December 1997 Marketer Articles

Making Customer Service Tangible

By Mike Kennedy

The Awesome Customer Service Organization

Every organization has inveterate values and practices that work together with individual and team skills to create "typical" customer service experiences – by design or by accident.

"World class" customer service organizations have made a science of identifying the organizational values and attributes that most impact their ability to consistently deliver the service levels they target. They train their employees to internalize the desired attributes and work continuously to improve their service delivery.

In this way, they plan, create, and maintain consistent organizational personalities, like those evinced by the McDonaldsÓ or DisneyÓ "experience" so familiar to most families. They are awesome customer service organizations!

Most A/E/C firms also have a personality, but it usually results from an unplanned collection of client experiences that accumulate over the course of several years. I have yet to encounter an A/E/C firm that consciously plans and implements a consistent organizational personality.

Your Brand Image

This may seem esoteric and mundane in today’s high tech world of 3-D design, alternative project delivery techniques and global business strategies. Still, we all want to hear these phrases from clients:

When a client makes these statements about our firm, it means we have made a mark in the marketplace. This mark is our reputation, or in the lingo of product marketing, our "brand image."

A brand image is one of the most valuable and important assets a firm has in today’s chaotic global marketplace. Think of NordstromsÓ. This corporation goes to great lengths to create, shape, and protect their service-based brand image. They have not achieved their reputation by accident.

Any A/E/C firm has the same opportunity to develop a world class brand image. The size of firm, the type of practice or the geographic marketplace make no difference. It simply requires a small investment in a process and total commitment to its delivery.

The Service Delivery Process Secret

Awesome customer service organizations are able to deliver a consistent and memorable experience because they have a service process.

Patrons can depend on consistent service at every McDonaldsÓ Restaurant. DisneyÓ has created an entire guest experience process that every employee is trained to deliver in "the DisneyÓ way." These organizations have each built their business around their service process.

The A/E/C profession uses several routine processes as a matter of course. All firms have a standard process they use for design, typically including the use of standard calculation forms, check points, reviews and standard details. Most also take a standard approach to construction monitoring tasks. Shop drawing submittals and reviews, field design modifications and the observation and documentation of construction progress all require a standard procedure.

So how about a standard service delivery process?Most A/E/C firms, no matter how process focused, have not developed a true service delivery process.

So why should you worry about one?

A service delivery process for your firm will provide the platform from which all employees can be taught the "right way" to treat clients. It will create a consistent service experience for your clients, adding value to the engagement for them.

A standard process will provide a basis from which to make improvements and measure their impacts. It will provide a consistent client focus that is adaptable to the changing demands of today’s business environment.

Having a standard process will also create standard terms and language so that the entire firm can have meaningful dialogues about service.

Nine Steps to Service Delivery Process Excellence

Building a service delivery process for your firm won’t take long and it will add benefits for you, your staff, and most importantly, for your clients.

You can build a typical service delivery process for an A/E/C firm in nine major steps.

Benchmarking and Strategic Positioning

The first step is to understand what is going on in your client’s world of customer service. What are they used to experiencing in their service transactions? Are they working with other consultants? What will they consider as "noticeably superior" service from your firm’s?

There are many ways to gather this information reliably. You can do it yourself or you can hire someone to gather it for you. The important thing is to commit to continuously gathering data from others on their service expectations.

Use this information to decide where to position your firm’s offerings in the market. The important task to complete at this step is to understand the external world and then make a decision about where you want to position your firm vis-a-vis your competition.

Capabilities Assessment

Parallel to the benchmarking activity above, the firm will need to thoroughly inventory the organization’s capabilities to deliver service. Take a look at all the points where clients touch your organization. How are they treated? How do you know how they feel? Are your staff members aware of the basics of service delivery and are they in tune with the firm’s service delivery philosophy?

Honest answers to these, and many other, similar questions, will give you a clear picture of what your organization can and cannot do to deliver service to your clients. This assessment is the first step toward a gap analysis that will show you where to improve your firm’s capabilities.

Listening

The best source of information for designing your firm’s service program is your clients. Listen to your clients talk about their reactions to your firm’s service and to the service provided by others. This information is raw data that you can use in designing your firm’s customized service program.

This information must be gathered in a structured way, so the data can be analyzed and meaningful conclusions reached. You need to develop a survey instrument and then routinely apply it at regular intervals during and after the project. The survey work should then be linked back to your strategic positioning objectives.

Interpreting and Creating Products

The end result of a service delivery process is an experience. Your goal is to provide the client with an entirely positive experience. The delivery of this experience is not "sheer luck" or just the result of a project manager who "is naturally good with people."

A service experience is a collection of discrete service products, individual actions that together comprise the fabric of your firm’s relationship with the client. It includes every contact a client has with your firm. You need to make sure very contact is a good one.

If your survey work shows your firm’s project managers are always hard to reach, you have a gap. You need to create a linked set of products, tools, and techniques that increases the accessibility of your project managers.

The Integrated Service Delivery Plan

When you identify a gap, you must devise a plan for closing it, make sure the plan is integrated into your overall service delivery process, review it with clients, and train your people in its use.

Recognizing the gap in accessibility, your firm invests in an elaborate voice mail and e-mail system. It is a wonder to behold, with all the latest bells and whistles. Now several things must happen.

Your project managers must sit down and think through how to creatively use these new tools to close the gap pointed out by your clients. Every person on every project team that will interface with the client’s organization must have a solid working knowledge of when and how to use these tools.

The work plan for delivery of the professional products should include protocols for communication and back-up plans in case of lapses in service. Your client should be included in this planning and clear, measurable expectations established at the outset for later reference.

The creation of an integrated plan is where the rubber meets the road, when all the knowledge learned above is applied to a specific project. This is also the part of the process most often skipped, ultimately resulting in missed expectations.

Service Delivery

Once planned, the actual delivery is relatively straightforward. Most project managers are very task-focused and will make sure the project plan is executed. The value of the planning process becomes evident as the project progresses and all the client’s service expectations are met.

Measuring

The project is over and the product is built and working satisfactorily. This is the time to return to the client and do some more active listening. Go back over the engagement, step by step, and ask the tough questions. Objectively measure how well the agreed-on expectations were met. Probe deeply enough to learn how to improve your organization.

Improving

Take the lessons learned above and enhance the processes, tools, and techniques to do a better job next time. The "world class" firms do this as a routine part of their business. They are committed to doing it without end, to stay one step ahead.

Training

Finally, teach your staff well and often. The delivery of world class service is rooted in process, but delivered with the human touch of every one of your employees. Invest in their service skills and your firm will prosper.

A Last Word

The A/E/C business is one of continually trying to balance the competing demands of time, budget, and quality to meet client expectations. None of the activities we do in meeting client expectations are discrete; service and delivery of professional products are part of the same intricately woven fabric.

Building every engagement around an integrated professional product and service delivery process will take your firm to that Awesome Customer Service Organization level!

About the Author

Mike Kennedy is senior vice president and manager of CH2M HILL’s Northwest Region, with responsibility for all operations in Oregon, Hawaii, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana. He administers CH2M HILL activities in the six state region, including client satisfaction, quality control, staffing, financial performance, and business development. The Northwest Region has a total staff of 850 in 12 offices. Professional services provided to public and private clients within the Northwest Region are focused on water, environmental, transportation, and energy issues.