Getting the right balance between humans and systems…
In customer service, we tend to think we always know best.
Sure, there’s that old saying “the customer is always right,” but nobody really believes that, right? I’ve talked about that before, and I won’t rehash it here.
But I’m talking about how we deal with our employees. We tend to think we can “systematize” everything.
Take fallible human decision making out of the equation.
Create a simple, easy to follow “procedures guide” to cover every conceivable contingency.
And sometimes these things can be useful.
But as today’s story will show, well intentioned efforts like this can be a business nightmare if they’re allowed to overrule human thinking.
South Carolina, 2018
Cara Koscinski wanted to celebrate her son’s exceptional 4.89 grade-point average.
He was graduating Summa Cum Laude, which (for those of you with a dirty mind), means “with the highest distinction” in Latin (don’t get ahead of me here!)
She ordered the cake from the Publix grocery store, a major chain in the south.
With big business comes conventional (see over-complicated) customer service practices, and this was no exception.
Publix had apparently implemented an automatic computer system to prevent them from selling “obscene” cakes.
The rest of the story almost writes itself…
Cara received a cake that said “Summa — Laude Class of 2018”
The computer deemed her graduation cake “obscene” and censored out the “offensive” word.
And here’s the thing is. These cakes are decorated by hand, by a human being. In this case, they must have either not noticed the obvious error here, or decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to correct.
This was a bad outcome for the customer.
And it’s easy to blame the computer system, or the over-reliance on it.
But that’s not the whole story. It’s only a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Employees at this store are either not empowered or completely uninterested in making sure customer orders are right.
This is NOT a natural state for a human being. But it can be VERY easily created by over-dependence on systems, rules, and rigid procedures.
If every day, you come in to work and are told, “don’t think, just write the words the computer spits out on the cake,” you’ll probably end up doing exactly that.
Further, they’re probably punished somehow when they “fail” to write the words exactly as the computer shows.
They’re just another example of a person who has been turned into a Business NPC.
Conventional customer service, with its rigid rules, procedures, and associated rewards and punishments breeds NPC’s almost by definition.
It’s the only way to survive working in this sort of place.
If you’ve been reading my writing for a while, the solution is obvious. Lighten up.
Keep things simple.
A human who isn’t allowed to think isn’t really a human anymore. They’re a liability. As this poor cake department found out the hard way.
Build a business, and a customer service department, where humans and (when necessary) procedures work TOGETHER.
When either completely overtakes the other, problems result.
— Mark
P.S. The 80/20 Service Guide is coming NEXT WEEK!
I show you everything you need to build a simple, effective, and PROFITABLE customer service department AND business (it’s all connected)
Pre-order now and get 50% off the regular price. And I’ll send you the first chapter TODAY.
Get it here: https://gumroad.com/l/rkbth/preorder
P.P.S. Look for more “customer service horror stories” like this coming soon. Along with success stories (not everyone gets it wrong!)
And feel free to send me your own best (or worst) stories. I may use them in a future post.
