To the Editor:
Having spent more than 20 years as a customer service monitor for several companies and industry trade associations, I feel very confident that I am qualified to assess the performance of companies and institutions in terms of the level of service they provide to customers.
First, I would like to suggest that there really are three distinct measures of service that we (customers) receive with every service encounter we experience. I like to think of these as the good, the bad and the ugly.
Interestingly, good, or excellent service can be experienced from any number of encounters and often from a source you would never expect. Likewise really poor or ugly service also can be experienced when dealing with an institution that you would expect to deliver the highest level quality of service to its customers.
Ugly service is the result of employees dealing with customers in the manner that is inconsistent with the directives of the senior management of a company or institution. This level of service results when employees do a better job of adhering to senior management’s directives than middle managers and supervisors. It also typically involves professional staffers who take pride in their work despite the examples set forth from their managers and supervisors.
As I noted, “good or excellent” service can be experienced when dealing with providers in situations My favorite example of employees who consistently provide the highest quality of service to customers is the staff of the Nobleboro transfer station. These individuals often offer to help those who need assistance without having been asked to do so, and in doing so always demonstrate a truly caring manner for their customers.
We all know what bad service is as we often experience it when dining at many restaurants in the area. This is probably the first example of bad service that most people will mention, when asked for an example of bad service that they have experienced.
As I have mentioned, the worst type of service, or ugly service, occurs in an institution where professionals, such as technical staffers consistently deliver the highest quality of service while their immediate supervisors seem to have a different agenda than that mandated by senior management. This example is often found in the healthcare marketplace and often proves to be either a competitive advantage or disadvantage in today’s highly competitive healthcare market.
As a senior manager in my former life I was also trained and certified as a quality instructor and was part of a team of managers charged with the assignment of teaching every employee in the company (close to 2000) what quality meant and how it has a positive impact on the level of service every employee in the company delivers to customers every day.
I think that experience has resulted in the critical way that I view the various service encounters I experience every day.
