The perfect company to work with. Which firms lived and will live well

The ongoing revolution in communications, communications and automation, including mobile telephony, user-generated content (social media), the development of interactive technologies and self-service systems, and of course the Internet, has seriously affected the nature of commercial interactions and consumer service. Therefore, in many industries, a variety of methods for improving efficiency have been introduced, including those borrowed from the production sector (in particular, the experience of Toyota). What should the ideal consumer-oriented company look like today in the light of ongoing changes and eternal values? And what about a company that thinks about customer service in the last place?

Ideal Company

Let's focus on the characteristics that ideal companies have in common, firms that satisfy their customers by providing them with outstanding, customer-focused service in all interactions. How does such an ideal company appear to a new or existing client - high-tech or the most ordinary?

1. The client feels "hospitable" ideal company even before its arrival - real or figurative. And this fact does not depend on what channel of communication is used. Whether it's the internet, email, phone, social media, chat rooms or videoconferencing, the firm's employees always greet customers and give them a concrete, clear and friendly idea of ​​their position in the market, the brand and the firm as a whole.

Companies often analyze the Internet, telephone and other means of communication to make sure they are functioning well enough and keeping up with the demands of the times. Any channel through which a client can contact the firm should be analyzed in terms of efficiency and user friendliness. This applies not only to the company's own websites, but also to third party websites such as Google Places. (It's important to remember that consumers won't blame Google for misrepresenting hours of operation and office locations. They assume—and most often correctly—that the firm didn't bother to update this information to be true.) TripAdvisor and similar forums are usually followed by polite responses, so that the new user knows that even if the company is not perfect, it cares about its reputation, tries to correct existing shortcomings and improve customer service.

2. The company can spoil the first impression of itself with barriers that are perceived by the consumer as a hindrance. The ideal company goes out of its way to eliminate all barriers so that the client immediately feels friendliness from the company. In the physical world, for example, you need to think about parking and transportation for customers. The proposed directions must be perfectly accurate, preferably with GPS coordinates. If a customer needs to park on the street, the firm should provide them with change for the machines and a reminder to pay for parking. You can even assign a special employee to help customers. With an interactive Internet login, the registration process should be simple and accessible. Ideally, your site should not have any difficulties such as entering a code word. If you're setting up filters to cut out spam or bots, then you need to provide a user-friendly audio experience for visually impaired people and for those who browse your site on a smartphone keyboard that isn't the most comfortable to use. The consumer does not have to look through hundreds of names in the classifier to select his own country - after all, this can be easily determined by IP address or by customer base.

3. Your employees must show a visible and sincere interest in customers. Follow this. Employees should remain friendly and affable even in the most difficult customer service situations. Employees must be friendly consciously and not just to avoid disciplinary action.

4. The company must respect the desire of customers for self-service ... but at the same time give them the opportunity to choose. A customer who chooses self-service should never be without available support or abandonment of such a system. You should not punish him in any way for the choice he made. For example, when a store has self-service checkouts, store employees are always on duty to help customers who encounter unexpected difficulties. When telephoning, customers always have the opportunity to contact the operator in a convenient way- waiting for his answer, pressing the appropriate key or saying a specific word. Websites usually have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section. At the end of the answer to each question, there is an opportunity to contact the operator and get further clarifications if necessary.

5. Processes, technologies and systems must be organized in such a way as to anticipate the needs and desires of customers. Anticipation-based service is not only about the right recruitment. Yes, of course, an empathetic person who feels responsible for anticipating the client's desires is very important. This is the central element of perfect service. But it's also important that your company's systems are attuned to the wishes of the customers—even before the wishes themselves are voiced. Companies achieve this by letting employees know that their job is to learn to think like a customer, to observe and predict customer behavior, to guide their wants and needs so that the company can anticipate what customers will want in the next moment. And that brings us to the critical next step: the resulting knowledge and attitudes must be built into systems, processes, and technologies.

I will give a simple example. It snowed heavily in Philadelphia during the winter and my flight was delayed by two hours. No wonder I missed my connecting flight from Denver. But as soon as I got off the plane in Denver with thoughts of waiting in an endless line, begging for a ticket to another plane, or calling 800 and waiting for the operator to answer, I was instantly approached by a Southwest employee who holding tickets for another flight. She asked for my name and handed me the correct paperwork for the next flight to my destination.

