Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

When I began working in the field of service, my first question was “What is service?” Surprisingly, I got a lot of very shallow answers. Like “Give people whatever they want so that they’re happy.” Yeah, but in a medical situation, that’s not always a good idea or “The customer is always right”, which we know is actually not true, or “Serve other people the way you would like to be served”, which is only good advice if other people are exactly like you, which, I have news for you. They’re not. There actually wasn’t a good definition of service that would make sense for front line service, internal service from the boardroom to everybody in the organization, service from the front line.

I worked in the field, studied it carefully, and ended up writing a definition. I’ll show it to you in just a moment. And then this idea of care, which is where we ended up in our last segment that also showed up on the radar, and I started asking people, what do we mean by care? And again, I heard a whole series of, well, frankly, some what confusing answers like “Oh, care is very difficult to define”,or “It’s an abstract concept with many nuances”, which makes it difficult for us to work with, clearly. So I wrote a simple definition of care. Let me show you both my definition of service, definition of care, and what it is that connects them at the heart.

Here we go. Here is my definition of service. Service is taking action. The action could be over the counter face to face. It could be over the phone. It could be through an email or a message. It could be through an app or online. The action could be at the beginning of a relationship, during marketing and sales, in the middle, during installation, delivery or training, or even towards the end, when you’re involved in an upgrade or solving a problem. Service is taking action that creates value. What makes something valuable, whether it’s external service to a customer or a client or internal service to a colleague, is when the person being served says that your action created value contributing to their well-being. Now, this is very interesting because we’ve reframed what it means to be a service provider.

In the old world, we used to say the customer is king, which made the service provider someone subservient. But no, no, no. Here we’re saying that the service provider is the creator of value.That’s the most esteemed position of all. Sometimes that value can be calibrated and quantified. Like you helped me save money or make money or get more value for my money, or you served me quickly. You help me get the most out of my available time. Sometimes the value is more emotional. You made me feel understood. You made me feel good.You reduced my anxiety. Thank you.

Sometimes the value is relational. You help me to feel more connected with the people in my life or with you as my service provider. And sometimes the value can actually be existential. Your service has helped me have a greater sense of purpose and meaning in my life. You’ve given me more sense of direction for the future. So service is taking action that creates value. What makes it valuable is when it contributes to someone’s well-being. What about the human phenomenon of care? Well, when I started researching in this area, I also found many people with odd definitions like, “Well, it’s very difficult to define ”or “There are many nuances involved.”, or “You need to be a philosopher to understand this.” or “Care? That’s just health care.” But that’s not what you and I are talking about when we say we care about our customers or about the future. So I wrote this definition. Care is concern.

Now you can hear that in the tone of voice when somebody says, I care about you. In other words, they are genuinely concerned. But that’s not enough. We want people who are concerned and committed to someone’s well-being. So when you say I care, it’s not just that you feel for the other person, but you’re going to actually do something that contributes to their well-being. Now, I want you to notice we’ve just done another major reframe. You may not know that the origin of the word care comes from the old German word Karo, which meant to grieve and to worry about the future. Because way back so many generations ago when that word Karo was invented, if someone was old or sick or wounded, they were probably going to die. And so to care was to worry and to grieve. That is not what we mean today. Today, when we say I care, it means I’m here to be committed to encourage and enable and empower and educate you for the future.

So care is concern and commitment to someone’s well-being. Well, how do you demonstrate that care? How do you take good care? Of course, you’ve got to take some action, an action that creates value. So we could actually say that service is care in action. Or another way to look at this is the origin of service itself is care.