Customer Service Apocalypto

The first time I noticed one of those Self Checkout lines at a store, my reaction was mixed. On one hand, I thought, “Gee, I’ve always wanted to scan my own items...that might be fun. And, I won’t have to deal with the longer checkout lines and face that rude, grumpy checkout person any longer!” On the other hand, I thought, “What a sad statement this is about the service industry!”

Wal-Mart has Self Checkout lines now. So does Lowe’s. Both of these retailers are frequented by Loretta and I...me not so much to Wal-Mart, I hate even going in that place.

I remember a story from a few years ago about a new system they are working on for grocery stores. It’s a Self Checkout system whereby you simply park your filled grocery cart next to a scanner machine and it scans all the items in your cart...without even removing them. Then I suppose you pull forward after paying and bag the stuff yourself as well. Or, just shovel all the crap in the back of your SUV like at Costco. And when you get home, you could’ve sworn you purchased some peaches but don’t discover until a week later that they rolled under the seat...the odor of rotting fruit inside a car during the summer is quite distinctive. But, at least the stench helped you eventually find the errant peaches.

So far, I haven’t seen one of those grocery store Self Checking monstrosities yet.

My thoughts about and my reaction to Self Checkout lines has changed a bit. Sure, they are very convenient. And they usually speed up the check out process, especially if you only have a couple of small items. It’s a real pain in the ass trying to lift up a new washing machine onto the scanning table! Another plus, the avoidance of any interaction between Mary Jane Rotten Attitude...the ever-present rude, grumpy checker. But, herein lies the quandary and just another example of how the service industry is choosing to deal with a problem.

The service industry is in a world of trouble, it has been for many years now. And that means, business is in a world of trouble...and its getting worse. Nostradamus probably predicted it hundred of years ago. There is a revolution coming. And it ain’t good!

First of all, we’re not just talking about nasty clerks at am/pm, Wal-Mart, or the grocery store. This thing involves more than your local inattentive, rude, uncompromising waitress...you know, like the one in Five Easy Pieces that Jack Nicholson told to “put the sliced turkey between your knees!” The service industry goes bigger and deeper than that. It includes the entire infrastructure of big businesses including manufacturing, the tech industry, and huge wholesalers. The entire marketing and operational chain is affected.

The customer service aspect of business only ends with the customer at the brick and mortal store. It begins in the offices or conference tables that are filled with or surrounded by upper management types, you know...the suits, the corporate weasels, the V.P.’s. In the middle of all this are the marketing departments, the production and operations departments, the shipping departments, the sales departments, the administration types...the employees. And all of these people need to buy into and be a part of customer service. And, this is where the problem lies.

Yesterday, I was reintroduced to a book called Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. Blanchard is the guy who wrote, among others, The One Minute Manager back in 1982. Raving Fans first came out in 2000, and is still popular required reading for management in many companies today, as is The One Minute Manager.

Blanchard’s Raving Fans book focuses on how to upgrade a company’s customer service practices. It does this by way of a fantasy story about a new department manager and a mentor, of sorts, who shows up in his office. The mentor is a guy who calls himself his Fairy Godmother and proceeds to guide him on the right path to improving the company’s customer service ethic. The book is short, funny, irreverent, and informative. It is very generalized, so don’t expect a specific punchlist of things to do to fix your department! But it is very thought provoking.

Basically, Raving Fans outlines three steps to customer service success: 1. Decide what you want to accomplish. 2. Discover what your customer wants. 3. Deliver what you promise, plus one. If you do these three things properly, your customers will become raving fans, ie, customers who tell other people how fabulous you are...not how crumby you are. It really is that simple. But in reality, it is much more involved than that. This culture must permeate all aspects of the business chain in order to be successful. Everyone and everything that impact the customer must be on board this bus.

Speaking of being on board the bus, that is the term that was used in more than one of the big, corporate restaurant chains I worked. “Are you on the bus, Hansen?”, my V.P. would ask me with caffein-widened eyes and a few drops of spittle landing on my Norman Rockwell tie. “Sir...yes, sir...I am, sir!”, I would snap back. “Do you think I am an asshole Private Joker?", he went on. “Sir...the private does think you’re an asshole...sir. What’s your point, sir?”, I fantasized. “I’ll ask the questions around here private”, he answered, “Can I be in charge for a while?” He would elaborate, “You will start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks!” Hang on...I drifted into a scene from Full Metal Jacket...I’m back now. But, this particular exchange wasn’t far from the truth in many “motivational” speeches I experienced during my management career.

For the most part, these great customer service improvement ideas are relegated to being useless, blathering rhetoric at the corporate level. The ideas are good. It’s the execution of them where the challenges are. For instance, should bonuses be tied to customer service satisfaction? In most cases they are. But what if the meager bonus offered is not something the operations department cares about? What if handing that nice, new shiny quarter to the department manager is not something that will motive him or her?

This is where Blanchard’s book goes deeper. Simply put, big company bosses must first identify who their customers are. And these customers include everyone, every employee in the chain. They must all be treated as customers for the plan to work properly. And that means asking them question #2: What do they want? Find out what will truly motivate them to be better employees.

Back to the Self Checkout ploys. If it wasn’t such a sad statement about the state of customer service today, it would be amusing. It is very sad. But it may be where this whole thing is going. And, it is also a validation to those businesses who deplore such methods to move forward with the proper training and motivation of their real, live people in this sector. It all comes down to setting expectations and accountability at all levels of business. Expectations and accountability...the two most important words in a successful business.

From my point of view, the other two most important words for making raving fans: wheat and chaff. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Cultivate, motivate, and mentor those “wheat” employees. And shitcan the “chaff” employees immediately. I will never understand how companies say they can't afford to properly train, properly reward, and properly run their business. It really is that simple.