As originally published in BusinessWeek, this is the third and final installment in a series about improving corporate decision-making. Part 1. Part 2.
What about the customer-service representative at the very bottom of the hierarchy? We all know what happens when we get a voice at other end of the line who is clearly following the manual and making no decisions – “I’m sorry, sir, the policy doesn’t allow me to do that.” That is, for us, the absolute definition of dreadful service – we loathe that experience. We know from experience that the customer-service representative must be a choice-making brain as well.
So every single person in the corporation, from the CEO at the top of the hierarchy to the customer-service representative at the bottom, is a choice-making brain. The distinction between formulation and implementation is false. Most importantly, the dominant design metaphor for the decision factory is deeply, deeply flawed – and a flawed design metaphor will produce flawed designs.
A superior metaphor for the modern decision-factory corporation is a white-water river. In this conceptualization, choices cascade from the top of the corporation (the source in the mountains) to the bottom (the mouth of the river). Each set of rapids is a choice point, with each “upstream” choice setting a context in which the choice immediately “downstream” is made. As decisions cascade downward, the choice-maker above must set the context for the choice-maker below by:
1) specifying her choice and the rationale for the choice;
2) describing the resultant next-level choice that her decision begets;
3) offering to assist in making the resultant choice, to the extent that the next choice-maker needs the assistance; and
4) offering to revisit and modify her decision if the user finds it impossible to make a productive next-level choice in the context of her decision.
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. Within this cascade of choices, executives at the top of the corporation make the broader, more abstract choices involving larger, long-term investments, while the employees toward the bottom make more concrete, day-to-day decisions that directly influence customer service and satisfaction.
All the choices must integrate with each other to create a seamless cascade. Hence, all the choice-makers feel they’re in a joint venture, even though there’s a clear hierarchy from top to bottom. Importantly, in this conceptualization, every employee is both brains and arms and legs, chooser and doer – just like a real human being!
This conceptualization is also much more conducive to decision-design excellence. When the corporation is understood as a choice cascade, it’s clear to each decision-maker exactly who the users of their choices are and what types of choices those users will need to make subsequently. Since they’re all in the choice cascade together, each decision-maker is more inclined to gain deep user understanding rather than “throwing the choice over the wall” for “implementation.” Deep user understanding provides more raw materials for the visualization of creative solutions.
POSSIBILITY KNOCKS. The cascade also creates a more conducive context for collaborative prototyping. Feedback from the downstream users who are more clearly linked together in a collaborative venture encourages the revisiting and the refinement of upstream decisions over time. The result is a more robustly designed loop of data, insights, and choices that flows from the customer to the top of the corporation and back down again in a productive circle.
A better design metaphor doesn’t guarantee better design. But abandoning the brain vs. arms and legs for the cascading river opens up the possibility for better decision design, leading to creative customer solutions and a healthier, more authentic corporate culture.
Click here to read this article in its entirety at BusinessWeek.com.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Customer service can be a thankless job, especially over the phone, but my feeling is that if the person answering the phone isn’t prepared to respond to a plethora of questions, they shouldn’t be answering the phone. I’ve worked in customer service and it’s horrible to fear the phone every time it rings, not knowing what the request is going to be on the other end of the line and whether or not you’ll be caught unawares. You can practically hear customer service reps smile and sigh with relief when your query is one they know the answer to. Customers are happier when they can be accommodated quickly, and customer service reps are good at their jobs when they are given the attention, training, and knowledge to make judgment calls and answer as many questions as possible. Full circle.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I agree with Elizabeth on most of what she says, but wish to point out that many companies just don’t think this through enough – or simply do not care.
In many industries, there is not sufficient competition or incentive to either care about the customers enough to provide genuinely good customer service (which means empowering that person on the end of the phone line to actually make decisions which make customers happy).
I have worked in Call Centres which are now reduced to hiring foreign students who can barely speak English because everyone else has moved onto better jobs.They pay minimum wage and treat both staff and customers like dirt. I hope they close down and go bankrupt in a few years when the demographic tide REALLY goes out on them.
Check out this link for the worst of such companies I worked for – http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21502350-2,00.html
I worked for such places whilst studying at Uni (college), and because I certainly didn’t see it as a career option, decided I would gain value out of each role by doing the best I could for each customer who called.
The result? In my last job, my customer satisfaction ratings were 92% – but they wanted to sack me because I “wasn’t fast enough”.
But I no longer care – because such firms are not far off being dead meat in an open world