Put Life into that poster
The Financial Times
New Delhi Sunday 7 March 1999
Devoid of reinforcement from management’s day-to-day behaviour, a mission statement, asserts Gopal K Gureja, quickly degenerates into a statement that invokes only lip service
ASK a management consultant to name the single most important prerequisite for launching a customer-orientation programme in a company and he will tell you: It is the “unequivocal commitment by top-management”. Ask a customer-service manager to point out the most important factor that helps him to successfully implement his company’s policies. He would say: ‘Top management focus and support.’
Indeed, no corporate initiative can go too far without the top-management commitment. Least of all, an initiative that calls for the changing of a mind-set across the organisation.
Most CEOs convey their : support to a corporate initiative through a widely known instrument called a mission statement. A clear statement provides a framework to determine priorities, develop strategic plans and define tasks. Companies spend considerable executive time, with the help of good copywriters, in finalising the text of a mission statement.
With strategic positioning, many CEOs believe they have duly communicated the importance the management attaches to key corporate values, including a sharp focus on customer- service. The CEOs hope that from then on it is for the employees to bring about a change in their behaviour at the operating level. For those who believe in this line of thinking – and there are many who do – the poster stays on but the spirit of the mission statement is dead for ever.
The employees of an organisation don’t take too long to perceive how much of the mission statement is a reflection of the management’s real intent and how much of it is plain lip service. In a recent, first-hand experience, a perceptive guest saw this phenomenon in full play in a Bangkok hotel.
During an hour-long meeting the guest had with the Indian general manager of the hotel, he was highly impressed by the exuberance and the emotional fervour with which the GM talked about his ‘mission’. Having held senior positions with the most prestigious chain of hotels in India {and abroad} he was keen to bring about the highest standards of guest hospitality in his hotel in Bangkok. He pointed out that the hotel was committed to include in its services what the leaflet described as ‘an abundance of special touches’ to make the guest feel ‘right at home’, There was no reason to doubt the GM’s intentions, So, why had things gone wrong?
Three days prior to this meeting the guest had checked into the hotel against a con- firmed 3 night/4 day package deal called the package’ A’, Unknown to the guest at that time, the check-in clerk had withheld some information, thus depriving the guest of part of the services included in the package, However, by sheer oversight, the clerk had passed on to the guest a dinner-coupon valid for three dinners as if it were included in the package, But for this mistake, the guest would have never known the full details of package’ A’,
When her mistake came to light the clerk was nervous. In order to correct one mistake, she committed another. Unwittingly, she showed a copy of the Package’ A’ document to the guest to convince him that the mistake was genuine.
The guest was surprised to see as many as five other items including an English Daily, and unlimited free use of the fitness centre forming part of the package, The clerk had chosen not to mention these at the time of check-in. And the hotel had chosen not to provide that service.
When the guest sought an explanation, the duty manger intervened, saw through the
problem quickly, profusely apologised, persuaded the guest to retain the dinner coupon and promised to make sure that all the services included in the package are delivered from the next day onwards.
A new drama unfolded as the guest went to the specified restaurant for his dinner late that evening. Some one from the front desk, holding a copy of the package document, raked up the issue again. This time to tell the guest that the coupon entitled him to only one complimentary dinner. The guest lost his temper, offered to pay the bill and close the chapter. Another apology followed and the guest was persuaded not to precipitate the matter.
A written message from the duty manager, next afternoon, apologised for the previous evening’s episode. However, it went on to justify that the dinner coupon was meant only for one dinner and that the endorsement on the coupon – effective 7/12/98 valid till 9/12/98- means only that the guest can use it on anyone of the three days of validity.
The guest went over to the duty manager and handed over the dinner coupon. However, when he demanded a clarification whether the breakfast coupon was valid for the next day or not the duty manager was simply stunned. The breakfast coupon -already used twice – had exactly the same message as the dinner coupon had and still there was no doubt that it was valid for the next day. The duty manager was ill at ease at the stupidity of her own logic.
As the GM went through the details of the story of the previous three days he made gestures expressing his strong commitment to high quality customer-service. He appreciated the fact that the duty manager, in the first instance, had acted exactly the way he would have liked her to act. He laughed at the crude attempt made to interpret the same set of words differently. He felt sorry at the way the issue was brought up in the .restaurant.
The GM went on to rule that lack of adequate skills in spoken English was the root cause of the problem and spelt out some of the steps he was taking to overcome this ‘handicap’. He expressed his gratefulness for the feedback and despite the fact that the guest did not make any claim for compensation the GM was keen to make a gesture. However, a masterstroke of eva- sive politeness that followed soon after raised serious doubts whether the GM was really being truthful. Two hours later, the guest came to know that even the so called complimentary dinner for one night had also been charged to his account. However, as the bill was being paid, a young man rushed over to the cash counter, to authorise deletion of this dinner as instructed by the general manager. The guest decided to dig a little deeper and got confirmation of what he had begun to suspect.
If a copy of the package ‘A’ document (which, incidentally, is available on the internet) were handed over to the guest right at the time of check-in, no ‘communication’ t. problem would have occurred at all. However, the customer-contact people were asked to treat it as an ‘internal document’. Management’s message in this incongruity was quite n clear: Disclose as little information to the new guests as diplomacy allows.
The clerk was under pressure to rectify her mistake. She was not sure that the duty man- ager would condone her mistake e r restaurant. The duty manager, herself, was not at ease. She decided to err on the safe side, safety from management’s displeasure. She was compelled to use logic that did not make sense at all. The management had failed to empower people to solve problems at the appropriate level. The general manager took too long to set things right.
Understandably, the hotel staff, though very polite and courteous, was unwilling to own its mistakes. The customer contact people were hesitant to deal with the moments of truths on the basis of propriety. The ‘special touches’, if any, had to come from the general manager’s office. (On his return to e India, the guest found a cheque in his mail along with a letter from the hotel, as part atonement for the inconvenience caused to him. That, however, does not materially change the burden of the story.) The management had failed to impart life to very impressive words in the mission statement.
No wonder then, that while the tangibles of the hotel were impressive; courtesy was not lacking; politeness was at its best; the final delivery of service lacked sincerity. The employees could offer no real service.
What is true of this hotel is I true of many Indian companies. According to a 1994 survey, 79 per cent of the respondent chief executives rated customer satisfaction as their most critical strategies. Sure enough, many corporate initiatives have long been taken by companies to improve customer orientation and overall competitiveness. And yet, according to the Word Economic Forum, India’s ranking on ‘customer orientation’ has gone down from 40th in 1994 to 46th (among 53 countries) in 1997.
Can Indian companies afford to delay defining their missions clearly and implementing them with a missionary zeal, in spirit and in deed?