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Customer Service and Caribbean Airlines

I’m in the midst of a series of short-hop flights from KIN-ANT-POS-BGI-ANU-KIN (see a list of acronyms used at the end of this blog.)

In the past, I’d sworn to myself that I would never fly BWIA again, after some piece of bad treatment on some flight that I now can’t remember. This time around, I couldn’t bear to either face the cost and time of flying through MIA to get to POS from KIN. The connections are long, and the whole day of flying is deadly.

I didn’t want to fly AirJa to BGI, and then make another connection to another airline (LIAT, Caribbean Star or BWIA,) as my experience was that the extra connection to another airline just did not make it worth it. So I resigned myself to giving BWIA another try, and as I checked in I began to remember what I disliked so much.

The first annoyance was BWIA’s ultra-strict carry-on policy, which always results in me having to check my luggage – the same luggage that I carry-on to every other plane I fly in North America. For that size aircraft, they are the only carrier that insists that carry-ons be checked, and the way that they do it consistently seems to disregard the fact that a business traveler and frequent flyer have different needs than the casual vacationer. BWIA seems not to distinguish between the two in any way, and seems unwilling to make any kinds of concessions for its most valuable passengers (who fly the most often and pay the highest fares).

When we got to Antigua, which was just supposed to be a short stop on the way to POS, we were told that a flight attendant had burned her hand badly on the flight to Antigua, and as a result could not perform her duties. Therefore, the flight would have to be discontinued, as they could not find a replacement. Thus began a 4 hour delay.

Of course, people were complaining. How could the absence of a single flight attendant cause that much disruption? Why didn’t they offer some people free tickets and an overnight in Antigua in exchange for giving up their seat on the plane and making the flight legal? Why didn’t they have backup crew – could no-one on the island step in?

I cussed to myself, and reminded myself why I don’t fly BWIA. I quickly made some alternate arrangements so that I would only need to fly to BGI on the way back.

When I turned up at POS for my next leg to BGI a couple of days later, the absence of a line at the check-in counter warned me that something was awry. I was told that they were sorry but the flight was no longer stopping in Barbados, and instead that I was checked into the following morning’s flight to BGI (without my knowledge.)

I was sputtering with the shock of this news at all of 7:30 pm.

The CSR’s did not even begin to apologize, or try to make amends, which made my blood start to boil. They also started to get into what might be called “blame the victim” by asking me if I had confirmed (“Yes”), given a contact number (“you tell me“), made the reservation a long time ago (“No”).

I eventually asked them a pressing question – “Was there another flight going to Barbados tonight?” That yielded a reluctant “Yes, there’s one leaving in a few minutes on LIAT.” I rushed over to LIAT with a transfer in hand (OK, it was at the same counter, just 25 yards away). By the time I really started rushing, I was there.

I ran through immigration and the check-points, and to gate 13 – which had a small number of passengers, and no staff in sight. It was delayed.

Thankfully, they were still keeping to their schedule, and I made it to BGI that night, albeit an hour late.

I contrast this with a horrible delay that I had the prior week travelling with Air Jamaica from Fort Lauderdale. The 8am flight had mechanical difficulties, which were not resolved by parts that were sent up from Jamaica, and we were finally included on a flight that left at 10:30pm that night, which resulted in a travel day of some 20 hours total from bed to bed.

The contrast comes in the way the Air Jamaica staff dealt with the problem. They had several problems themselves, in this case in getting the word out to the customers on the latest developments. But the feeling I had was that the staff cared, and one agent cared enough to sit around for a couple of hours with the passengers in the lounge commiserating and demonstrating a remarkable willingness to be the butt of Air Jamaica jokes.

That was something else, and the laughing and hilarity that ensued helped make the day feel that much shorter.

At BWIA, I was left with this uneasy feeling that the staff just did not care, and were not willing to be responsible for anything. Although both Air Jamaica and BWIA are losing money every day, and are both up for sale by their respective governments, Air Jamaica’s service consistently seems to be at a higher level in some ways that I can’t define very well.

My hypothesis is that Air Jamaica is a major carrier for European and North American tourists to the island, while BWIA carries mostly Trinidadians and other Caribbean islanders. The feel of the service at BWIA is that it is more friendly than professional.

The difference between friendly and professional service, however, is that a friend represents only him or herself, whereas a professional represents a company. Friends are free not to care, but a CSR is paid to care, and is obliged to provide service regardless of their mood, or how they feel about the person on the receiving end. To that end, BWIA’s service is good when things are going well and that friendly feeling prevails. It quickly turns distant and unfeeling, however, when things go badly and this is where the other airlines are generally better.

Interestingly, I’m writing this entry aboard a Caribbean Star flight from BGI to Antigua. That by itself is pretty mundane, but the interesting aspect of this trip is that I am the only passenger on a 32 or so seater.

