Adapter Paul Streets weaves the political agenda into the World of IT and draws customer service parallels with a valuable lesson.
My usual two-wheeled commute was temporarily replaced by the car recently. The novelty of listening to a radio proved alluring as I flitted between stations, surveying the choices. It’s been a good few years since I slipped from Radio1’s demographic so I finally settled on Radio4 for my homeward journey.
The station runs a series of interviews called ‘At Lunch With’ where reporter Becky Milligan chats candidly over lunch to politicians and other public figures. This is an ‘off-the-record lunch, on the record’ they say. On the face of it, these interviews are a world away from IT services, but are they?
Heroes and villains
The particular interview I listened to got me thinking: News and media are full of real-life heroes and villains across the spectrum of politics, sports, entertainment, arts and more. Scandals, cover ups, wrong doings, and also (thankfully) some good news - we’ve heard them all. I pondered - what do I like to see in such politicians and public figures? What gets my vote and what gets my goat? Words and phrases like ‘trust’, ‘honesty’, ‘integrity’, ‘inner compass’, ‘honour’, ‘no spin’ and ‘not points scoring’ all sprung to mind as I mulled this over.
A secret recipe
I hope we can all think of figures in society today that embody these types of values and approaches. They may not grab the headlines quite as prominently as the villains of political and public life, but they do exist.
This got me wondering whether there are any lessons from such people and behaviours relating to IT services. Well you know what? I think there’s a recipe for sound IT services lurking in here. These aren’t the sole elements we require of course - IT is complicated and multifaceted. However, if we apply trust, honesty and the aforementioned values to our customers and services, then these certainly provide firm cornerstones for success.
Vote-winning IT services
Technology aside, IT is all about people. All the best examples of service I’ve seen during my career are when both supplier and customer uphold these types of values – being heroes, not villains. Desk thumping, finger pointing, an ‘us and them’ attitude, secrecy, ticket ping-pong, hidden agendas, none of these serve either party well in the long run.
Good service starts with being able to pick up the phone and trust that your supplier or customer will quickly get on board with your needs and pull together towards a shared goal. Search out that elusive ‘win – win’ where the customer gets a good service at a fair price and the supplier has the satisfaction of a job well done and a happy customer. Get it right and the effect will be every bit as compelling as any Maturity Model, ISO standard or best practices framework. For customers and suppliers alike, it’ll be vote-winning!
REFERENCES: Thanks to Radio4 for the inspiration for this article. You can listen to Radio4s “At Lunch With…” series by reporter Becky Milligan on their iPlayer Radio at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03fvldp/episodes/downloads
