Are you struggling to attract and service customers profitably?
You can deliver "win-win" customer service with happier and more loyal
customers - and increase profitability at the same time.
This issue’s focus is on delivering process and service excellence. If any of the
following challenges apply to you and your customers then I’m sure you will
benefit tremendously from applying the concepts described below.
- Are you frustrated that you are losing too many customers through
inconsistent service?
- Are your service delivery costs frankly too high?
- Has your product/ service become a commodity and your looking for
meaningful ways to differentiate your service?
- Does it just take too long and cost too much to get new products and
services to market?
- Your service initiatives sound great in principle, however do you have a
nagging doubt that even after they have been implemented, they may not
make a real impact to increasing revenues and reducing costs.
This issue: Word Count: 1,351 Estimated time to read: 5.0 minutes
Do your customers complain that is difficult to do business with you?
Everyone has their own personal anecdotes of occasions when even the simplest
service transaction was handled poorly, sometimes leading you to choose to
cancel your relationship with the service provider. One explanation is that the
service provider has not really looked at the transaction from the customer’s
perspective. The following articles provide useful, practical guidance for
redressing this customer service disappointment.

Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate – Michael Hammer,
Harvard Business Review, Reprint 90406, (www.hbr.org)
This article started the whole business (process) reengineering drive.
Reengineering got something of a bad name, due mainly to poor execution and to
hiding pure down-sizing programmes under the reengineering banner. However,
its basic premises are still valid, and include:
o Many processes were never properly designed – they evolved over
time to meet point in time issues and usually ended up a mess.
o Instead of trying to automate a poor process, try to redesign it first
and eliminate as much non value added work as possible.
Outsourcing a poor process is no way to go!
Web: www.closequarter.co.uk , Tel: +44 20 7748 2225
Date: 24 March 2005
Page 1 of 4

Want to Perfect Your Company’s Service? Use Behavioural Science –
Richard B. Case and Sriram Dasu, Havard Business Review OnPoint,
reprint 682X (www.hbr.org)
Process re-engineering or re-design usually aims to design a process to
meet specific targets of time, cost, quality and risk or safety. Case and
Dasu add another design criterion – the experience of the customer in his
or her interactions with the process. They draw on behavioural studies
that show that the more painful elements of a process – such as providing
personal details – are perceived by the customer as taking a relatively
long time. More pleasurable elements – such as seeing how the product
or service can help them – seem to take a short time. Also, the
customer’s final interactions with the process sway his or her overall
perception of the process. Thus, they recommend lumping together all the
‘painful’ elements and putting them at the start of the process and
dragging out the ‘pleasurable’ elements at the end of the process.

Engaging the Creative Consumer – Johann Füller and Christoph Hienarth,
European Business Forum, November 2004 (www.ebfonline.com)
As the following extract illustrates, the internet allows us to harness
customers’ skills to help us develop better products, services and
processes. “… many consumers are not only knowledgeable but are also
able to develop products for themselves, and the internet has enabled
even more consumers to create products on their own. Examples of
breakthrough innovations initiated by innovative users include the
mountain bike, the snowboard, and also open-source software
development where self-organised user groups are able to create software
applications that are superior to other commercialised products...From a
company's perspective, the internet offers new possibilities for valuable
insight into the innovation process and how to use the creative potential of
consumers. Consumers can be asked not only about their opinions, wants
and needs, but also about their creativity and problem-solving skills. They
can help generate and evaluate new product ideas, elaborate product
concepts, and challenge these concepts. Users can discuss and improve
optional solution details, select or individualise the preferred virtual
prototype, test and experience the new product features by running
simulations and getting information."
Does it take you too long to develop and launch a new product or service? And,
when it is launched, is it really fit for purpose or does it cost far too much to
support?
Being fast to market can have significant advantages, especially if the competition
struggles to catch up. However, many of the advantage disappear if the product or
service is not fit for purpose. Customers get a poor impression of the company, call
Web: www.closequarter.co.uk , Tel: +44 20 7748 2225
Date: 24 March 2005
Page 2 of 4
centre agents struggle to deal with the volume of complaints, leading to further customer
dissatisfaction. The costs are huge, and include the cost of dealing with the complaints,
the loss of revenue from customers who leave or do not buy any further items, and the
loss of revenue from potential customers, put off by the bad-mouthing by the dissatisfied
ones. Even worse, you have just created a market for your competitors!
Many of the problems can be traced back to the design and development process. This is
often very functionally driven, with no clear overall accountability. The end result is that
each function just aims to optimise its element of the product, with the overall effect
being sub-optimisation of the whole. Manufacturing industries have been addressing such
issues for many years, with many of the resulting best practices enshrined in the Six
Sigma quality methodology. Six Sigma is equally applicable to the service industry, as
argued in the first of the following articles.

Six Sigma Meets the Service Economy – Jim Biolos, Harvard
Management Update, reprint U0211A (www.hbr.org)
Biolos proposes a four step approach:
1. Determine which parts of your service processes are the best candidates
for Six Sigma attention
2. Define what you mean by a service defect and how you intend to measure
it
3. Probe relentlessly for root causes – eliminate them rather than trying to fix
the problems they cause
4. Establish a long-term commitment to this methodology (the consistently
top car manufacturer in Europe, Nissan UK, live and breath this
methodology throughout all levels of employee and managers)

Successful Change Programs Begin with Results – Robert H. Schaffer
and Harvey A. Thomson, Harvard Business Review, reprint 92108
(www.hbr.org)
This exhorts us not to confuse activity with results. E.g. training is not an end in
itself – what is important is the results that the training is meant to help achieve.
Thus, just putting all employees through a quality or Six Sigma training
programme is insufficient. What is need is the setting of challenging
improvement targets - and implementing management processes to monitor
achievement of these - that suitably trained and motivated employees can aim at.
In addition to poor design, a major cause of process inefficiency is unclear roles
and responsibilities in respect of the process. How much wasted as its not quite
clear what needs to be done? Who is doing what and who else should be involved
and precisely in what way. How many times do we find that everyone appears to
be responsible for everything – but things just don’t seem to be happening as they
should! Our web site has details about a simple but powerful technique, ‘RACI’,
to clarify roles and responsibilities especially in respect of complete (‘end to end’)
Web: www.closequarter.co.uk , Tel: +44 20 7748 2225
Date: 24 March 2005
Page 3 of 4
processes and to the process steps they contain – it’s simple and its powerful. See
www.closequarter.co.uk/toolsandtechniques/RACI.html for a 2 page summary
that you can use immediately.
Curious to learn more
We have additional materials available on our website www.closequarter.co.uk .
Alternatively if you had any specific questions or challenges, feel free to drop me an
email or call me if that is more convenient.
Regards John.
John Corr (07703 437414), Email:john.corr@closequarter.co.uk
Editorial Team – any ideas for forthcoming topics or submissions welcomed.
John Corr, Simon Golesworthy, David Pelta
John’s mobile: +44 (0)770 343 7414 john.corr@closequarter.co.uk
Simon’s mobile: +44 (0) 796 628 5015 simon.golesworthy@closequarter.co.uk
David’s mobile: +44 (0) 771 88 99 627 david.pelta@closequarter.co.uk
Web: www.closequarter.co.uk , Tel: +44 20 7748 2225
Date: 24 March 2005
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