6. The company must take into account the time constraints of the consumer and his pace - and this factor should be considered paramount. The ideal company never wastes a client's time. In an ideal company, you don't have to wait. Temporal Needs and Expectations individual customers are taken into account both by experienced, dedicated staff and thoughtful technological systems. For example, a tourist who is on vacation has a completely different attitude towards the Internet system and the signals received from it. He may well prefer face-to-face communication or a phone response from an attentive employee to scouring the Internet. Such a person will appreciate the receptive software, which allows the user to answer a series of questions: "Not now."

7. It is of great importance for any company emotional condition and customer needs. Don't think of a customer as someone who called just to make a big purchase (or any purchase at all). Perhaps he calls or comes because of a temporary feeling of loneliness. Maybe he needs support related to your products, or maybe he has some questions. In order for the relationship with the client to be long-term and profitable, you must definitely take into account these non-commercial desires and purely human needs.

8. The company must recognize and take into account the unique circumstances of the individual situation of a particular client. In other words, employees need to understand that while the vast majority of customer interactions follow one of several typical scenarios, each such interaction for given customer unique from his point of view. I once spoke at a conference of the Student and Youth Tourism Association (SYTA). A tour operator who was there told me what he had to deal with every day: given the tour could be the first and possibly the last.”

What a great and precise attitude! But what role such attitude can play in company policy? Maybe the company prides itself on fulfilling customer requests "within 12 hours", and perhaps this promise is used in advertising. This, of course, is very likely if the client has contacted the firm with the first request. But forcing the client to wait 12 hours between requests if the response to his first request was "Please tell me which operating system you use and I'll give you an answer" is totally unacceptable. However, as sad as it is to admit, this is very typical for many firms. Yes, really, it may take a company 12 hours or more to fix the problem, although it was stated in two, and not in one request. The ideal company understands this very well.

9. Standards exist - and are implemented in life. For example, in an expensive hotel, you will never see a doorman standing with his back to a client trying to open the door. Why? Because they are standards! AT this case the standard is that doormen work as a team. They look at each other and give each other a sign if someone comes up from behind. Doormen literally cover each other's backs. Thanks to this, the client has a feeling of hospitality and comfort in general.

10. The standard is Additional services . Ideal companies always offer something above the existing standards. Admittedly, in difficult situations, shareholders will always seek to reduce these additions in the first place, but without them it will be impossible to differentiate your service. When you buy an iPad from Apple, you know you can read e-books. Fine. The industry leader Kindle offers the same service. And Nook. And Kobo. And Sony Reader. To understand that you are dealing with an exceptional company, you are helped by the "unexpected addition" - the ability to virtually "turn the pages" and read e-book like the most ordinary, only printed on special paper.

Ideal service in the physical world is carried out in the same way. During the last economic downturn, the Ritz-Carlton's Horst Schulze said that economic hardship was no excuse for a luxury hotel to forego "nice little things," such as daily fresh flowers in the rooms. The guests of such a hotel do not buy four walls and a ceiling, but an elaborate sense of exclusivity. And if they do not feel it, then they are unlikely to want to return.

11. The company should strive for efficiency, but in no case at the expense of the client. Service is a unique situation that does not always meet the modern requirements of speed and continuous improvement of efficiency. Yes, production techniques are used quite widely in the service. However, if you want to be ready for any customer requirements, then you have to put up with inefficiency in the production sense of the word. It will be necessary to have an increased stock in stock, and within a fairly long term. Ideal companies are well aware of when it is possible to use efficiency techniques (for example, demonstrated by the firm), and when they are not applicable.

12. Customer experience must be constantly improved. As consumers, we all appreciate the convenience and familiarity with the process, which makes it easy to order and purchase goods and services. When I order something online from a company I've dealt with before, I expect all the on-screen menus to look exactly the same as before. I want to see what I'm used to, not re-learn ordering protocol. The same thing happens when I call the company that supplies me with fuel for the heating system. I'm counting on the usual protocol to tell me the price per gallon, offer a reasonable delivery time, and provide a driver who already knows my home's system and how to use it so I don't need to be there.

However, while consumers value consistency, the ideal company understands that service needs to be improved even to maintain a sense of consistency as consumer expectations continue to rise.

At the beginning of the 20th century, about 30 years after the invention and widespread use of the telephone, Marcel Proust, with his usual vivacity, wrote that the telephone had come to be taken for granted. People began to think of the phone as a common household appliance and began to complain more about the static noise on the line than to admire this amazing marvel of new technology.

