I work for FirstEnergy, an Electric Utility Company, and a portion of our business is running a customer service department for our customers to call when they have issues with their bills, meter readings and to report outages. However, I would have to say that we are performing far from a high performing organization when it comes to our customer service. In the last 3 years we have implemented a new automatic call system that forces the client to go through endless automated prompts, menus and automated process in an attempt to handle their call automatically. All efforts were made to route calls through this automated system to eliminate the need to have as many agents on staff. This was done to save costs at the expense of the customer satisfaction level. In a decade of technological advances the most common perception of customer service is that if you call you will have to talk to a machine, not a real person. We are obviously not a high performing organization if we are implementing a system that is more automated based and less personal. By automating our customer service we are taking the focus of the customer and providing as quality of service that we can.
"High performing organizations that have a relentless focus on customer results deliver Legendary Service. As we discussed, Legendary Service goes beyond merely good customer service." (Blanchard, 2010, p. 35) Obviously automating a customer call center is not an example of how to provide legendary service. However, the examples they provided in the text of legendary service stuck in my mind and is what made this topic as interesting as I found it to be. I had been aware of the Southwest Customer Service Operation from my travels on their airlines and from cases studies about their operations in my MBA program. It was the example of Ritz-Carlton Hotel providing its employee with a discretionary fund for customer service purposes that shocked me. "Every employee was given a $2,000 discretionary fund that they could use to solve a customer problem without checking with anyone." (Blanchard, 2010, p. 51) Ritz-Carlton's Management placed their employees in a position to handle a customer's problems in any manner they deemed necessary to resolve the problem. "An empowering leader provides an employee with autonomy and prospects for self-determination by encouraging the individual to decide how to carry out his or her job" (ZHANG, 2010, p. 4) Ritz-Carton's Management is demonstrating its ability to lead and empower it's employees in an attempt to maximize the customer experience and improve customer satisfaction. When you give employees the ability to think and act on their own the feel more personally connected to the success of the company and responsible for the success of the organization. In an article written by Xiaomeng Zhang and Kathryn Bartol, they explore the relationship between empowerment and employee creativity. "An empowering leader tends to enhance the meaningfulness of work by helping an employee understand the importance of his or her contribution to overall organizational effectiveness. Second, an empowering leader expresses confidence in an employee's competence and prospects for high performance." (ZHANG, 2010, p. 4) The Ritz-Carlton Management has been able to build success by placing its employees in positions where they can have a direct impact on their clients' experience.
An empowering leader fosters an employee's participation in decision making (Manz & Sims, 1987). This process potentially gives an employee a feeling of greater control over the immediate work situation and an enhanced sense that his or her own behaviors can make a difference in work results, thus promoting the sense of impact. (ZHANG, 2010, p. 4)
The Ritz-Carlton example of the housekeeper who flew to Hawaii to personally deliver the businessman's laptop because she didn't trust the overnight delivery service to get it there on time; shows an extremely high level of customer service. Obviously by empowering their employees Ritz-Carlton is operating as a high performing organization.
Ritz Carlton is following the model that places the people working in a position where they can make decisions that both benefit the customer and speak the integrity and dedication of the organization to providing the best customer service. "The traditional pyramid hierarchy must be turned upside down so that the frontline people who are the closest to the customers are at the top ." (Blanchard, 2010, p. 48) This is the model that the Ritz-Carlton has employed to ensure its' employees have the ability and power to address customer issues. It puts the front desk and front line employees who interact with the customers the most in a position where they decide what needs to be done to ensure the customer remains satisfied with the service they are receiving. Terry Bacon and David Pugh explored the operational success that Ritz-Carlton has with their hotels and came to this conclusion:
We chose The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company as an exemplar of behavioral differentiation not only because its people behave in ways that positively differentiate their hotels from rival hotel chains but also because Ritz-Carlton is a high performing organization in every respect, and operational behavioral differentiation is the principal reason for its success. (Bacon, 2004, p. 2)
I applaud and commend Ritz-Carlton for taking the steps to ensure that its customers are treated with the best customer service. It does speak to the quality of the organization when it ensures its customers receive the best service possible. It speaks to the integrity and commitment that the Ritz-Carlton Organization has put in establishing an environment that fosters a high level of customer satisfaction and service. By empowering their employees Ritz-Carlton has ensured continued success within their organizational operations. Arthur Yeung interviewed Mark Decocinis, General Manager of the Portman Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, China, in an effort to learn how "the Portman Ritz-Carlton has not only been named as the "Best Employer in Asia" by Hewitt Associates three consecutive times, but has also rated the highest in employee satisfaction among all of the Ritz-Carlton's 59 hotels worldwide for five consecutive years." (Yeung, 2006, p. 1) In the interview Mark expressed an opinion about Ritz-Carlton's employee talent around the world "People have pride and want to express themselves and they want to have the freedom to do their jobs. Everyone wants the support to do their jobs. That's the best benefit of Ritz-Carlton." (Yeung, 2006, p. 7) This quote accurately describes the Ritz-Carlton's employees. They want to succeed at their jobs and being empowered by the company has placed them in an position to be take a more active role in the daily success of the company. Ritz-Carlton is an example of a High Performing Organization that has utilized the empowerment technique to get the best results from its employees and provide the best customer service in the industry.
There are some industries where customer service is critical for success and continued future sales. It is these situations where leaders are challenged to ensure that their organization and its employees are working towards a common goal of striving towards excellent customer service. "Organizations that provide Legendary Service are masters of listening to their customers." (Blanchard, 2010, p. 44) In addition to empowering their people, highly performing organizations make sure they listen to their customers and take the feedback to ensure they are meeting the needs of their customers. At the end of the day a company that is dependent on customer satisfaction for return business needs to listen to customers' complaints and compliments to ensure their efforts are focused in the right places.
Resources:
Bacon, T. R., & Pugh, D. G. (2004). RITZ-CARLTON AND EMC: THE GOLD STANDARDS IN OPERATIONAL BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENTIATION. Journal of Organizational Excellence, 23(2), 61-76. doi:10.1002/npr.20009
Blanchard, K. (2010). Leading at a Higher Level Revised and Expanded Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
Yeung, A. (2006). Setting people up for success: How the Portman Ritz-Carlton hotel gets the best from its people. Human Resource Management, 45(2), 267-275. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
ZHANG, X., & BARTOL, K. M. (2010). LINKING EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT, INTRINSIC MOTIVATION, AND CREATIVE PROCESS ENGAGEMENT. Academy of Management Journal, 53(1), 107-128. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
