BackExtract | Organisational Schizophrenia
Why companies fall short of fulfilling their customer care promise, and what they can do to fix it
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Engaged to the job
Gopal K. Gureja’s Organisational Schizophrenia: Impact on Customer Service Quality is partly autobiographical. Everyone, he says, has at some point faced poor customer support, a deviation from the promise made at the time of purchase. And he’s no exception. In Organisational Schizophrenia, Gureja details some first-hand experiences of the breakdown of customer services in reputed companies, as a trigger to talk about the “misalignment in (customer care) policy and practice".
Gureja has worked in a policy formulation role, where his mandate included evolving and implementing customer care policies, with air compressor manufacturer KG Khosla & Co.—later merged into Kirloskar Pneumatics Ltd—and engineering solutions company Thermax Ltd. He is also the author of Creating Customer Value: The Synergy Between After-sales Service And Maintenance (1997).
In a chapter titled “Getting Employees Emotionally Engaged", he shares tips on how firms can engage employees in a more meaningful way so that they in turn care more about their customers. Edited excerpts:
Every decision that a company makes works its way through one or more drivers of employee engagement to either enhance or dent the level of engagement of the affected employees. It is immaterial whether the decision relates to change of policy or operating practices. It does not matter whether it is change of organizational structure or product design, or whether it applies throughout the company or to the part of an organization. The same is true of the management’s day-to-day actions in dealing with the work situations or customer issues. Every action can considerably enhance the level of employee engagement if:
uIt empowers people to gain better control over their key result areas and work-life balance.
u It provides better information at the point of action.
u It provides clarity of one’s contribution towards meeting the company’s overall business objectives.
u Ensures timely availability of required back-end support enabling the customer-contact employees to hold data-based interaction with the customer.
uHigh level of employee engagement is adopted as a core value and the employees feel reassured that their work matters.
uDiscussions and ideation are encouraged, to get the employees to stay engaged.
uManagers are prompted to pay guaranteed attention to their people...
u There is continual education related to job as well as personal skills.
uThe organization opens the ajar doors fully and people feel free to have their say and be heard.
u There is exchange of feedback on an ongoing basis and action thereof.
u Stories of employees’ good work, management’s sticking to core values, extraordinary initiatives...resonate within the company and outside...
Employees are considered to be highly engaged when, at many different levels of hierarchy, they feel fully involved and enthusiastic about their job and their organization. If you look at the history of some of the companies particularly reputed for exceptional quality of customer service you will find “emotional intelligence" as a common thread running through them.
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