I don’t know about most of my readers, but I have a tendency to trust people from the beginning.  I take them at their word, now this may seem gullible and naive to some.  I want to assure you when I listen to people and I know what they are saying is BS I give no quarter . . . the Romans would be proud.  However, in those gray areas of uncertainty based on my knowledge I have to rely on someone with knowledge.  I find a lot of people rarely let me down.  Organizations on the other hand make a habit out of it.

So, what makes an individual trustworthy not trustworthy when they become part of an organization.  As customers, don’t we trust that our waiter is doing his or her best to service our needs?  I rarely find an individual that is not doing their best that doesn’t mean they always succeed.  Yes . . . I am annoyed when the wrong food or cold soup hits the table.  Was that really my waiters fault?  Easy scapegoat for many, not for me.  These workers like any others are doing their best.  They may not have been right for the job, grant you.  They may not have been trained properly.  They may not understand the systems they work in.  But ultimately the system they work in determines the level of my service.

As people that have become more disenchanted with “the service” in these less than stellar economic times.  Customers are looking for more from those that they transact business with.  Each point of transaction rather call center is turning into a mini-battle to win the hearts and minds of customers.  Our service systems are losing this battle in a time where customers are looking for more in making their buying decisions, they are getting less.

At one point of transaction that we are all familiar with we face unprecedented hurdles to service.  When we want to talk to a person we can trust from an organization, we are greeted with a voice recording that prompts us to press “2″ or attempts to discern our individual speech impediments to move on to the next prompt or gives us options that don’t match our problem.  We are left feeling like maybe we should be doing business somewhere else or just skip any of the service in general.  If we navigate the rough seas of the IVR and talk to someone, we rarely feel like they are in it for the duration or that they care about anything other than selling the next service.

So what makes good people untrustworthy?  Bad genes? Bad hair day? No, its the system they work in.  The structure, work design, technology, measures, procedures, and management roles all play the most significant part of what happens when the customer meets the service portion of any organization.  The old will take Harry out back for a little attitude adjustment (known as coaching) has us looking in the wrong place unless of course Harry happens to be wearing a mirror.  The current thinking about the design and management of work is what is the issue here that leads to a damaging performance with the customer.  For me, it reminds me of the movie “Gettysburg” where General Longstreet predicts what is about to happen to his scout (Harrison) before Picketts Charge.  The same it is for systems thinking folks that know the outcome of the service to be provisioned before the customer calls or reaches a point of transaction in an organization based on a non-systems thinking approach.  They witness traditional responses to poor service like pay for performance, appraisals of performance, inspection, standardization, targets, incentives, technology, coaching and other worn-out tools that make things worse for the customer and in a management paradox increase costs.

The point is that the customers interaction with a service organization is tied to the organization end-to-end.  Trust is won or lost based on that interaction with the system.  Good service at any point of transaction is systemic regardless of which worker provisions the service.  The call center worker and any other front-line worker is only as good as the system they are put in.

A call for a different approach.
John Gerzema (Young and Rubicam) recently outlined several items that the importance of trust will play out in the form of cultural ethics and fair play and that the management of these organizations must have a sense of value and values while the consumer adjusts to a less material world where they look for products and services that deliver value (quality, warranty and the like).  So how can an organization achieve this new reality where trust needs to be high?  An organization has to deliver it at each and every point of transaction and the system they interact with has to be able to absorb the variety of demand the customer is asking for and deliver the service end-to-end from the customer perspective.  Then and only then can we establish a relationship based on trust.

Call center and other front-line workers need to engage to build this value and trust building system.  Instead of engaging the front-line worker with targets that suck out all the ingenuity of the worker, we need to engage them in helping us discern customer demand and “what matters” to customers so an organization can act on the system.  The front-line workers are in the best position to understand these demands and quick action needs to be taken on what they learn.  This means that trust between service worker and customer can be established as the decision-making is put back with the work.

Managements job changes from managing people to managing the system.  This means improving the workflows end-to-end as they work to understand and deliver on customer demands.  This requires a change from focusing on the worker to collaborating with them to work on the same problem.  This is a huge conceptual leap to understand that performance is governed by the system and not the people.

If we are to put trust back into the points of transaction, it will require this form of new thinking in our customer management process and in our future leadership development programs.  Only then can we establish the core value of trust needed to conduct business with our customers.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.