To be more accurate, I am the only revenue passenger – there are 3 employees of the airline on the flight also. There is one (female) flight attendant working, another one travelling and two pilots travelling. To my disappointment, they have not yet broken out the champagne and fillet mignon… perhaps I am cramping their style? I made a joke that they now had to hide the scotch…

I made the mistake of asking if there was anything else, at the end of an offer of refreshments – I had a choice of 4 kinds of cream filled biscuits, and 4 kinds of juices, in addition to water. Not even soft drinks are carried on these flights apparently… However, the flight attendant assured me that on the longer flights they carry sandwiches. She must think highly of these sandwiches as she suggested that I take a longer flight to find out what that kind of service was like… Hmmm…. That one had the spare pilots and flight attendant laughing.

Acronyms used

ANU –Antigua

GAIA / BGI– Grantley Adams International Airport

POS – Port of Spain

KIN – Kingston

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Awakeness – The Key to Accomplishment

I had the privilege of leading a workshop today here in Trinidad at the TTAIFA conference – the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Insurance and Financial Agents.

The group was a wonderful one to speak and engage with, and as great a bunch of Trinis as I’ve every worked with.

The initial post that I wrote today related to this speech appears to have disappeared into Never, Never Land, unfortunately. Somehow the content just disappeared…

The most exciting part of the preparation came when I ran into a roadblock while trying to describe a certain quality that I know is important to being productive. I am now calling it “awakeness,” and as a Jamaican – we are famous for inventing new words – I like the “sound” and vibe of it.

In a nutshell (which is just about all the work I’ve done on it so far) “awakeness” is defined as the quality of being present to the outcome of a task while one is engaged in it..

When someone is experiencing awakeness, there is a connected feeling that makes the activity flow, and sometimes allows it to feel easy. Yet, it’s more than “being in the flow”. The process of completing a task takes several important steps:

  1. Changing the definition of the task
  2. Making a decision to do the task
  3. Scheduling the task
  4. Choosing to start the task at the appointed time
  5. Completing the task
  6. Deciding on next steps once the task is complete

As you can imagine, having “awakeness” is important at each step of the way. Let’s take a simple task such as “doing the ironing.” Doing the ironing is a task that could be poorly executed at any of the 6 steps, resulting in the task either failing to be fully completed in some way.

When there is “awakeness” there is a powerful quality brought to each of the above steps. At each step of the way, there is a clarity of purpose that changes the entire task.

  1. The first step is about replacing how the task is expressed in writing and speaking, from “ironing the clothes.” The person doing the task would have to look to see why they are in fact doing the task e.g. it might be a real part of a goal of “providing my children a secure and safe environment in which to grow.” The task could be re-expressed as “ironing for security, safety and looking clean and fresh.” This re-expression can help to bring an awakened frame of mind to the activity that is not there when it’s just about plain “ironing” which seems to be something that just needs to be endured.
  2. Making a decision to do the task at a specific moment in time is easier to do when there is “awakeness” simply because a deeper purpose has been engaged and activated.
  3. Putting the activity into our calendars at a time that is realistic is also easier to do with “awakeness”.
  4. Choosing to do the task at the appointed time, even when we are busy, is easier to do when the appointed time comes and we are awakened. If we are watching television and the time comes to do the task, it would be easier to turn it off and see about our children’s “safety and security” than it would be to watch the rest of the episode of “Days of Our Lives”.
  5. Seeing the task through to the very last sock and t-shirt, and avoiding interruptions are all about being awake during the task. The hard job that we have to do while ironing is to prevent ourselves from unconsciously falling out of “awakeness” into the kind of absent-mindedness that allows us sometimes to drive for miles to a destination and wonder what route we just took to get there.
  6. When we are in a state of “awakeness,” realizing that there are next steps is natural. When we are just ironing and nothing else, then the end of the task comes as a respite, and the tendency is to get the mind out of the boring task at hand and back to Days of Our Lives (recorded on our DVD-RW). On the other hand, when it’s about “our children’s safety and security,” it’s easier to see that it might be a good idea to put the clothes away now, and to schedule some more time to buy a good quality iron that would do a better job. The next steps are easier to see, and to start a new six step process when we are “awake,” because the actions are merely a continuation of the deeper commitment.

The point here is that the steps are, by themselves, not the point. There are some training programs and time management systems which try to be prescriptive about what happens at each of these stages, down to the kind of language that is used to re-express the task.

They all miss the point, however.

When we are “awake” the right things to do naturally present themselves. When we are asleep at the wheel, then no amount of detailed instructions will compensate for a lack of “awakeness.”

Why is this all important?

Well, we human beings need to be protected from ourselves.

On the first of the year, a part of us gets inspired to create plans to get fit and lost weight. By the end of the week, however, another part of us kicks in and takes control, and that’s the end of the plan until the start of the next year. The same happens with respect to other plans that we make, in our attempts to “Have the Lives that We Most Want.” The part of us that creates these plans does need assistance to make it through tough times , and this assistance comes most easily from our level of “awakeness.”

To put it another way, when we don’t have awakeness, then our mind will only allow us to accomplish simple tasks that require a single effort, and prevents us from accomplishing complex tasks like losing weight, that require sustained and consistent effort.

* I’d like to credit the book Getting Things Done for providing some of the key ideas and thinking for my own ideas.

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Throw Away Customer Service Training

Yes, that’s right. Throw away Customer Service Training.

That’s the new mantra of companies that are thinking seriously about delivering a particular brand promise to their customers.

