Someone once
said “ If you walk in the footsteps of others you will never get to the front”
and another similar quote about The Husky dogs who pull sledges states that “If you are not the lead dog the view ahead
never changes”. So if benchmarking
is an organisation’s principal way of developing service quality performance
improvement is it axiomatic that they will never achieve a true leadership
position?
A look at
the international leaders shows that their innovation and improvement are
achieved not by benchmarking but from a leadership desire to be the best at
what they do for their customers. That raises a couple of questions - How do
they do that....? And what is their driver for using benchmarking, is to check
up or to catch up?
Leadership
desire can be described as a function of an internal motivation not just to be
among the best (in the so called upper quartile) but to actually be the best
because it will make a key contribution to the organisation being successful.
Substantive to that is the belief that they actually can be the best and that is
expressed in the Values of the leadership of the organisation and it is such
values that communicate things it takes to be important and drives the way the
organisation behaves.
However, belief
without some realistic sense of what can be achieved actually can descend
easily into the realm of day dreaming but with realistically expected results
as a guideline the leading organisations create policies (a means of bringing
resources to bear on an issue) that guide the organisation to develop and
implement the strategic and tactical activities that their management and staff
can implement. The best to be never comfortable
with mediocrity and that is why they look everywhere in their organisations and
beyond to examine every dimension of every process to learn, improve and apply in a process that never stops, is
never satisfied and never gives up. They also never use clichés (Service with a smile / Our customers are our
greatest asset) unless there is a real delivery structure behind the words.
What role
has benchmarking to them? Perhaps it is to do with learning rather that
copying? To copy exactly is difficult as no two organisations
are the same but learning how principals and techniques may be applied can be
very useful. For instance if an organisation has multiple outlets discovering a
process for how they can develop best practice from the observed successful behaviours
of their individual outlets rather than from the centre may be a useful lesson
to learn. Or seeing how an organisation obsessed with service quality engages
its entire supply chain in the endeavour. I recently came across a Turkish
drinks company whose relentless pursuance of service excellence throughout
every step of their supply chain’s processes had given them huge market and
price advantage.
The leading
organisations use benchmarking in a way rather similar to the way the
scientific community uses peer interaction as a dimension of their research structure
to test their theories and process ideas as well as to listen and share
thoughts and experiences with others but always in pursuit of advancement or
improvement. There is a trend towards the use of Big Data mining techniques to
uncover customer preferences, priorities and propensities to purchase.
While understanding
WHAT customers really want is always
the primary step but knowing HOW
best to deliver it now and in the future is the real key to success. How can
benchmarking help not only to better understand these key points but also anticipate
service expectations in the future? But if the leaders of an organisation do not have the
desire, courage and confidence to create a new service quality paradigm will
they implement what they see around the corner?
One key observation
is that the most successful service organisation really do understand the value
of being the best, know where they stand in the pecking order and are never
really satisfied until they are at the top. As an award winning CEO remarked to
me recently “If you don’t really and
truly believe in the value of customer service then don’t do it, but remember
that survival is not compulsory”.
So will
others walk in your footsteps or will your view never change?
Philip Forrest