What Proust wrote about the telephone applies to every aspect of the consumer experience. Today, the period during which the perception of something new changes dramatically is much shorter than it was before. What was considered an incredible achievement in customer service last year is quickly becoming commonplace, if not outright unacceptable. What seemed fast last week looks awfully slow today.

The ideal company understands this very well and is constantly improving. For example, retail network, opening new points, sets itself a very specific task: do new shop better than the previous one. Dot. This is the optimal path to improvement, which saves the company from unnecessary thought and regrets about the mistakes made.

All 12 components will be discussed in more detail a little later. Each of them has its own significance for consumers.

Disaster Example: Fatal Error in an Ideal Service

I hope that this list of 12 features that characterize a company with excellent customer service did not confuse you. And that's good - I prefer to deal with an unafraid reader. However, around us we constantly see examples of the opposite. There are many anti-consumer (and usually anti-collaboration) companies and firms in the world that do not intend to be different from competitors, rarely meet customer expectations, and certainly never exceed them in anything - except by accident. In an ideal company, all potentially destructive elements should be identified and eliminated. Therefore, you must analyze the negative characteristics in their "natural" form. Let's take a moment to understand what the ideal company shouldn't be. Remember how inspired preachers paint pictures of hell before their flock. Let's talk about this abyss, where any company can collapse.

To make the example as accessible as possible, I invite you to join me and go grocery shopping, which we do every day. What could be more positive and human-friendly than a well-funded, fully stocked and conveniently located grocery store? Well, let's go? We head to an expensive grocery store in a suburb that I won't name (although I'm tempted once again!). This is a branded boutique owned by a well-known corporation. The store is ideally located, both geographically and demographically. It is surrounded by private houses of quite wealthy citizens, where there are many old mansions. These houses are inhabited by people with a high level of education, and within a radius of six kilometers there are four colleges, etc., etc. Let's start our shopping. Don't forget that we came looking for unpleasant surprises.

Entry and unnecessary barriers. Even before we are in the store, it is clear that interaction (or interaction attempts) will not be easy. Before we go shopping, we look at the site to check the road and opening hours, but we do not find information. Yeah, the site has a live chat button. Let's try. Two unbearable minutes of waiting pass, and finally someone answers. Indeed "someone", because the answerer does not introduce himself - most likely, this is some kind of automatic program, because no useful information we did not learn from these voice messages.

With a wave of the hand at the store's website, we find it on Google Maps, where opening hours are also mentioned. Unfortunately, the hours shown on Google Maps and Google Places are incorrect. (Actually, 16 months ago they were correct, but since then the store has not bothered to contact Google and update the information, and because of this, customers like us often find themselves in front of closed doors.)

Let's try to remain calm in this situation. On the second attempt, we arrive at the parking lot of the store during those hours when it is still open. The first noticeable obstacle is purely physical. The shopping carts are in a "corral" that completely blocks a person in a wheelchair from leaving the disabled parking lot. On the disabled person, his friends and family members, such a situation will not make the most positive impression.

Arrogance and carelessness of the staff. And here we are in the store. We see a young saleswoman placing bottles of balsamic vinegar on the top shelf. She climbed onto the stepladder with "the top of her thighs" pointing straight at the incoming shoppers. The saleswoman clearly does not know how to communicate with customers. She doesn't even greet us. Something out of the ordinary? Unfortunately no. We walk around the store, but none of its employees, even those who facing us, and not other parts of the body, do not pay any attention to us. Nobody says hello. Doesn't smile. Doesn't offer help.

New imperial carts. Okay, no one paid any attention to us. Let's walk around the store with cute, but extremely inconvenient shopping carts. We need to buy something. Everything seems to be simple - if you have never tried to roll a cart on hard rubber wheels on a floor lined with fashionable ceramic tiles- with an uneven surface and large gaps between the tiles, filled with a thick mortar that imitates manual work. The cart hobbles across this floor with a terrible rumble. It looks like we've been hit by shelling. By the end of shopping, the hands are numb with terrible force.

We did it! And here we are at the checkout. Having overcome all the obstacles, we put the necessary products into the cart and dragged it to the checkout. And finally she is: the cashier is the first human being who, by virtue of her official duties must contact us in person. Really personal: face to face. Oh happiness! We have a moment of human communication!

Roll up your lip! They don't even notice us! The cashier is busy - she chats with other cashiers: she tells them about her unsuccessful date yesterday. The conversation is extremely exciting, and even the need to twist her neck in order to be heard does not stop her.

