Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

All service is delivered in a sequence. It could be over the phone, bring, bring, bring, bring, all the way through to “Thank you so much and feel free to call us again the next time we can be of service to you.” Click. 

The service transaction could be somebody walks into the branch and there’s the first moment of greeting all the way until they walk back out the door. It could be the complete negotiation of a new financial structuring product, B2B. It could be doing a quarterly portfolio review. It could be as simple as changing someone’s address, but all service is delivered in a sequence. During that sequence are multiple perception points. 

Say that word with me. Go. Perception points. Because these are the moments when other people form their opinion about you. Every one of those perception points can be evaluated on the six levels of service.

Let me give you an example. Have you ever called a restaurant to make a reservation for dinner? Please raise your hand if you’ve ever done that. Raise your hand if you’ve ever. Okay. Have you ever called and the way they handled the call was not very nice? 

What did you do? 

Well, it happened to me. It happened to me. Last year in Seattle, Washington, my mother had her 86th birthday. All of the family members flew in to be with her. I called the restaurant. Bring, bring, bring, bring. Here’s what I got. 

“Hello?” “Hi. Is this the x y z restaurant?” “Uh-huh.’ “Oh, okay. Well, I’m calling to make a reservation for dinner.” “Uh-huh.” “On Saturday.” “Okay. Saturday. What time?” “7 p.m..” “Okay. How many people?” I said, “It’s a party of 12.” I thought she’d be excited. What did she say? “Uh-huh. Okay. What’s your name? “ I said, “My name is Ron.” “What’s your phone number? “ I gave her my phone number. I thought, wait a minute, this is my mother’s birthday. Something’s not right. 

So I said to her, “It’s my mother’s 86th birthday.” she said, “Uh-huh,we have a lot of birthdays here.” And I said to her, “I tell you what, why don’t you treat this as a tentative reservation? And if I’m going to confirm it, I’ll give you another call.” She said, “Uh-huh”, 

Did I call again? No. Now why? Why? 

If you think about that service transaction from the beginning to the middle of the end of going to a restaurant, the very first point would be calling the restaurant. At that point, the service that she created did not produce the level of value that I expected. So, instead of creating value, she damaged value, she destroyed value, she degraded the whole restaurant. 

The tragedy is that the cook, the chef, the busboy, the hostess, the owner, the cleaner, the manager, everybody else in the company doesn’t even know it happened.