Does big mean your customer service has to suck?

It’s so often big organisations that let us down on customer service, isn’t it. Because their policies are too rigid to fit every circumstance, usually.

So, if they don’t allow the frontline to practise common sense, use some discretion, we, as non-standard customers not fitting the policy, don’t exist and don’t get served.

I’m thinking of the case of the Bank of America customer who was born with no arms, but found himself standing in front of a cashier who said that no, without a thumb print, he couldn’t cash the cheque he wanted to cash. Because that’s the policy.

Bill Taylor, in his Practically Radical blog at the Harvard Business Review (http://blogs.hbr.org/), says that the lesson here is that size, as a strategy in itself, is no longer enough.

Companies get big because it’s a sign of success and it gives them the muscle, the clout, to carry on getting bigger – their buying power increases, economies of scale kick in, suppliers offer them favourable prices, competitors can’t match their marketing power, blah, blah, blah.

But, says Taylor, if you haven’t figured out how to harness the smarts of people that work with you, then you are part of the ranks of ‘big and stupid’ companies. And your days are numbered.

Taylor says: “Pete Carril, the Hall of Fame basketball coach, has a trademark expression that sums up the relationship between size and success. ‘The strong take from the weak,’ he likes to say, ‘but the smart take from the strong.’

“If you can figure out, as Jack Welch [the legendary CEO of General Electric] did, how to add to your company’s muscles without atrophying its brain, then maybe you’re not too big to succeed.”

Written by Phil Dourado

Phil Dourado is one of the UK’s leading analysts and commentators on putting the customer at the heart of business, and uses his insights to help organisations improve their customer focus and get closer to their customers. He is giving two presentations around leadership and customer service at the FIA Conference on July 14th at Cheltenham Racecourse.