verified he was the owner of the wayward bag. He was at another hotel about 30 minutes away, and our board member's bag was still at the airport.
"Go to your meeting," this alert concierge said. "We’ll take care of this for you."
When our member returned to his room later that day, his lost bag was neatly placed on the luggage rack, with a note thanking him for staying at the W Dallas Victory and informing him that both bags were with their rightful owners. This is proactive behavior. An attentive person overheard a problem, took ownership of the solution, and followed it through to a satisfactory conclusion.
Service Excellence is also about proactively addressing problems both internally and externally as they arise. How great companies do what they do with a problem or in crisis is a reflection of their strong and positive understanding of the needs of those they serve and their desire to satisfy them. Let’s look at two more recent examples of this trait of proactive behavior.
Southwest Airlines and Starbucks, two very successful service centered companies struggled with situations that challenged the very core of the relationships they maintain with their customers. The former, with the FAA problem of failed inspections on some of their planes; the latter with lost focus on the experience by some of their "Baristas". How both companies responded and did what they did is indicative of their Service Excellence philosophy.
Unlike other domestic carriers when faced with this FAA dilemma, Southwest immediately grounded their planes, apologized to their customers, took responsibility and ownership of the problem and complied with the required inspections. They solved the problem, and had the planes up the very next day and, as time will prove, suffered little long term damage to their relationship with customers.
The Starbucks situation was more dramatic, perhaps. Remember what happened to them earlier this year? Their culture came under fire for "having slipped and gotten away from their basics." The Starbucks culture is sustained through attention, care, and concern for their "baristas," who own the culture and are its reflection with every transaction. It is likely you interact more frequently with Starbucks than with our other companies. To us, the baristas are the Starbucks culture. By owning and living that culture, the baristas are one of the reasons why we visit as often as we do.
Now, how they do what they do, as well as what they do, was being challenged. How did Starbucks react? They never denied the conflict. They took ownership of it and were proactive in putting in place a solution. Howard Schultz returned as CEO.
In an unprecedented move Schultz closed 7,100 of their stores nationwide for three hours on February 26 in order to "retrain" 135,000 in-store employees. The day before the closings Schultz said this in a companywide communiqué on the company’s Web site: "Tomorrow evening, we will come together in an unprecedented event in our company’s storied history. We will close all of our U.S. company-operated stores to teach, educate, and share our love of coffee and the art of espresso. And in doing so, we will begin to elevate the Starbucks Experience for our customers."
Solid customer centered cultures solve problems and survive conflict by addressing them head on. If the cultures are strong and "owned by everyone," they will survive this difficult time and refocus on how they do what they do.
Time will tell, but I believe Starbucks will be fine! They live their values and are guided by their beliefs and clearly proactively address issues by taking them on directly.
"You can’t build loyalty on the outside until you build it on the inside." - Howard Schultz
Bob Livingston formerly head of sales at Unilever’s The Lipton Company, is the founder and CEO of REL Communications, a consulting firm that moderates the Client Service Advisory boards. He also leads service-based cultural transformations within the companies with which he consults. His book, How You Do... What You Do: Create Service Excellence That Wins Clients For Life
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