Service Netting
Imagine we’re at Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba in Downtown Disney. One of the best parts of the show is a spectacular team of trapeze artists. They are excellent—even phenomenal—but even the best performer risks the possibility of falling at some point.
Imagine that management at La Nouba decides (because of the cost and hassle) not to provide a net—after all, it’s the trapeze artist’s fault if they fall! Management is willing to install a sign near the phone backstage to call 911 in the event of an emergency. In fact, they even say that should anyone need to call, let management know, and they will call 911 themselves (that way, we don’t have people calling unnecessarily).
Sound ridiculous? Certainly! The analogy emphasizes how organizations typically fix customer service scenarios. They provide for service recovery in the event something goes wrong. They emphasize that management should handle that service recovery so that no one takes advantage of the system.
The fact is customers experience challenges—including mistakes of their own making. Proactively anticipating issues and challenges is a term I call Service Netting. Responding after the fact is often referred to as Service Recovery. There should be both a net and a phone on hand, but most only think about the response afterwards, rather than creating a net so that it doesn’t happen in the first place.
Disney does many things that act as service nets to keep customers from having problems later on. Some of them I’ve mentioned before, such as a tip board near the central plaza of the park that allows guests to make choices as to how they want to spend their time so they aren’t frustrated walking all over the park only to discover how long the queues are.
Here are some other excellent ways Disney approaches service netting. Many of these are processes that make it easier for guests to do business with them. Let’s take a look:
Removing Service Barriers
Imagine you arrive at Epcot’s World Showcase China Pavilion at midday. As you shop through the streets and stores, you come across a beautiful ivory lamp. It’s perfect for your home. You would like to purchase it but were planning on spending the rest of the day in the park. What do you do? Do you purchase it and carry it around all day? Do you wait and come back at the end of the day? What if you aren’t passing by the store later? What if the store has closed by the time you return? Making a large purchase like this may feel punitive rather than rewarding.
The good news is that Disney removes the service barriers. They provide a service that allows you make your purchase and then pick up the item as you exit the park later in the day. Resort guests can even pick up their purchases at their hotel the following day. For a nominal fee guests can even make arrangements to have it shipped directly home. It’s all part of removing service barriers for their customers.
Ask yourself, what barriers keep our customers from taking advantage of the products and services we offer? What no-cost, low-cost, or cost-competitive options can we provide that support the services we provide?
Removing Service Run-Arounds
Have you ever experienced the following:
- Waiting for people to get back to you with the answer you need.
- Having to dial through an endless phone tree to get your response.
- Being shuffled from one department to another.
- Being told “We don’t handle that” or “We’re just the vendor”.
We all hate service runarounds. Anticipating and providing solutions so the customer doesn’t have to experience it is an important part of providing exceptional service.
Here’s what that looks like at Disney. Imagine your child loves Pocahontas and wants to visit with her. Where can we go to see Pocahontas? At Walt Disney World, she could be many places—she could be in a parade, she could be in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, she could be in the Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland, she could be at a character meal in Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Where do you go and when?
Ask any cast member! They have access to a special phone number; the last four digits spell CHIP as in the rambunctious Disney characters, Chip and Dale. By calling that number, cast members can find out where any Disney character may be on any occasion. This not only removes the service runaround, it makes the cast member a hero to that family—all because they were armed with the solution they needed to help support the guest experience.
Ask yourself, what service process in our organization requires streamlining so that customers aren’t helpless in getting the support they need? How do we communicate those one-stop service solutions so that both the customer and the employee know where to go? How have we educated our organization that the buck stops on the first call the customer makes to us and that there is no passing it off to others?
Redundant Service Systems
Imagine you are in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom. You want to take your child on their very first ride on Space Mountain. You get to the attraction and there’s an hour wait with no Fastpass available. No matter, you came to ride Space Mountain, so you get in line and wait. When you get to the front of the queue and are preparing to board you are told that the child is too short to ride. You become frustrated and upset that you’ve waited in line for so long and now you are being turned away.
Of course, this seldom happens (if ever). Why? Disney has done many things to communicate the height requirement of the attractions. It’s stated at the entrance to the attraction, it’s stated at the tip board, it’s stated in the park guide; and if that isn’t enough, they staff a greeter to anticipate such situations. With these redundant service systems in place the cumulative effect largely removes the chance that one will wait in line only to be turned away.
What if a child gets to the park and finds out that the attraction has a height requirement and can’t board? As a recovery measure, greeters have access to a special certificate, themed to Space Mountain and signed by Mickey Mouse himself that guarantees the child and his or her party may go to the front of the line and board the attraction when the child has reached the appropriate height.
Ask yourself, what redundant systems do we have in place to support those customers who are not successfully getting through the system? What processes do we have in place to make certain that a customer doesn’t get too far along before realizing that particular products or services are not available to them?
Building our own Service Nets
We all have need of building service nets in our own organization, even Disney isn’t perfect. We can all do more. Let me give you an example. I’m dealing with a huge organization focused on improving customer service and complier treatment. They have a call center to handle billing problems. Much of their time is spent trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of time customers wait on hold to have their calls answered. They monitor calls to keep them as brief as possible so as to reduce that almighty number that shows the average length of call; and they want to increase the number of staff so as to further reduce the wait customers might have.
There is nothing inherently wrong with doing this. But consider the following: What if a call center representative took a little more time for those who really needed the help? Wouldn’t it keep the customer from perhaps calling again later? Secondly, what if we focused more of our attention on identifying solutions that give customers the information they need so that they don’t have to call the customer service hotline in the first place? That kind of focus is service netting-oriented rather than the service recovery scenario founded on how to handle customers when they call in with their problems.
Ask yourself the following:
- What safety nets could you provide your customers? Even when it’s their fault and they made the mistake?
- What are you currently doing to provide service recovery? What could be done to anticipate this problem before it occurs?
- What are customers/compliers most often complaining about? How can you respond proactively?
- Who do you need to collaborate with in the organization to make this happen? With whom do you need to communicate? Where does this show up internally as well as externally?
- What do you need to do differently to hold up your part of the net? What conversations need to be had with those not holding up their part of the net?
- A net is composed of many strands of rope woven together. Do you need more than one solution (one strand of rope)?
Take a look at your own organizations. You’ll find that nets can be some of the most powerful magic you can create in your own business.