Angry that she had to interrupt the conversation, the cashier tosses the punctured products into bags - strong-smelling cheese ends up in the same bag with equally odorous sushi, heavy apples crush fragile cookies into crumbs.

We could have hoped that, without bothering to make human contact with us, the cashier would pay more attention to the correct packaging of products, but, apparently, our hopes were not justified.

flower disaster. Sometimes the strongest impressions of contact with a certain organization occur "at the edges": at the very beginning and at the moment of completion. For me, the most terrible disappointment was a visit to a flower shop, all in the same expensive grocery store. Look there with me, but this time remain an observer - a kind of fly on the wall. Time? 18:45 - regular business day (the store closes at 19:00, as it is written on front door, although Google has completely different information). I went to buy flowers, but I have no idea what kind of bouquet I need. For about three minutes, I absently examine the flowers on the shelves. The saleswoman asks if I have made my choice. I answer that not yet. She keeps pushing but offers no help or advice. She finally announces sternly, "We close at seven."

As politely as possible, I reply, "Actually, I think you should close the store after the last customer who entered before 7 p.m. has left the store." To my amazement, the saleswoman reacts completely differently than I expected. She is quite sincerely surprised: “Really? I did not know that. I had so many problems when I closed even a minute later than seven that I was sure that by seven o'clock all customers should leave the store..

How did such a striking example of what not to do come about? Let's go back to that grocery store again.

Against employees, against customers. My communication with the seller flower shop showed you everything you need to know about catastrophically anti-consumer companies. They are set not only against customers, but also against their own employees. They cause the same harm to employees and customers, forcing sellers to literally push customers out of the store at exactly 19:00. All the actions of this store are based on a superficial and extremely harmful desire to achieve their goal at any cost. This approach leads to negative, and sometimes downright terrifying results.

Lack of purpose and standards. Now let's take a closer look at the mistakes that were made at the checkout. Firstly, the cashier thought only of her professional duties- break through the goods, take money from us and throw the goods into bags. She did not have a goal to help the store flourish. Thoughts that the same thing can be done in a human way, so that the buying process becomes as pleasant as possible for buyers, she clearly did not attend. This behavior of the store employee working with the checkout is the end result of poor training and mismanagement.

Secondly, the cashier did not have standards performance of their duties. One of the standards was to understand which products can be put in one bag, and which are better to put into different ones. It is not difficult to learn such a standard, but the absence of it can completely spoil the customer experience from visiting a particular store. Standards should be developed, taught to staff, and then enforced to adhere strictly to them. The devil most often lies in non-standardized details.

Thirdly, the cashier did not make the slightest effort to support her customers. She wasn't happy about them at all—she preferred to crane and twist her neck at the risk of injury, but to chat with her girlfriends rather than doing her actual job, which (let me repeat) was to improve customer satisfaction, not is to bundle their purchases into packages. Why did the cashier behave In a similar way? Most likely, she simply did not feel like a part of the company and did not consider herself obliged to increase customer satisfaction and thereby contribute to the success of the company.

Reasons why employees turn away from customers and do not come into contact with them. How can a salesperson not make contact with incoming customers and even turn around to face them? How can one salesperson after another ignore the customers who are in the store? Yes, they are busy - they put up and adjust the layout of goods on the already sparkling shelves, doing other things. But all these people, like the cashier, do not fulfill their main task - they do not care about customers. Solve this problem without reviewing the entire corporate culture impossible.

Bumpy floor and misplaced ramps. What do you say about the wrongly located ramp, which the disabled cannot use? And what about a ceramic field that is not adapted to move shopping carts? These mistakes are explained by the fact that the sellers and the store management have never put themselves in the place of buyers - and it is not surprising that they leave their personal cars in a special parking lot and enter the store through other doors. Only a few of them know what it's like to enter through the main entrance, exit the handicapped parking lot, etc. (The exception is young employees who collect carts from the parking lot and return them back to the store. If they reported an existing problem, senior managers did not listen to them, or even simply stated that it was none of their business.) The motivation of the store staff is completely wrong - people perform their duties in order not to run into punishment, instead of serving the prosperity of the store. Handicapped parking was made for an opt-out only, as such parking is required by local and national laws. If the store management really thought about the disabled, then everything would be different. If store owners are oblivious to the barriers that prevent disabled people from using their store—and even deliberately put up barriers between parking and entry—then there must be some explanation. Apparently, this store just wants to cut off a certain segment. market base disabled people and those who care for them.

