Is the Magic Gone?
We may not believe in magic, but some of our customers perceive that from us. When their aircraft has a problem they receive it back and the problem has disappeared, “it’s magically gone.” It took a lot of work blended with experience to make that magical moment happen. A pilot with an airline will not witness that magical moment because the aircraft they flew in will more than likely not be the aircraft they will fly out. All they know is that everything works. Just like the passengers, all they care about is the fact that everything works. Customer service and quality go hand in hand; the airline pilot will not perceive quality when things aren’t working and the passenger when they are confronted with poor customer service. They will also notice when they receive more than they expected, like superior customer service.
The moral of this little story is that quality and customer service are typically invisible. They are only noticed when it is poor quality, exceptionally good quality or a surprise. Quality and customer service deliver what the customer wants, in a time they want, at the price they are willing to pay. A change in any of those parameters sends a signal to the customer and the quality and/or customer service light bulb goes on. When we go to the gas station and fill up our car, we don’t notice anything because services are provided. However, we notice it now because the price has gone up dramatically and our satisfaction has gone down, even though the service has not changed except for the price. When you go to a nice steak restaurant and they tell you they only have french fries and not baked potatoes, you are disappointed. A steak restaurant should have baked potatoes. When you break the coffee carafe for your coffee maker and the manufacturer tells you that carafe is on back order and won’t be available for six months, you start to rethink your choice of coffee maker brands. The manufacturer should have parts on hand — especially those that are fragile and easily breakable. You tell your friends your experience and they may change their decision to buy that same brand of coffee maker.
However, what you previously would perceive as poor service or quality can slowly creep up and you might not notice it happening. You can be conditioned. If the price of gas went up one cent per week, you would not feel the impact of a 52-cent increase at the end of the year. If gas went up 25 cents in a day, you would take notice. Over the years, everything has gone up in price and many things have gone down in quality and/or customer service.
In small organizations, the technician may have direct contact with the customer and this is reminiscent of the days prior to the industrial revolution. Prior to the industrial revolution, customers dealt directly with the merchant or craftsman. There was a personal relationship and you don’t want to disappoint someone you actually know on a first-name basis and who is going to use your product. Back then, that magical moment was immediate and the craftsman or merchant received instantaneous feedback from the customer, good or bad. If he wanted to remain in business, he made changes to meet the customer’s demands. The small organizations, if they are smart, have preserved and capitalized on that concept. It’s called quality customer service and we have lost that in many big businesses.
In larger organizations, the craftsman is disconnected from the customer and is accountable to an internal customer, a supervisor or manager. If the internal customer’s requirements are in alignment with the external customer, everything should work out well — but in many cases, that alignment is distorted and the process is dysfunctional because of impractical micro-quotas. The post office is a prime example. What kind of reaction do you get from the postal worker when you go in to buy stamps? It’s typically total disinterest: give me your money, here are your stamps, get out, next. It is as if you were dealing with a robot. You are not perceived as a customer because their pay is reliant upon their supervisor. There is a disconnect somewhere in that system and it isn’t getting to the us, the customers.
Many businesses have gone to automated customer service. Why not? Big business has already turned many customer service personnel into automatons. (See previous postal worker scenario.) Why pay a person when a machine can do the same thing?Or can it? It’s fine when it works but it often drives customers nuts, “All I want to do is talk to a person!” Oh, you want to talk to a real flesh and blood person? “Yes!” That will cost you $25. “What?” This is big business telling you, “Here is your real-life customer service — I hope you choke on it.”
It looks like the smaller businesses are being economically pushed out of business by the larger, cheaper and less-personable big businesses. I guess this is progress.
Has anyone flown an airline lately? If you are my age, you remember how it was 25 or 30 years ago and you wonder what happened. Service with a smile has turned into, “Get on the plane, listen to the automated safety announcement, buckle up and shut up.” If it’s a three-hour flight, you might get a drink and a bag of nuts while you’re sitting next to some guy in shorts, a tank top and shower clogs. I guess that’s appropriate attire. You dress differently if you’re in a nice restaurant compared to McDonalds. Even if you are in first class, you get the privilege of flying facing backwards in the newer interiors, and that’s weird. You feel like you are on the L train in Chicago. Oh yes, with the new configuration your carry-on baggage no longer fits in the interior overhead bins, as they now only have room for a large wallet. Again, you see quality and customer service only when it slaps you in the face and wakes you up.
You get that feeling that this can’t be by accident. No company can be that detached from the customer. The airlines must have a master planning department where the employees are ex-Candid Camera writers whose sole purposes are to devise ways to upset passengers. A well-to-do friend of mine, who always flies first class between Chicago and Hawaii, was given a plastic fork and knife with a rather well-done steak dinner in flight. There has to be someone with a hidden camera on board, filming the passengers struggling to cut their steaks. Again, this can’t be by accident; it’s too coordinated, too well planned. Flying is no longer an experience; it’s just plain transportation. Maybe the airlines are thinking, “What the heck, the spark in this flying thing is gone? Let’s have some fun with it while we can.”
It has been said that out of chaos comes progress. I don’t see it happening. There are occasions where chaos only breeds more chaos. Managers are taking the fun out of dysfunctional. The longer we are exposed to poor service, the more likely we are to accept it as the new norm and the paradigm shifts. Have you ever walked into a room that stunk, but after you had been in there for a while, you didn’t notice the stink anymore? Same principle.
What do you do? When you receive bad service, you say something about it. It might fall on deaf ears and nothing might change, but you at least have expressed your opinion. One person can make a difference. You have to be persistent.
I still am confronted with those magic moments once in a while. On a two-hour flight in coach on Continental Airlines just prior to the merger, the flight attendant asked if I wanted a sandwich. I was kind of hungry and reluctantly said, “yes,” wondering if I had to take out a second mortgage for this sandwich. I asked her how much I owed as I reached for my wallet. “There’s no charge, it’s free,” said the flight attendant. Free? You’re kidding.
I met my magic moment — but sadly, it’s gone now.
Patrick Kinane joined the Air Force after high school and has worked in aviation since 1964. Kinane is a certified A&P with IA and holds an FAA license and commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating. He earned a bachelor of science degree in aviation maintenance management, MBA in quantitative methods, master of science degree in education and Ph.D. in organizational psychology. He has been involved with 121 carriers and held positions from aircraft mechanic to director of maintenance. Kinane currently works as senior quality systems auditor for AAR Corp. and adjunct professor for DeVry University instructing in organizational behavior, total quality management (TQM) and critical thinking. PlaneQA is his consulting company that specializes in quality and safety system audits and training. Speaking engagements are available with subjects in critical thinking, quality systems and organizational behavior. For more information, visit www.PlaneQA.com.