IT as a customer-satisfying service

I recently spent a few days in meetings with some of my colleagues and one of our enterprise vendors. The discussions themselves were very productive, and we spent a lot of time talking about "IT as a service." In most IT conversations, this concept tends to focus on delivering IT applications and resources to end-users in a manner that enables self-management, access from anywhere, and a consumption-based financial model. The public cloud, for instance, is emblematic of IT as a service - it addresses all three factors in a way that benefits customers and providers alike. In a decentralized enterprise, IT as a service tends more toward providing IT resources centrally and enabling downstream admins or end-users to build services on top of those resources (e.g. a private cloud).

This approach helps balance many organization's needs for economies of scale and support for specific business requirements, and makes a lot of sense to me. However, delivering technical functions is only part of providing a service. Too often time isn't spent on the things that ensure customer satisfaction:

• Responding quickly and personally to incoming requests
• Following up on initial response with the appropriate communication and action
• Setting expectations for resolution and following through on those expectations
• Ultimately addressing the request quickly and enabling the customer

It's not that people don't think these are important. Certainly, when any person is the customer in such an interaction, these become vital. Ever deal with an issue with your cable, Internet, or phone company? Then you probably can pinpoint when you've been disappointed and on which item(s). And stories abound in general about how terrible customer service is across industries, or at best, inconsistent.

So what makes these so hard to do from the provider side? Or more importantly, what makes these so hard to do consistently? Again, it's not that people don't think it's important. I've rarely met anyone who didn't want to provide at least good service, and most want to offer great service.

More often than not, what gets in the way of providing great service is attempting to provide great service. Stay with me here. For (a somewhat extreme) example, the team may work very hard to resolve an unplanned outage by hunkering down in the server room and getting things up and running again. But at the same time, customers are waiting anxiously for any word on when they can get back to work. If no information is making it to the customer, than is the team providing great service? If you're on that team, you tend to think you are - after all, you were tirelessly laboring on behalf of your customers. But the customer perceives the following:

1. Service is down! I'm going to get behind on my work and have to make that up!
2. What's going on? When can I get back to work?
3. Is anything actually being done?
4. Finally! We're back up! What took so long?

The result? Customers may not appreciate the effort the team went through to restore service, and the team may resent the under-appreciation. Generally speaking, this tends to happen when the team focuses on the first and last bullet points - respond quickly, then address and enable. In between are the equally critical and achievable tasks of communication and expectation-setting. Each person addresses these tasks a little differently, but I've noticed some common themes among people that excel in this area:

• Daily routines that enable communication - "Daily" is key here. At least once per day, emails need to be answered, calls need to be made, and task management systems need to be updated. This can be at any point in the day (beginning, middle, end), but it needs to be every day. A routine done 2-3 times a week is too easy to let slide in an area that requires a lot of discipline. Check out http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/ for some interesting examples of scheduling one's day and setting routines.
• A running to-do list that gets updated every day - You have to know what you're responsible for at any time, and keeping it in your head (and not in writing) usually leads to some amount of slippage. Having a master list, perhaps fed from your task management systems and emails, is very helpful for keeping track of open items. It also allows you to cross those items off the list when they're completed, so you know what you've done as well.
• Communication whenever possible - Typically, any day contains pockets of a few minutes where a quick check-in or update can be completed. You may be waiting for something to happen or be ready to transition from one big task to the next. Use some of these times to update yourself on inbound requests or information, and update your customers and colleagues so they can better manage their own expectations.
• Continual evaluation of one's own service to customers and colleagues - Despite the measures above, it's still possible that something is slipping through the cracks. After all, things do happen throughout the day that are seemingly aimed at undermining schedules and planned tasks. Regular 5-10 minute recaps of your day or week can help you remember anything that wasn't accounted for. 

These items don't make up a perfect solution, but it can help reduce the incidence rate of saying, "I'm not sure where that's at. Let me get back to you." The people around you notice and appreciate the effort of your knowing what's going on and making sure they are also up to date on any given situation. Over time, these tasks become faster to complete and require less effort, allowing you to both manage the technology and enable the customer. In the end, customers are more satisfied with their service and those providing the service are more satisfied with their work and the value they add to their organization.

Companies like Nordstrom, Enterprise, and Rackspace build their business strategies around differentiating on customer service; the question is, shouldn't everyone?