At your service

The tricky thing about amazing service is that it means something different to every client. Hellen Ward explores how we can make it more personal and intuitive

You’re never too old to let a real-life experience change your perspective. I’ve recently returned from a dream holiday where I was lucky enough to stay in a fabulous hotel. I’m a creature of habit so it’s unusual for me to venture further than Ibiza; when I have time off, I tend to go back to my home from home.

It’s also a bit of a gamble to go by a word-of-mouth recommendation, and even riskier when you are travelling to the other side of the world. What if someone’s idea of perfect service isn’t yours? It’s so objective and personal.

I personally dislike overtly fussy service – you know the type, where the waiter hovers and refills your water glass before you have a chance to put it down on the table. I also detest anything scripted or insincere. Regular readers will know my hatred of the “that’s OK” response from the service giver instead of “you’re welcome” or “my pleasure” to the service receiver who says the obligatory “thank you”.

The trouble with service is that you simply can’t create a one-size-fits-all approach to it. One of the brands we are customers of once commissioned a survey letting us know (who’s the customer here?!) what they thought of our service on an anonymous feedback basis. They had the nerve to tell me we scored badly because we didn’t answer the phone within three rings. I couldn’t help but chuckle that they’d rather missed the point. “But did we answer it sincerely, and genuinely?”, I ventured. “Yes”, they said, but the person didn’t trot out a scripted response, so we scored badly on that too.

The hotel I stayed in was perfect. The service was understated, unobtrusive, natural and sincere… hiding discreetly in the background, always omnipresent, but never in your face. When I was chatting with the manager, he said that his aim was for the team to provide “emotive and intuitive” customer care. It hit me that this was what perfect service really means – pre-empting, empathy, matching speed and pace, and none of that can be written on a script. It has to come from the heart. Think of that scene in Love Actually where Alan Rickman is being driven mad by Rowan Atkinson, who’s wrapping a gift for him. He wants it done quickly, but the cashier is determined to go by the book and fill the jewellery bag with pot-pourri, ribbons and bows, much to his frustration.

Personal touch

Matching the customer’s speed and pace is critical. That’s why one size can never fit all, however much we try to standardise things. For every client that wants to chat and enjoy their personal experience, there’s another who wants to whizz in and out with minimal interaction and no fuss. Neither is right or wrong, it’s individual. Deciphering who wants what is the key.

My father was managing director of one of the country’s leading department stores in his prime, and responsible for introducing brands like Costa Coffee into the UK. He found Sergio Costa and his wife in a little coffee shop near Victoria station, where, upon missing his train home one night, he asked one of the guards where he could get a coffee. He pointed at a little coffee bar and told him he’d never get a better cup. The rest is history. My dad remained lifelong friends with Sergio and his family and read a eulogy at his funeral.

"FOR EVERY CLIENT that wants to chat and enjoy their PERSONAL EXPERIENCE there’s another who wants to whizz in and out with MINIMAL INTERACTION"

Dad had been to the US in the early ’70s and loved the concept of the mall, so he re-opened an old goods tunnel running through his store (Allders of Croydon) and introduced a dry cleaners, take-away coffee (Costa), a key cutters – all the things you might need as you were walking through on your way to or from work or on your lunchbreak. He also had a florist and a chocolatier (Leonidas – also its entry into the UK market). It was a phenomenal success and a trademark of the store at the height of its turnover.

Hands on

Recently, there was a post about my dad on Facebook from some of the team who worked under him. The comments had me welling up. Everyone said he was the best boss they ever had – “walked the floor every day”, “always said hello”, “never forgot anyone’s name”. It was so interesting to me that everyone said the same thing, remarking on how personable he was, and that his personal touch was remembered decades later. How you treat people matters – whether they are clients or team members – and it’s the little things people remember.

At the hotel, every breakfast, no matter who served me, they remembered how I liked my tea; at dinner, what wine I liked or what brand of gin I wanted. Those little details can’t be scripted and only come from a level of detail that someone at the helm is really focused on.

There was uproar recently when it emerged that the newly appointed manager of one of London’s largest railway stations was working from home… from Scotland. How can that possibly be OK? How can anything get noticed if you don’t meet and greet the passengers and staff? If you don’t walk the floor? Has the world gone even madder that someone can work from home running a customer-facing operation from a different devolved country? Miles away in the Indian ocean, I realised I need to make sure I walk the floor a little more and take a leaf out of what I learned in paradise – because it really does matter.