Actions taken for the wrong reasons, and therefore poorly executed, are unique to bad companies. If the firm is not flexible about working hours, then it often receives results from employees of poor quality, but received at a strictly defined time. Firms that treat sick leave unfairly or overly harshly can rest assured that all of their able-bodied employees will certainly make full use of all scheduled sick leave days. forgetting about the real security, and in an effort to just get rid of safety checks, companies are creating dangerous jobs. The result is poor quality customers - or lack of them, because there is no law that would require people to shop here.

Yes, I guess it's a bore - useful, I hope, but still boring... I'm glad to say that now we'll move on to something a little more fun.

And what do you think of all this?

Here are 12 characteristics of ideal companies.

1. The ideal company welcomes customers - through any channel! And even before the client arrives - literally or figuratively. The company constantly analyzes the experience that its customers receive using the Internet, telephone and other communication channels.
2. When a customer arrives at a company, there should be no barriers in their path that could cloud their experience with the company.
3. Employees of the company show a sincere and deep interest in the client.
4. The company respects the client's desire for self-service... but always provides an opportunity to move to direct communication with employees.
5. The company has the processes, technologies and resources necessary to meet the needs and desires of the client. In other words, you need not only employees who feel what the consumer wants, but also systems that are focused on satisfying his desires, and even before these desires are voiced.
6. The company must take into account the time constraints and wishes of the client. Customer time should never be wasted. The most important thing for a company is to take into account the pace needs and expectations of a particular client.
7. The emotional needs and state of mind of the client are extremely important. Employees of the company must be friendly and polite with customers, even if their calls do not have immediate commercial value.
8. The company recognizes and takes into account the unique features of the specific situation of a particular client. Even if the vast majority of customer interactions follow one of several typical scenarios, employees need to understand that every interaction is unique to that customer from their point of view.
9. Standards exist and must be followed.
10. Extra amenities are standard. Without unexpected and pleasant additions, it is almost impossible to differentiate your service.
11. Efficiency is important, but it should never be at the expense of the customer. A certain amount of inefficiency, being ahead of schedule (as opposed to strict timeliness), and excess inventory is sometimes necessary to keep a company ready for any customer request.
12. The customer experience must be constantly improved, often through continuous improvement methods borrowed from the manufacturing industry.

Ideal Organization: Al-Qaeda

When the terrorist organization al-Qaeda made headlines around the world after claiming responsibility for the 2001 attacks on the United States, many experts began to see it as an example of an ideal organizational structure. It was a group without an obvious leader, without bureaucracy and hierarchy, consisting of dedicated members (ready to die for their cause), motivated by a single faith and sharing common goals. Is it possible that al-Qaeda is the organization of the future?

After the US troops entered Iraq and faced strong resistance organized along the same lines as al-Qaeda, the answer was clear: a terrorist organization in the form of a decentralized alliance of cells and groups that successfully fought the US army could teach something any organizational structure.

Consider, for example, a document written in the 1990s by the leader of al-Qaeda in Egypt, Mohammed Atef, and sent to his subordinate. The document was received by law enforcement agencies only in 2008. Atef, a former agronomist, writes: “I was very saddened by your actions. I received 75,000 rupees to finance your trip to Egypt for you and your family. I learned that you did not provide the accountant with any checks, booked tickets and accommodation for 40,000 rupees, and pocketed the remainder. The same goes for the air conditioner. Furniture used by our al-Qaeda brothers cannot be considered private property. I remind you of the punishment for breaking these rules."

That's right: Al-Qaeda requires travel reports from its members. Neither loyalty to the common cause, nor the threat of punishment could prevent violations. Even Al-Qaeda - the organization of the future - was forced to obey the laws of the organization.

Max Weber, the 19th-century German philosopher who became one of the founders of modern sociology and the first researcher of organizational structure, described bureaucracy as an "iron cage" that suppresses free will and dooms us to exist "in the icy darkness of the polar night." However, he also wrote: “The main reason for the growth of bureaucratic organizations is their purely technical advantage over all other forms and structures.”

This is not the most pleasant picture, at least not the one we want to see in the future.

The meaning of this book is best conveyed by the famous prayer attributed to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “Lord, give me the peace of mind to accept what I cannot change. Give me the strength to change what I can, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other. We hope we've given you an insight into the challenges companies face as they grow and develop, the peace of mind to accept what can't be changed about them, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Chapter 13 The Ideal Model Contrary to popular belief, the first office of the Skolkovo Foundation was not located in the business school of the same name. The first office of the foundation was not a futuristic hangar in some modern industrial area, where well-groomed