The Performance Improvement Blog

Complacency in the Cockpit?

Two Northwest Airlines pilots may have been asleep at the wheel when their Minneapolis-bound plane overshot its destination by 150 miles before they realized what had happened, turned the plane around, and returned to their destination. One national TV commentator speculated that since many passenger jets today have the technology to essentially fly themselves, this may have been a case of pilots becoming complacent and not fully doing their job of closely monitoring the plane’s performance. In a previous blog post, I labeled this kind of behavior the “complacency syndrome.”

Airplane pilots are not the only employees who risk complacency. Staying with air-travel examples, I have noticed TSA employees being more interested in socializing with their co-workers than paying attention to the repetitive and mind-numbing task of checking people and their luggage day after day. And flight attendants, who have to announce safety instructions at the beginning of every flight, doing this sounding like they couldn’t care less about safety. And luggage handlers who, over time, become careless and lackadaisical in their treatment of passengers’ precious goods, which leads to lost and damaged property. It’s unpleasant and annoying to passengers when flight attendants and luggage handlers suffer from the complacency syndrome; it’s life-threatening when TSA officers and airline pilots have this disease.   

Customer Service at Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Examples of outstanding customer service, where an organization truly puts the customer first and it’s not just marketing rhetoric, are rare these days. Often, a company’s complicated automated phone system is what they try to pass for a commitment to the customer. So when I was given “royal treatment” by an Enterprise Rent-A-Car company employee this week, I was taken aback. This employee managed to keep my day from turning into what could have been a disaster.

It all began with a car in my garage that wouldn’t start. AAA sent a tow truck driver to my house. He arrived promptly and, knowing the peculiarities of my 2000 Volvo, got the engine going in a matter of minutes. So far, so good. Not wanting to take a chance on the battery dying again, I immediately drove the car to my dealership, expecting to replace the battery and be on my way in a short time and back to my office for a full day of work. But once the car was up on the rack, the mechanic found a number of other serious problems (all legitimate) and he said that he needed to keep it for the whole day. The dealership offered to arrange a car for me to use. I accepted the offer but I was thinking that this was going to set me back hours. Within a few minutes, Tom Cosgrove showed up with a van to take this frustrated car owner to the Ann Arbor office of Enterprise. Once in the office, Tom immediately began to do the paperwork to set me up with a car and get me on my way as quickly as possible. The only problem was, I couldn’t find my driver’s license which was missing from my wallet. I was a bit frantic thinking about the legal implications of this situation. “No problem,” Tom said. He would drive me to my house to look for my license. All of the other employees at Enterprise looked like this was normal operating procedure. So back into the van we went, drove across town, and arrived at my house only to discover that I didn’t have my house key with me. “No problem,” Tom said. “I’ll wait while you get a key from your neighbor.” Fortunately my neighbor was home, found the spare key, and I got into my house.

After a frantic house search, going through the pockets of anything I had worn in the past several weeks, I failed to find my license. I went back to the waiting van, expecting to see annoyance in Tom’s face. To the contrary, he couldn’t have been more understanding. “No problem,” Tom said. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ll drive you to the Secretary of State’s office and you can get a duplicate license.” At this point, I didn't want to ask him to waste any more of his valuable time due to my mistakes, so I said that I would stay where I was. “No problem," Tom said, and back to his office he went. He couldn’t have been more cooperative and gracious the whole morning. I don’t know if Enterprise hires well, or trains well; it’s probably both. Enterprise lost money on me that day, but gained a loyal fan. (My driver’s license turned up the next day in my fax machine. Don’t ask.)

Amazon.com Continues to Put Customers First

This is no time to be short changing your customers. Amazon.com is a great example of the positive things that can happen when you continue to keep customers your primary focus. The company has not let the depressed economy become an excuse to stop doing the things that have made them successful. Fourth quarter sales at Amazon were up 18%. BusinessWeek recently put Amazon top on its list of this year's "customer service champs."

What are they doing that many other companies are not doing? First of all, they pay attention to the entire customer experience. And by customer, they mean everyone, including buyers, distributers, re-sellers, small merchants who sell through Amazon, and, as I know from my own experience, writers and publishers. Jeff Bezos, the Fortune 500 CEO with the mindset of a start-up entrepreneur, said in an interview with PBS Nightly Business Report's Scott Gurvey:

We didn’t do anything special to recognize this economy…we continue to focus on fundamental things we’ve focused on for 14 years: having the lowest price, having the biggest selection, and getting products to customers really quickly and accurately…Our whole mentality around how we run the company is to focus on obsessing over the customer rather than our competitors. We try to pay attention to our competitors, but we don’t obsess over them.

I have to assume that their customer service training is exceptional. Technology takes care of most of the buying process, but when there is a special request or problem, employees get involved. Their responses are consistent, decisive, and intended to satisfy customers even when it is a financial loss to the company in the short run. The proof of the effectiveness of this approach is in the numbers and reputation of this exceptional company.

Companies are making deep cuts across the board and doing anything they can to reduce costs. The customer experience and customer service are often victims of this slashing. Amazon is an example of a company that thinks differently about the economy and customers and, so far, has the evidence that proves them right.

Productivity Swap Bubble

And you thought "credit swaps" were bad! Wait until we get into the "productivity swap" bubble. This is the warning from John Psarouthakis, successful entrepreneur, and Tom Ferguson, musical entertainer. They say in Other Voices column of the January 12 issue of Crain's Detroit Business that the productivity of companies is shifting from employees to customers and this shift is not being recognized in measures of output. They write:

For every tick of productivity a customer expends, productivity ascribed to that company should be reduced two ticks: one because it didn't do the work, another because it outsourced the work, making it a debt.

This outsourcing of productivity is obvious to me...now that Psarouthakis and Ferguson have brought it to my attention. The classic is customers pumping gas, washing car windows,and checking oil at so-called "service stations". Also, customers must already know the answers to their own questions when calling an automated (so-called) "help desk" or else they won't get to the right information. Grocery stores are installing automated check-out stations where customers do all the work pricing and bagging groceries. Airlines penalize customers for not using online services to make their own travel arrangements and issue their own tickets and then airlines want customers to check their own bags at the airport. Book stores are rewarding their customers for ordering books online, thereby eliminating the need for knowledgeable, helpful store clerks. And, of course, there are the ubiquitous ATMs which have shifted the work of personal banking from tellers and bankers to bank customers.

The swap is on. What will happen when this productivity bubble bursts? Will we discover that our GNP has been a sham and that much of what was thought to be worker productivity is really customer productivity? Will there be a backlash against this shift? What effect will this have on our fragile economy?