Too Much Service
By Bob Hobbi, President & CEO of ServiceElements
As customer service in our industry evolves, an interesting question arises: Is it possible to have too much service?
What got me thinking was a letter from an industry colleague, who wrote: “An irritating FBO development: Someone has instructed the otherwise terrific customer service and line service people at some FBO’s to ask whether you want this, that and so on and so forth. I have never encountered anyone who gave a blip about all these very insincere questions. All I want to do after landing is get my passengers on their way and get out of there as soon as possible and go home or to the hotel to relax and rest. Just make it easy for me! I do not want to be distracted by having to stop and answer a lot of insincere questions. What about my car? Smile. Do I want it washed? Smile. Do I need a restaurant? Smile. Do I need a map? Smile. Do I need an umbrella? Smile. I am content to trust FBO customer service and line service to ask questions that are relevant with sincerity. I trust that they have been trained in providing appropriate levels of service.
My colleague then went on to speculate on the origin of the policy, suspecting that it was brought up in a focus group by someone needing to control every decision. Perhaps the policy did spring from customer comments. However, the same questions have come up in other FBO’s, and here’s my guess as to what happened at each one:
Some regional manager or GM was trying to become more “customer oriented” by doing more for their customers. (This could be a good thing.) Perhaps that manager even suggested a Service Initiative with a Service Excellence Contest. And those of you who have lived La Vida Corporate know what that means: yes, memos, meetings and T-shirts. However, when the regional manager presented his or her Service Initiative, someone probably said: “But what about all these other things that we could do? We’ve spent years training our people to give great service, and now we want them to do one more thing? Why not do a lot more things?”
And if you’ve been in these types of meetings, you know what happened next: no, not T-shirts…a compromise. Some customer service Solomon then said: “Well, let’s ask our customers. By giving them many choices of things that we can do, we’ll improve customer satisfaction. They will see that we want to do more for them.”
But back to our question for the day: Is there such a thing as over-service? For instance, there’s that Ritz-Carlton thing about not telling people where something is, but taking them there. That’s OK if you are piloting a plane, but the “take-‘em there” service has now spread to too many places.
I don’t care to have clerks escort me to the coffee, much less the men’s room. Wal-Mart is a big place. But an FBO? I can find my way.
It’s like having too much service in restaurants. There’s the waiter who has a comment on every choice you make. And how often are you asked how your food is before you’ve tasted it?
So what is perfect service? I’d argue that the best service could be defined as “quietly brilliant.” It’s not “Hey, look at how great we are”; no, it’s the service so good it takes you a minute to realize how great it was. It’s the FBO so well-designed that you don’t have to ask. It’s the CSR who summons someone to help you carry an awkward bag with just a wave. It’s the flight attendant who notices your inquiring look. It’s the line service who confirms the fuel type several times to eliminate miscommunication and knows when his customers’ airplanes should be pulled out, or the CSR who tells you where the coffee is, but lets you pour it yourself. And yes, it’s the CSR who asks you if you need any assistance with anything else, and gives you the choice to ask for more- simple and quick.
The quiet dignity of the best service reminds me of Tom Landry when he was coaching the Dallas Cowboys and said of celebrations following a touchdown, “When we get to the end zone, we shouldn’t act like we’ve never been there before.” Perfect service is neither self-satisfied nor self-promoting. Perfect service includes a trust in the customer to notice how good the service is, with a minimum of asking or telling.
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