Column:

Past results

enthusiastic service. And worst of all, my parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with cold food, empty wine glasses and completely negligent service. The restaurant simply did not live up to the high hopes I had instilled. It is indeed so that past results are no indication of future performance. My work as a consultant setting up service desks brings me in frequent contact with disillusioned clients. What happened to the good old days when Joe, the system manager, walked around with his screwdriver and could immediately fix my problems? Now, I have to first ring the service desk and those people dont know anything! It is the service management equivalent of a dirty tablecloth on your table. The introduction of a service desk makes it possible for an entire department to work more proactively and to better plan and structure work activities certainly more so than with the proverbial screwdriver. Given time, it will result in better service across the board, but clients will often not notice it in the beginning. They were used to fast, personal service and their first impression is that everything is slow, difficult to arrange and impersonal. Clients are not pleased. What to do? Bend over backwards to provide the same fast and

TEXT: ANNEMARIE MOEIJES

personal service? This is often at the cost of improvement work concerning the set-up of a front and back office structure. Give further training to the service desk employees? This again causes uncertainty about the roles that service desk employees must take on because everyone always seems to be meddling in other peoples work. The result is a grey area in which no one is sure of what his or her responsibilities are. Client expectations are determined by the straightforward, personal and often inefficient service of the past. Their expectations need to be adjusted to the new situation. It is important to be clear about the new procedures and the response and resolution times, and it is particularly important not to revert to the that is actually not allowed, but Ill do it for you anyway types of responses, however tempting they may be. The service department must communicate clearly, be on the same page and question whether each requested service can be provided consistently, uniformly and in a logical manner, now, and in the future. Since they know what to expect, only then will clients slowly but surely become satisfied with the quality of the services you provide. By establishing, fulfilling and, eventually, exceeding expectations, you will find the key to customer satisfaction.

Last month, I went out for dinner. The menu was exciting, the view fantastic and the service attentive. While the bill ended up being higher than expected thanks, in part, to a liberal amount of good wine at the end of the night we patted our bellies in satisfaction and stepped smiling into the taxi to go home. I rang my father: Hey Dad, you two wanted to go out to eat for your 35th anniversary, right? I recently went to restaurant X with friends. It was expensive, but worth it: delicious food, beautiful interior and a view of the water. It just opened, but is packed every night. If I were you, I would make reservations ASAP. I told the same thing to friends, and my word-ofmouth marketing started a real trend. However friend A thought the food was mediocre, while friend B complained about the dirty tablecloths and the overly

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