The truth is that companies have become chained to a vague commitment to “better service” without this “better service” being defined in way that ensures that definite progress can be made. Instead, “bad customer service” is used as an accusation that is used to blame companies at all levels for not providing service… at all levels. Yes, that’s right…. companies are blamed for not providing service at ALL levels.

Small companies are blamed for not providing the consistent service of larger companies.

Large companies are blamed for acting as if they do not care.

Low-priced companies are blamed for being cheap, and not supplying the luxuries that people want.

High-end companies are blamed for charging too much.

What’s going on here? Are customers being unreasonable to ask for so much? Are the complaints just a matter of the impossibility to trying to please everyone?

In Port of Spain, should the doubles vendor on Long Circular Road be asked provide the same level of service as Hot Shoppe? In Kingston, should the pan chicken vendor on Red Hills Road be asked to provide the same level of service as KFC up the road? In Bridgetown, should Jus’ Grilling provide the same levels of service as Champers?

The vague quality of these questions leave us all in a quandry, that pushes most of us to nostrums such as “You get what you pay for,” implying that the issue has something to do with the price that the consumer is willing to pay.

These kinds of vague non-answers seem to let companies off the hook, but they are just a mistake on the part of companies that refuse to do the much more difficult work of defining a brand experience for their customers that is precise and clear.

Clarity and precision have nothing to do with price. They also have nothing to do with the size of a business in terms of total revenue, or profit.

For example, the pan chicken vendor on Red Hills Road is not providing the consistency of KFC, and he (or she) should not try to. Instead, he should focus on the brand experience that he wants his customers to have — one that consists of:

  • a home-cooked taste that changes with people’s tastes
  • the pungent smell of the chicken that pervades the air
  • all-night availability
  • friendly and fast service and gets better with repeat purchases
  • the convenience of not having to leave the car
  • the low cost that comes from buying on the street in an “unsecured” environment

Instead, the drum-pan chicken vendor should seek to provide an experience that is uniquely the “Red Hills pan chicken experience” …. and nothing else. The same principle applies to KFC, which should also try to provide a unique experience.

Neither outfit should try to provide “good customer service.” In doing so, they hold themselves hostage to customers’ (and employees’) complaints that only come about because companies are insufficiently courageous enough to define unique service that is clear. The emotional challenge comes from the fact that when a company defines itself in a unique way, then they immediately must define themselves as “not-everything.”

My observation is that executives of Caribbean companies (with whom I have the most experience) are downright scared to define their companies as “not-everything”. Declaring that your company is a unique “something” actually defines it as “not-everything” when it’s done well. Sticking to your guns and defining yourself as “not-everything” takes courage and are not for the faint of heart, especially when contracts and business opportunities seem to be abundant in the areas that are outside the defined zone of expertise.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take my own company down this path. In 2005 we made the decision to use the tagline, “High-Stakes Interventions.” One of my partners-in-crime (but not an employee) shared with me that the tagline made him feel as if he were a CEO, that he would not want to give the company a call. He was right, and I knew it in the moment.

I gulped, and after thinking about it for a minute I realized that CEO’s would only call me when they needed to, not when they wanted to. In this sense, my firm was willing to create a brand experience that is similar to that of surgeon or a skilled mechanic — someone that you call for help when you absolutely needed that particular kind of expertise (and not just for a good lime). This little interchange helped make my company’s brand just a bit more clear and precise, and it grew into the truth that I now have embraced and included in my marketing copy, which is that “High-Stakes Interventions are not for Everyone.”

The downside of failing to define the company as “not-everything” is a kind of superficiality that creates a blurriness in the mind of the customer that is the very opposite of a brand experience that is clear and precise.

The upside is that a company that sticks to its guns can do the following differently:

  • distinguish the branded experience at a deep level, and define the experience in way that makes it clear when the experience is present, and when it’s not
  • define in depth the unique combination of People, Processes and Products/Services that together provide the experience
  • decide how much to invest in making the experience real, and also what the costs are for not committing to an alternate experience

For the customer, this only helps. I go to KFC when I want one kind of experience, and I can choose a different kind of experience by visiting Cheffette, Royal Castle, Pollo Tropical or Island Grille. Rather than being told that I get what I pay for, I can make my choice based on the brand I choose to experience.

The job of the proprietor is to ensure that they have accurately defined their own brand experience, and have the internal brand to deliver it over and over again.

In this sense, generic customer service training needs to be thrown away, and replaced by very specific, clear and precise brand-oriented “experience training.”

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How Do You Consultants Come Up With Those Prices?

While there are some clients that ask this question out loud, it’s my sense that every client asks it even quietly when they get to the part of the proposal titled “Professional Fees.” Often, this section is approached with a sense of dread, as up until this point the prospective client has a feeling that I have something they are interested in buying, if only it fits the budget they have in mind. They have mentally mapped my proposed solution to the problem at hand and are hoping that they will not have to turn their company upside down to find a solution.

Therefore, from time to time in my career as a consultant, I am asked by a prospective or current client to engage in the awkward business of justifying my fees.

“Why is it so much? How did you come up with that figure? Why is it different/more than I thought it would be? Are you guys all a bunch a tief’?”

