When I was in high school, I sang in the high school glee club. One song I recall was called, “My Grandfather’s Clock.” Written by Henry Clay Work in 1876, the most dramatic lyrics of the song were found in the second verse,
“It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
And was always his treasure and pride
But it stopped, short never to go again
When the old man died”
It is popular to talk about being customer-focused or customer-centric. But, what if service processes could be customer-controlled. Like the motion-detected light that turns on when you enter a room, such processes could be started and stopped by customers.
I was inside a fast-food restaurant and standing near the drive-in window waiting on my order. A man pulled up to get is drive-in order and the employee at the window announced that his order would take longer than normal…and would he mind pulling up to a parking space on the side, and someone would bring his order out to him when it was ready.
“No, ma’am,” he told her bluntly. “I am going to sit right here and hold up your getting money from all the people behind me. If I pull over and park, you never will have an economic reason to increase your staffing so you could serve everyone on time. This is a fast-food restaurant.” He sat there. And, I watched the staff hustle to get his order ready so the drive-in cash register could start ringing again. He completely controlled the process by his protest.
No business owner enjoys the thought of customers taking over the organization’s service processes. So, the takeaway is this: Never let customers have a reason to want to highjack your process and make it stop when customer satisfaction stops.