Can you change service levels?
Can you change service levels?
Paxboy asked whether or not service levels can be fundamentally changed.
My experience as a customer tells me that they can be changed. I'll give a number of examples where Co.s have tried.
1. The British Passport Agency. They were truly awful a few years ago. it was so bad that a number of Brit. newspapers ran campaigns against the whole agency. New management, training, and new targets changed it. Whilst they are not perfect, they are sooooo much better.
2. British Telecomms. Again, pre-privatisation and post-privatisation they were awful. You had to wait weeks for a phone line.
Back in 1986 I moved in to a flat (in the North west of UK), but I had to move out again as BT said it would take over 3 months before I got a phone line!
Again, not perfect now, and not cheap, but doing sooooo much better.
3. BA. Anyone else remember the step change in customer service around the early 90's when they ran PPF1 and PPF2? Either the CEO or the Chair attended every programme across the world.
Morale from these, and others, is that
1. The senior managers have to be Truly committed, people who are not "on board" need to be fired, and
2. The energy for the change needs to be more than the energy against the change, and
3. It is no good doing it "once". The energy for excellent customer service needs to be perpetual.
.................AND, yes, there needs to be a modest amount of fear. .........fear that if I deliver poor customer service, I will be fired.................whether I am CC or whether I am the CC Manager.
As regular readers know, I would fire about half of the BA CC managers.