At first blush, my response is to give an off the cuff smart-aleck answer, like “it pays the rent” or “because that’s what it IS” – with a slight tone of contempt that is related to some vague feeling that they are questioning the value of my existence, and whether or not I deserve to be drawing breath upon this earth.

After I resolved the more basic question of my value to our race, I began to realize that they might be asking because…. they just don’t know, and they think that the knowledge might be useful to them. The truth is, that the setting of consulting fees is a mysterious business, even to the practitioners of the art. Obviously, we’re not selling something that is tangible or can even be compared to what any other person on the planet can provide. For example, part of what makes my work distinct is that I bring first world standards of thinking and tools gained from my years living in the U.S. to the Caribbean, and apply it with an understanding of our people in the region. (Whew) No-one else can do that in the same way, and I cannot do what they do in quite the same way.

But, how does one impute different dollar amounts to the different value? How about the local consultant who is known internationally? How about the foreign consultant who is married to a Caribbean person, but lives in Latin America? Aren’t they also valuable in their own way, and should be charging more, less or the same as I do?

These questions don’t have definitive answers, but as I played around with them, I thought that I should at least be honest about what drives my own pricing, so that I at least have something to say to myself other than “that’s my gut feeling,” when this awkward matter comes up.


So, to lift the fog on my own criteria, here are the rules of thumb I use when coming up with the cost of a project, and the price I charge clients.

1. The Value to the Client

Framework specializes in High-Stake Interventions, and not everything that a client needs or does is high-stakes enough to warrant my interest or attention. There are many more low-stakes opportunities for things like skills training, coaching, facilitation, job analyses, etc. than there are high-stakes opportunities, but we’ve made a conscious decision to stay away from them. In other words, we only get involved when there is a great deal of risk and/or reward involved, and we like both big problems and big bets. This commitment of ours keeps life interesting, which is the way we happen to like it.

The upside of this approach is that the projects we work on are of tremendous importance and therefore value to our clients.

As one might expect, the more critical the project, the higher the price we propose. Typically, on critical projects the costs of failure are prohibitive; people’s careers and futures in the company are dependent on successful outcomes. The same activity (e.g. coaching a CEO) that I will do for free for a friend starting his own business, will not be free to the CEO of the US$500m company, and will cost less than the coaching given to the US$5b company.

Why the difference? Doesn’t a CD player sold to each of these CEO’s cost the same to each one regardless of who is doing the purchasing?

Consulting services are very different, however. Experience tells me that high-stake projects are those that generate the most stress, require the most pre-planning, cause me to lose the most sleep, and are the ones I care about the most because they are so engaging. Also, coaching my friend has little or no downside to my reputation, but there is a greater risk in coaching the big company CEO because, presumably, his or her time is extremely valuable in economic terms, and the decisions and actions to be taken have far-reaching effects.

In other words, the same advice given to CEO’s in different companies has different ramifications and effects, and the price of that advice varies accordingly.

For projects that are not important, routine or are too easy, our preference in Framework is to others, or turn them down flat.

The paradox is that I am in essence saying that I should be paid more to take on greater challenges… now that’s a win-win if I ever heard one, as I there’s nothing I love more than an engaging and exciting challenge!

  1. Delivery, Face and Contact Time

A modifier on the price of every project is the amount of time we need to spend face to face with the client, either in coaching conversations, planning or delivering a course. While there isn’t a tight correlation, it does play a part in our calculations.

For example, delivering a course in front of 50 people for two days is very different than sitting down to have one-on-one interviews, or observing an activity, or strategizing over Red Stripes while sitting at a bar in Ocho Rios. They are all valuable activities, but by far the most difficult activity to undertake, and the one that takes the most preparation and concentration is the 50-person course. That also is the one that is the most tiring, and must be done to the exclusion of any other activity.

Also, there are fewer consultants who can lead a 50-person course effectively, and any number who can (claim to) strategize over drinks. In other words, a consultant is more valuable to the client when they are undertaking unique and specialized activities that few others could do well.

  1. Travel Time

Sometimes we include the time it takes to travel to and from the client, if that is a factor. I turned down a project in Europe recently because the one day that the project required was not worth the 2+ days of travel plus jet lag it would take to get to the site in Germany and then back home to Florida. I’ve never had a client that was willing to be charged for my travel time, unless I was travelling over 12 hours in one rare case.

  1. Phone Coaching Time

If there is significant meeting time on the telephone, then that is factored in also.

  1. Custom Preparation Time and Expertise

If there is something that we have developed that will fit the need exactly, then that is used to modify the price we propose. This is rarely the case, however, as the kind of interventions we do, don’t lend themselves to cookie-cutter solutions (but perhaps one day we’ll figure out how to do that!)

  1. Client “Friction”

One of my prior clients was so difficult to work with, and so chaotic to do business with, that we’ve put a premium on doing work with them. This “tax” is to compensate for the missed meetings, long negotiations, last-minute cancellations, unreturned phone calls, unpaid invoices, etc. that continues to be part and parcel of working with them. By now, you might be wondering why I even worked with such a client – well, to date, they have refused to pay the increased fees caused by the “tax” so they are no longer a client.

