Customer Service - part 1

Out in the wilds of the Internet, there are newsgroups. They used to be very popular, but (comparatively) hardly used these days.

One group I read on a fairly regular basis is aviation related. One posting on this group was from a pilot. I would consider this person to be one of my modern-day heroes: he has saved a large number of people from disaster (among other things, there was a life-threatening "incident" on his aircraft, and it got down safely), and he has a large dose of common-sense. So, when he says something, I listen: when he writes something, I read.

This pilot wrote recently that a particular system on a particular aircraft was next to useless because it was designed and build by "the IT boys". Having been an IT Help Desk-er for over 20 years, I think that was a bit harsh, but essentially true.

The problem is that people make assumptions, and that they do not talk to each other. The first time you build a house, you are amazed at all the detail that has to go into it. How big the house is to be, where it is to be on the land, how it is to be laid out, what the walls will be made of, where the interior walls will be, where the lights are to go, the power points, the taps. And you can only get all that worked out to your satisfaction by talking to all the experts involved so that they do their part the way you want it done. And talk some more, and some more. If you don't talk to them, they'll do what they think you want: they'll make assumptions.



It's exactly the same process for an IT system, or any other process: there's always much more to any job than what the customer thinks ... and the consultant (or whatever title they have) makes assumptions. The customer frequently doesn't really know what they want. They have an idea but, as they don't know what is and isn't possible, they don't know. Even worse, they may well not know that they don't know.

On the other hand, the consultant should know what is and isn't possible. What the consultant frequently doesn't know is what the client wants, nor even what the client's work actually involves (and so, the contractor doesn't know what it is that the client needs in order to do their job).

The client makes an assumption that the contractor knows what the client's work involves, and the contractor makes the assumption that the client knows what the client wants. In both cases, they have the beginning of an understanding, but there is nowhere near the depth required for the project to be concluded successfully (ie. both client and contractor are happy with the result).

Frequently, both sides think that they know what is needed, while, in fact, neither side has a full grasp of what is needed. In the end? The client gets what the contractor thinks is best for the client. The client is unhappy and says so, and the contractor is unhappy because they've put in a lot of work which has gone unappreciated.

The answer? I don't have the definitive answer. But one answer is that the client and the contractor need to talk, and talk, and talk, until both sides are as clear as possible about what is needed. Neither side should make any assumptions: if you don't know ... ask! And then keep on asking, until you do know.

And, to go back to the original problem, there is a double contractor-client relationship. The manufacturer of the aircraft put in a system that it thought the clients (in this case, the airlines) wanted, hopefully based on what the airlines said. But, not only were the airlines clients (of the manufacturer), but they were also contractors to their pilots who had to actually fly the aircraft, and the airlines needed to talk to the pilots.

This is not only restricted to IT, nor to airlines. It applies across the entire range of contractor/client relationships, right down to the mundane level of you (the client) being served in a shop by a shop assistant (the contractor).

Customer service - REAL customer service, not just playing lip-service to the idea - should be the core of any organisation. It's also, in case you haven't guessed, something I feel very strongly about, and something to which I will return.