Set the Stage for Continuous Improvement

Ron Kaufman - 8/30/11

With the right roadmap to align leadership and education to reinforce a shared vision, mission and values, companies can build a culture to uplift spirits and performance.

US Airways: Service on the Ground

US Airways’ primary goal is to provide reliable service, and to meet this goal each employee’s skill and attitude is critical.

When employees are motivated to constantly learn and improve their performance, it enables their employers to continuously transform and remain competitive. That’s why more organizations have devoted time and resources to building a service culture that will encourage employees to look for new ways to create value for customers and colleagues.

For example, the employees at Xerox Emirates understand the importance of taking action when things go wrong, turning complaints into compliments and transforming problems into opportunities to earn loyalty. This was not the case before 2008. Xerox had an in-house customer care management system that used root-cause analysis to determine the source of a customer’s problems, and charged the cost of resolution to that area, team or department.

Employees used this system reluctantly, fearing it was a management tool to assign blame and allocate cost. The system was scrapped in 2008 as Xerox Emirates began a company-wide initiative called Bounce! to reframe complaints as opportunities to increase loyalty.

Promoting Continuous Improvement
Upon completing service recovery efforts, Xerox asks the customer: “Given the situation you faced and the action we have taken to respond, are you now more or less loyal to Xerox?”

This question focuses all employees on responding quickly and generously to customer complaints, aligns the organization to create positive customer experiences even when under pressure, and sends a clear message to customers that Xerox values their business for the long term. The financial results speak for themselves: a YTD monthly revenue growth of 32 percent, 53 percent gross profit growth and 52 percent net profit growth.

“Today our staff members feel liberated to bring customer complaints forward quickly, suggest new ideas for resolution, and even take faster and more innovative action on their own,” said Andrew Hurt, general manager at Xerox Emirates. “Our managers are far more thoughtful and creative when deciding what recovery action to take for the customers that are affected.”

There are many ways to achieve continuous improvement by eliminating waste, but in a world where products are commoditized faster than ever, and processes are easily copied, service is the one domain where an organization can achieve sustainable competitive advantage.