  1. Staffing and Training Costs

At times, projects require extra hands, which require additional management. At other times, I must bear the brunt of training someone to work on the project. In both cases, this impacts the cost of the project due to the extra head-ache of carrying another person on my payroll. The extra administrative time required to hire a single other person is just horrendous.

  1. Opportunity Costs

Bluntly put, if I am busy I tend to charge more than when I’m looking for the next project to pay the bills!

Last Few Thoughts

What my more unreasonable prospective clients often don’t understand about business of consulting is that, unlike an employee, they are only paying me to work, and ONLY to work at my absolute best. They are not paying me to take vacation, get sick, get tired, pick up the kids / dogs / groceries / mother-in-law, take off early on Fridays or the days before holidays, do paperwork or anything administrative, pay my taxes, vote, do jury duty, travel to and from their locations…. or even take lunch, in the extreme cases.

They also don’t take kindly to my resisting doing weekend work, holiday work, late-night work or hurricane work.

They also don’t realize that while I’m negotiating with them and waiting for them to make up their minds, I am not getting paid. This gets expensive for me when I encounter prospects that have long decision-making processes, or just like to wait to see if the price that I quoted will come down.

None of these are a problem by themselves, as they are part of the service I’m offering as a consultant in the business of High-Stakes Interventions. The problem comes when a client does not see (or worse, cares not to see) the entire equation.

All in all, one thing I’ve learned over time is that the way a client negotiates says everything about what they will be like on the project once things get going, and that it’s important to define my firm’s boundaries early on in the process. I recall being on a closing call with another consultant and a client, who he later described as a “Taker.” In other words, the client was only interested in how much they could get for themselves and their company, with no regard for my firm’s welfare. “Takers” are trouble, and while I’m not good enough to spot them before every project starts, I am learning to know when to stop doing business with them.

“Takers” are the worst – most are much more sensitive – but I think the average client does want to know where the amount in the proposal is coming from, and do like to know that they are not just being fleeced by whimsical dreams of consumer goods bought with hefty consulting contracts. I think that the better clients would like to know that there is a hard business rational behind every dollar that gets quoted in a proposal, and that when I’m quoting a number for their consideration, I’m responding to the facts of my business, rather than just a need to buy a new car or take a fancy vacation.

As a new consultant, I did not appreciate this fact, and I committed what must be the mistake of every new consultant – that of charging too little.

A relevant analogy and story that illustrate the general point:

  1. High-stakes professionals like surgeons and airline pilots tend to be paid more than others who are sitting right beside them, spending even more time than they are, and possibly working even harder than they are (in physical terms.)

    As a frequent flyer, and someone who had surgery once for adenoid removal, I have no problem paying my surgeon more than the orderlies who pushed me into the waiting room, or my pilot more than the cleaners who remove trash the from inside the aircraft.

  2. I recall the story of the plumber who came in once to fix a complex system of pipes in a major factory. The problem had remained for months, and was starting to create severe problems with the company’s throughput of its main money earner. The plumber came in and after careful thought he reached down into the bowels of the plumbing and tightened a screw. The management was incredulous, but sure enough, that was the correct solution.

    A week later the plumber submitted his invoice for $5000. The plant manager went ballistic and refused to pay. The plumber quietly said he would resubmit the invoice, and he did so one day later with the following breakdown of charges:

Time used to tighten screw: $10

Knowing Which Screw to Tighten: $4990

Total $5000

P.S.

(Of course, I have absolutely no self-interest WHATSOEVER in bringing to mind either of these cases. ;0)

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A cool book on negotiating with sword and spirit

I just finished reading a book called The Sword and the Spirit written by a good friend of mine, Andre Bello (www.andrebello.com)

Written in the form of a medieval fable, the book is actually a brilliant exposition and description of the underlying principles and distinctions that make for powerful negotiating. I just read it through in one sitting, and really enjoyed not only the story, but learning what I did wrong in past negotiations.

I even started looking forward to my next negotiation, which would be an opportunity to put to use what I’ve learned!

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is the story of a kingdom that is under threat of attack by a neighbouring country. If you’ve read other business “stories” such as The Goal by Eli Goldratt, you’ll recognize some of the same kinds of characters — there is the young thinker, the wise sages, the gradual awakening to the new knowledge, the dilemma to be resolved etc.

The second part of the book lays out the principles that are contained in the book, written in linear fashion. Andre assures me that there is more to the book than he put in the principles, but that remains to be discovered by the ardent practitioner!

Congrats to him on an excellent exposition, and one that I hope is used widely across our region, as we have our fair share of unresolved disputes that have lead to loss of jobs, profits and benefits to our economies.

Andre is a Trini who is living in Jamaica (and loving it from what I can tell…)

The Sword and The Spirit by Andre Bello
ISBN 976-8194-57-X

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Everything is War — Bob Marley

These words, first spoken by Emperor Haile Selasse I, were immortalized by Bob Marley in his popular song “War” of 1976.

Selassie, in his speech, was talking about the need for disarmament and racial equality. Today, however, we talk and listen as if EVERYTHING is war, and we should know better.

