Imagine a future in which technology has evolved to a point that service providers no longer need human interaction to deliver value. Cashiers replaced by sensors and touchscreens; customer support professionals replaced by automated responses and tutorials; teachers replaced by videos, online curriculum and digital games. This future already exists. It is now. And, it’s not uncommon to hear people gripe about it being cold and impersonal. But, I argue that it doesn’t have to be that way, and moreover, it won’t be. These cold and impersonal interactions are a result of a service provider’s failure to properly design their service. And, if you look closely, you’ll notice the market is constantly making corrections to these failures.
“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.” — Arthur C. Clarke
Here is personal anecdote that illustrates the issue.
Recently, I was at a Panera Bread restaurant. They had these new self-order stations that are equipped with touchscreen tablets. You click around the onscreen menu, going through different categories of food and drink, until you’ve built your choice meal.
One of the four stations was off-line. There was no sign on it stating that it was out of order. Several people, including myself, scurried up to the open station thinking we could get our orders in fast and efficiently, only to have our hopes dashed by a black, unresponsive screen.
There was one employee working at the actual cash register. She had a line of three or four people waiting, so I opted to give technology another chance.
I jumped in line behind two women, a mother and daughter. The mother was of the Boomer generation and the daughter somewhere on the line between Gen-X and Millennial. The mother wanted to peruse the menu to see what struck her fancy and the daughter was navigating for her. It sounded something like this:
“I’d like that sandwich but not a whole one. Maybe I could do a half with soup. What are the soup options? I’m not feeling like any of those soups. Go back to salads. You know what; did they have wraps? Where would wraps be? Do they have that panini as a wrap?”
The process had them both agitated.
When they finished, both shot me a half smile that read, “Sorry for the delay, and good friggin’ luck”.
I stepped up to the self-order station knowing that my utter mastery of modern technology would make this ordering process a breeze. Immediately, I began to understand the frustrations of the mother and daughter. There were about ten menu categories to choose from and to view one meant drilling down into just one of the ten sub-menu screens. Imagine if you were using an average printed menu except every time you wanted to flip the page you had to close the menu and then reopen it to your new page. Not totally foreign – just cumbersome. I knew what I wanted so I click straight into sandwiches.
“I want this one sandwich – I think it had ham – maybe not ham – not seeing anything familiar – can’t hold-up the line – need to pick something – ahh – bacon – that’ll do.”
Feeling a little stressed but still triumphant I moved on to selecting my side. But it didn’t ask about a side. It just defaulted to bread. I would have rather had chips and I knew that was an option from previous experience at this restaurant chain, but I had no idea how to fix it, so just moved on – selected my drink and then on to the checkout.
I slid my card; “ERROR; CANNOT COMPLETE ORDER”, the screen tells me.
Under the error box I could see that there were four gift cards in my basket. I did not want gift cards—no idea why they were there.
I clicked out of the error message and it tells me; “YOUR ORDER IS COMPLETE”. It didn’t give me a receipt. I was confused at this point.
Not having any clue what I had just ordered – or if in-fact I ordered anything at all – I got in line to speak with the employee at the front counter. I waited patiently for the three people ahead of me to place their order. When it as my turn I explained the confusion at the self-order station and the cashier had no idea how to help. Luckily, someone in the back – probably a manager – heard my problem and came out to help.
“Tell me your name and I’ll check for it on the order que,” she said.
“Well – my name is Martin, but on the screen, it called me Ashley,” I responded.
Ashley is my wife. She obviously had been to this location and had better luck with the tech.
“Yeah, we have your order. It will be out in a moment,” said the employee.
Feeling not quite reassured, I decide to trust the process and take my seat with a group of team members who I was there to meet. Four of the five other people in my group had their own story of confusion in the ordering process. The fifth–who had a pleasant experience–had bypassed the self-order station and placed her order with the cashier.
My point with this anecdote is not to call out the Panera Bread Company for having poor service. On the contrary actually, I applaud them for taking risks and attempting to improve efficiency. This story is meant to serve as an example of what many service providers and their customers are going through in our technologically transitional times.
It begs the question; where does one draw the line between personal service and impersonal self-service or automation? People vs. Tech.
To answer this question, we must first address another. The real question any service provider should be asking themselves before implementing new tech is this: Who does the tech add value for? It’s a simple question with a simple answer, and possibly endlessly complex implications. Here is the simple answer; any new tech you add to your company’s processes must add value for all who interact with it, and for everyone downstream of the processes that are affected. Simplified further; your tech should benefit employees, customers, and company owner/shareholders. Let’s walk through each party involved and we’ll see how failing to add value for any of them results in failure of the technology initiative.
Value to the Employee
It is an absolute must that your employees have buy-in on any process they are involved in. Without the support of employees, your plans for technological innovation will fail. However, show your employees the value they will receive from adopting a new technology and you’ll be met by eager support.
Change can be hard. But, change is a lot less difficult when you understand and support its purpose. When building strong organizations and processes it’s important for employees to understand purpose – why they do what they do. This idea of focusing on purpose works on every scale, small to large, and is as true for process changes and adopting new technology as it is for leading entire organizations.
“Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders—in that order.” — Simon Sinek
The concept behind this practice of purpose based leadership is best explained by author Simon Sinek’s Start with Why. For an in-depth understanding you can watch the TED talk here, but the basic idea is that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
Yes, there are some people out there who will just do and never question why. They are exceptions. In general, once a person’s basic needs are met, purpose becomes a significant motivator in their life.
“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” — Simon Sinek
In practice—when deploying new technology in your organization, communicate “why” in-order to create buy-in from employees. Articulate how the technology will help them achieve their goals and the goals of the company. Show them how the change will save time, create autonomy, simplify workflow, etc… If the tech doesn’t add value for the employee using it, then it won’t add value for your customers or your shareholders.
Value to the Customer
As a service leader, you should already have a very clear picture of who your core customer is and possess an understanding of how they operate. If you don’t understand the motivations of your core customers, get back to the drawing board because you can’t design your service without it. For example: In the HVAC Service field, I know that my core customer is of the baby boomer generation, they own their home, and they appreciate high quality service interactions. I know that this consumer group controls 70 percent of the disposable income in the US and stands to inherit $15 trillion in the next twenty years. And, I know that about 82% of them belong to at least one social media site.
When bringing new technology into your service process it is vital that you deliver the same quality of service that your customer has come to expect, or better. Think about those self-checkouts you see at most large retailers. When they first started popping up it seemed like a great idea. Then people started trying to use them and the retailers and consumers alike quickly realized that the process had a value loss effect on customers. The retailers had designed a process that forced customers to learn how to be checkers and baggers but didn’t offer any value in return.
So, what incentive does the customer have to deal with the friction of this impersonal process rather than going to a human checker?
Introversion? No. It should be efficiency. It was supposed to be efficiency!
In effect, early self-checkout technology put the customer to work. It made them learn something that was previously the service provider’s job, and this created friction. So, the savvy retailers did what they do best, they adapted, and they did it with impressive efficiency. Now, almost every self-checkout you’ll see has an employee posted nearby, ready to lend a helping hand. This employee adds just a bit of personal service to the process which diminishes friction in the customer experiences in two ways. One, the learning curve is reduced because someone is there to educate and assist you. Two, the customer can have comfort in fact that if something were to go wrong, an employee will be there to quickly work it out.
Now that the friction has been reduced in the self-checkout process, its efficiency is more apparent, and it is easier for customers to see the value. Of course, not every customer is of the same mind. Among consumers there are huge disparities in technological comfort and adoption. If the customer would rather have an employee handle the whole process, they have that option as well. When integrating new tech, this is the balance that service providers must strive for. Technology must be designed into a process to a level at which the customer can perceive value from it. Panera, in our example above, could have benefited from this insight discovered by the big retailers. If there had been an attendant available to smooth over the process at the self-order stations, no less than eight people in that day, in that hour alone, would have perceived more value in their transaction.
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” — Warren Buffett
Consider the effect that your company’s processes have on its customers. Integrate only technology that is either non-disruptive to the customer experience or technology that improves the value that your customer perceives. Never make the customer do work or learn something that doesn’t create some form of immediate value for them. People will remember how they feel about a service provider even when they don’t remember the details of past interactions, so make sure they feel value.
The Owner/Shareholder
A stakeholder is anyone who has interest in the success of an organization. Stakeholders can be groups or individuals and can include community groups, vendors, employees, creditors, shareholders, and owners. Someone like an owner/shareholder is a high-level stakeholder compared to someone in a local community group so let’s just focus on the high stakes players.
I talk with starry-eyed, idealistic employees all the time, who think they can sell their expensive ideas based on; “it would be nice if,” or “it would be cool if”. These are statements of perceived value that don’t reflect any real value to the company’s shareholders. It should go without saying that any plans to implement new technology in your business must benefit the company’s owner/shareholders and the value for this party is equal to the bottom line.
Perceived value can absolutely have a positive effect on the bottom line. Look at the stock market for example. The stock market runs on perceived value. Stocks are not priced at what they are worth—the intrinsic value. The market value of a stock is whatever people are willing to pay—a perceived value.
Laying out the intrinsic value of new tech for your shareholders should be simple. This will be the clearly measurable and quantifiable results.
The perceived value new tech can create can be quantifiable too. Lay out all the ways your tech plans will translate into higher margins, increased employee and customer loyalty, and improved efficiency. Always focus on how to deliver these and other measurable results to gain buy-in from your owners and shareholders.
Never lose sight of this fact; technology is a tool. The result of any tool’s use is a reflection of the skill and behavior of whomever used the tool. To this end; technology can complicate or simplify. It can make us distant or bring us together. It can be a crutch that we use to prop up our mediocre service, or a lever we use to amplify our service strength.
Be mindful of how your use of technology personally impacts each person in contact with it; customer, employee, and owner/shareholder. Design your service to integrate technology that simplifies process and amplifies value. This is the winning formula for blending technology and personal service.
HOME SERVICE LEADER 
wow!! 77Adapt to Win: AI for Home Service
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