Today (July 31, 2005) there are very real wars being raged in the world. The Iraq War, although it is an unofficial and undeclared war (by US law), was launched partly in response to the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. When I think of a real war (which I’ve never been in), I think of the opening landing sequence of “Saving Private Ryan.” I think of psychological distress that lasts for tens of years after the original event, in the form of PSTD, homelessness and alcoholism.

I DON’T think of ….

  • the competitition in the business-place between WalMart and Sears
  • marital arguments that lead to separation and divorce
  • companies like McKinsey and Morgan Stanley trying to attract get the best employees from elite business-schools
  • a football, cricket, baseball, volleyball game, or any kind of sports game
  • Bush vs. Gore, or Seaga vs. Patterson, or Manning vs. Panday, Or Arthur vs. what’s-his-name
  • any kind of struggle against a behaviour or abstract mindset (e.g. drug addiction, premarital sex, values, crime or even terrorism)
  • spiritual conflicts between good and evil
  • words of disagreement between people on opposite sides of an issue
  • weed removal
  • spam
  • hemp
  • Lakota spirituality
  • obesity
  • poverty
  • ________________ (Fill in the blank with anything you feel strongly about)

In the world of excessive hyperbole that we live in, everything has become war, but only because we choose to see them that way.

War has a real, tangible and horrible effect on human life itself.

None of the other wars that we have “declared” have the same effect. We have used the imagery of warfare and the language of armed to conflict to try to raise urgency… it has become a failed method of manipulating the attention of others around us.

To believe the advertisers, pundits, CEO’s and political leaders, the average person is engaged in hundreds of “wars”, just by virtue of living an average life.

Obviously, this is absurd, even when the “war”, such as the “War on Terror,” seems to be justified. The average person is not engaged in a real war.

Even the so-called “War on Terrorism” has turned into a never-ending commitment to fear and suspicion. Think of it… can there ever be an end to a “War on Terrorism?” Terrorism is a method, not a political system, and any President who declares that the War on Terrorism has been one, will wake up the next day to some act of terror taking place in come locale around the world, even if the act is undertaken by his own security forces.

The truly sad effect of calling everything a war, however, is that we lose touch with the reality that war is. By using the word over and over in the way that we have, we have emotionally separated ourselves from the horrors of warfare, and subtly come to believe that it’s not a lot different from all the other things we declare as wars.

This is all an illusion of our making. Life is not war. Only war is war… war in the “Private Ryan’ sense is war.

Perhaps if we treated warfare with the silent gravity that it deserves, we could begin to be responsible for the other messes we have created in the world. Then we could begin to live up to the ideals first spoken by Emperor Salessie I.

*Selassie’s speech can be read in its entirety at http://www.bobmarley.com/life/rastafari/war_speech.html

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Customer Service Standards in the Caribbean

What is there to do about the general level of customer service in the Caribbean? Poor service on a daily basis has the effect of making life so much harder than it needs to be, in the form of late deliveries, don’t-care attitudes, hostile glares and rougher than expected tones of voice.

While we may talk and talk about the historical roots of low service levels, this kind of talk seems to do nothing except leave us resigned to a past that cannot be changed and a future limited by what we have inherited through centuries of servitude.

In other words, we are talking ourselves into thinking that things can never change.

On the other hand, it seems that our better tourist hotels, have found a way to provide service that is superior. For the purposes of this blog, however, I’d like to focus strictly on the service that we Caribbean people provide each other in our respective countries, rather than to outsiders or visitors.

I recently had the opportunity to visit a couple of banks in the region, in my vain attempt to open an account on a single visit. It was a vain attempt, and while the CSRs in the banks I visited were not rude, they made it clear that “they didn’t allow just anyone to open an account.” While they were not considering me to be a part of “anyone,” (probably due to my accent, questions and diction) they used that line to explain why there were so many hoops to jump through to open a new account. Also, at the end of the conversation, the polite CSRs (who felt more like gatekeepers), did not write down or otherwise record my name or contact information, even though I made it clear that I was looking for a new home for both corporate and personal accounts.

As a consultant, I’ve been part of many brainstorming sessions, in which executives wondered to each other: “Why don’t we have a greater share of customer’s deposit accounts?” and “What can we do to open more accounts and attract more funds?” Little do they know that their front-line staff is doing its best to discourage the general population from opening new accounts, under the guise of presenting an elite image. The reality is, that they thinking that they are doing the right thing.

This is pretty funny at some level – executives burning the midnight oil to try to figure out why their strategies to increase deposits aren’t working. The CSRs who I met with would be quite taken aback to be told that they were hard at work, taking actions to further a strategy that was directly opposed to the one that their senior managers were trying to fulfill.

The obvious question that you, the reader, are asking (and I’m guessing that you are probably a professional who has worked in the Caribbean) is why in the world would I try to open an account in that manner? Everyone knows that getting things done in the region is a matter of who you know, and who knows you. Why in the world did I not use my contacts to set up a meeting with the branch manager, who would show me the kind of service that I have become used to routinely receiving in North America?

Well, I do know better, but for the purposes of the project I was working on, I deliberately dressed in street clothes and did not use my contacts so that I could experience some of what the average person experiences. I also did not drop names, pull rank, ask to see the manager or any of the other things that we do in the region to distinguish ourselves as professionals from the “whole a di res’ ah dem.”

The truth is, there are at least three kinds of service in the Caribbean. Tourist Service, Friend Service and “Di Res Ah Dem” Service.

Tourist Service is self-explanatory. Friend Service is the kind that you extend to someone you either know, or want to know or are afraid might know you or even worse, might know someone important that you know. “Di Res Ah Dem” Service is the service given to the majority of people that you don’t know and will never see again, have no power and have no connection to you.

It’s funny to see how this works and to explore the variations on the theme.

Recently a friend of mine lost her passport. The first step was to fill out a police report, which we were assured would take at least 10 working days. After the police report was filed, it would take another 7 days to get the passport replaced. This was turning out to be a real problem, as her flight to return to the U.S. was only 7 days hence.

At first, the policemen and women were polite, but slightly dismissive. The low point came when we returned to the airport to be told by a policewoman in an entirely dismissive tone that “no-one had turned one in” as she gave us a blank look, apparently annoyed that we were interrupting her job standing-at-the-counter-doing-nothing.

Well, a day or so later we got a call from one of the policemen behind the counter (the one who had taken the statement a few days before.) He was actually calling to apologize for his colleague’s dismissive behaviour, and for the fact that he could not talk to us himself. I was amazed.

He went on to ask me if I went to Wolmer’s Boys as a high school student. I answered, “Yes,” and he asked me if I remembered him. He was a year behind me, and we then spent the next fifteen minutes catching up, even though I was driving through the hills of St. Ann at this point with a poor cellular connection. I hadn’t recognized him, to tell the truth (grey hairs and extra pounds have a way of warping one’s memory), but he was also calling to tell us that the report was finished and that we could pick it when we returned to Kingston. All in all, the entire process of getting the police report took less than 48 hours.

Not so amazing after all. I didn’t realize it, but he was giving Friend Service when I had been expecting “De Res Ah Dem” Service.

The same thing happened when I was dealing with another service provider, who I was referred to by a friend. He spent the first thirty minutes or so “qualifying me” which in the Caribbean means finding-out-who-we-know-in-common, an absolutely critical activity to perform before starting to do business of any kind. Once I was qualified by at least 5 points of common acquaintances, then his entire manner changed and only then could we start to really do business.

Having said all that, I’ve spent the last few weeks in US wondering what it would take to create an entirely new class of service for the majority of our Caribbean people.

It strikes me when I see my new wife struggle with Caribbean service levels (we’ve been to Jamaica and Trinidad together) that the only difference between the two of us is that she has higher expectations. As a customer in the Caribbean, I’m just glad that there is someone there in person (not on strike, doing personal errands, late because of the bus, the heat, thieves, rain, oversleeping, talking on their cell phone, etc.) She, however, expects that the service will be at the standard of the average North American retail establishment.

I was in a Staples store in Silver Spring this past weekend and happened to observe a cashier as I was approaching the check-out register. She had a bottle of Windex in one hand, and a rag in the other, and was carefully wiping down and shining her station as if it were her first, brand new car that had just gotten muddy. Where did she learn to do that? She was no older than 22, yet there she was, cleaning up her station when no-one was around to see her do it.

Was it a line in her customer service manual? Was she trained in how to clean her space? How could it come so naturally to her? Was she a born high-achiever? (I doubt it, given what I know Staples pays its entry-level workers.) Was she used to hard-work whereas our Caribbean people are not used to working hard (demonstrably false.)

I don’t know the answer but a couple of things struck me that I’m still thinking about.

One is that the average Caribbean CSR in the average store has never stayed at Sandals, SuperClubs or the Hilton. They have never seen or experienced Tourist Service, let alone the standard of service expected in North America. Instead, they are used to the customer service levels they have received at the roti shop, the patty shop and the burger joint (i.e. extremely poor levels of service.) In other words, they do not have and have never had a positive role model for the kind of service that makes customers want to return to buy the product just because the service is so good. Occasionally, they have experienced Personal Service, but that really doesn’t count (partly due to the inherent, reciprocal nature of that kind of service.)

The second thought is that we don’t even begin to teach customer service in schools to our students as a subject, even though a great many of them (I would argue that this is true of ALL adults) will at some point be working in a job or position in which the customer-supplier model will be critical for them to know and employ.

I can’t recall the last time I used geometry or algebra. Yet, something as basic as customer service, upon which business in ALL the tourist-oriented economies of the Caribbean depends heavily, is not even mentioned as a subject.

I could imagine in-depth training in the theory and practice of excellent customer service, including practical tests, written and oral tests as well as research projects. Students would be required to experience good as well as bad service, and to develop for themselves a way of relating to people in a customer-supplier interaction that works to the benefit of both parties. In our heavily service-driven economy, this could open whole new areas of opportunity for local business, and do wonders for out tourist product.

This alone would do wonders for our regional economies, and remove some of the unnecessary hardship that comes from going about doing our daily business. We actually do care about each other deeply, but it’s about time we showed it on a regular basis.

P.S.

It’s no accident that there have been so many times when I’ve been a customer, and yet I’ve ended up feeling like either a bad student, or a recalcitrant child. In the absence of role models, and in the absence of early training, I have a theory that a CSR goes to their past experience as a student and as a child, and tries to use that experience to deal with “De Res Ah Dem.”

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“But This Couldn’t Happen in Jamaica”

Yesterday the news came that there was a bomb exploded in the middle of Port of Spain that injured 14 people. To date, no-one has claimed responsibility.

Once the shock of the event wore off, I found myself shaking my head in amazement, and thinking that this could never happen in Jamaica.

As a disclaimer, let me start by saying that there are many things I absolutely love about Trinidad, including my wife. If there were no Jamaica, I would gladly live there.

However, there are things that happen in Trinidad that shock my Jamaican sensibilities (and we Jamaicans are a bunch of people that are not easily shocked).

Yet, there is this mental list of things that happen in Trinidad, both good and bad that just could not happen in Jamaica. The funny thing is, I can’t explain why this is so… I just know it. I’m sure a Trini has their list of things in Jamaica that could not happen in Trinidad, and Bajans, Guyanese and others would have their lists also, but here is mine.

Things that Happen(ed) in Trinidad that Could NOT Happen in Jamaica

  • the bomb blast in port of Spain of July 12, 2005
  • the temporary overthrow of the Trinidadian government by the Muslemeen, a religious sect in the early 1990’s
  • the freedom granted to Abu Bakhr (who lead the overthrow) who is allowed all the privileges of an ordinary citizen, and has never been convicted of a crime
  • kidnappings at a high rate (with relatively few deaths)
  • Carnival (all of it)
  • TSTT maintaining its monopoly for as long as it has

The differences between our cultures are important to take note of, as they tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the other countries. Now, to explain these differences… that’s the very hard work.

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Holding the Company Hostage

In my work with Caribbean companies, one of the phenomena that I’ve noticed is that of “The Employee Who Can Not Be Fired.”

The Employee Who Can Not Be Fired?

Yes.

He/she deserves to be fired. Everyone knows it. Other employees may even be talking openly about it. They have developed elaborate routines to prevent themselves from being stuck working with the person. Only new, ignorant employees are assigned to work with them.

Their ineffective ways are legion, and the stuff of hallway conversation. Their failures are well-known, and well-talked about. They may never have stolen money, or attempted to defraud the company, so there is no way to call the police to let them do the dirty work (and they also can’t be idly threatened with that course of action).

In the Caribbean, there is considerable legislation that has been enacted to protect renters, and the laws make it very difficult to evict tenants, even when leases have long expired. Instead, landlords resort to all sorts of other means, some nefarious, but most involving social pressure of one kind or another to remove the unwelcome tenant-turned-squatter.

The employee I’m talking about here is basically a “cubicle/office-squatter”, and getting rid of them is extremely difficult.

One reason is that, once again, firing someone without documented cause in the Caribbean can lead to legal action, as the separation laws are written in favor of the employee. You can’t just get up one day and fire people for something like… Incompetence. In the eyes of the law, it’s just not enough.

(Whether this is a good or bad thing is beside the point of this particular blog.)

What keeps the squatter firmly in place, however, is an inability of executives and mangers to hold him/her to account on a consistent basis. Compound this inability with a deep reluctance to confront and the squatter is doubly protected. Add in a lack of adequate record-keeping by managers and human resource professionals, and you have an employee who will retire from the company with a pension. Only then will fellow employees breathe a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, among those who are breathing a sigh of relief are several others who are in the same boat but don’t know it.

The consequences of this situation in most Caribbean companies are many: an increase in costs for companies, and a decrease in morale by employees.

Our companies are terribly inefficient when compared with the best-in-class, mostly to be found in first world countries. With the exception of our tourist product in some countries, customer care and customer service are abysmal (unless you know someone on the inside). More bodies are needed to do anything and everything — I once witnessed my friend move her small townhouse in Kingston using 9 men, when I know that a similar move in the US would take 2 or 3 at most.

Yet, the Caribbean worker living in North America is among the hardest working and most productive. How does this miraculous transformation occur? Is there some white magic that comes with a green card to “farin”? Or is that magic really based in fear?

Another downside of not firing the corporate squatter is that the excellent employees who are striving to maintain increasingly better standards start to ask themselves “A whey mi a kill miself fah?” (Why am I killing myself?) It appears to them that mediocre efforts are judged in the same way that strong efforts are judged, and the financial rewards, increased authority and better teams that are expected by the high performers do not come because the squatters are taking up valuable resources, space and time.

What does it take to create a new culture? Briefly, managers must be willing to make strong, clear interventions that shake up the status quo, and alter their programs and systems to reward those who take risks.

Also, oftentimes there is a dire need for training managers in the art and science of having effective feedback and coaching conversations. The paternal and autocratic style of management learned during slavery and indentureship is of no use here, but managers have seen precious few alternatives to either alternative that work.

The opportunity for executives and managers to improve how they deal with “The Employee Who Can Not be Fired” are tremendous. At the very least, managers need to take responsibility for the fact that the phrase “Can Not” really means “Will Not,” and that their inaction keeps the situation stuck in place.