If you think you are not in customer service you might want to think again. Whatever you do – you do for someone. And that person is your customer. We get so caught up in what we do –clean sewers, enter data into a system, reconcile accounts, make widgets – that we forget that there is a reason for doing it. If you have completely lost sight of why you do what you do, you have my sympathy. But maybe this article will help you find a reason for going to work every day.
Sometimes our sense of “customer” is lost because we do not deal with the customer directly. If you sell shoes the customer is clearly the person sliding their size twelve tootsies into the delicate sandal in your hands. But if you work in accounts receivable in a large manufacturing plant it is easy to lose sight of the customer. It is tempting to think your customer is the person who owes money. They are clearly the organization’s customer – and yes, they have needs that those in AR must acknowledge. But the finance manager needs your month end reports to initiate collection procedures and to complete reporting obligations. That person is likely your real “customer”.
It is entirely possible to have more than one customer and for those different customers to have varying needs and legitimacy of need. The loudest voice is not necessarily the most important. You will get conflicting messages. You are told that what you produce has to be on time; accurate and meet standards. And it has to be produced at the lowest possible cost. Different people have different demands and it seems impossible to do it all.
Stop listening to the voices and listen to yourself. If you have been on the job for more than a year you likely already have a pretty clear idea of what is important. Surprisingly, you may have stopped focusing on that important thing – because someone, somewhere – has repeatedly told you that something else is more important. They’re wrong – you know it. But the repetition makes it seem important and so you stop doing what you know is important – if only to stop the noise.
Let’s look at a simple example. You know that the next department needs what you produce to meet the needs of the next person along the line. When you first started the job the most important thing was “get the report – or widget – to the next person in line on time“. And so for the first little while that is what you tried to do. It wasn’t easy but you met that goal. And then you were told – there are spelling mistakes – or – the widget isn’t very shiny.
It doesn’t take long for a smart person like you to refocus on producing the most error free report or the shiniest widget possible. Several months go by – or maybe a year – and then someone tells you that you make the nicest reports or shiniest widgets in the entire company but you are way too slow.
When you focused on being on time you received negative feedback. So you slowed down and focused on quality or appearance. You were praised for the quality of your reports or widgets. Once in awhile someone suggested that you need to speed things up. But you are proud of the quality of your work and you enjoy the compliments. As a result, you conclude that speed can’t be very important.
Perhaps it is time to stop and find out what the customer really needs. Find the person who receives the report (or the widget) and ask them why they need it, and what is most important to them. Ask them to rank the needs by importance. If quality, neatness and shiny are all important are they more important than quickly? If clever report design is desirable, is it more important than “on-time”? If both are critical you will need to examine the process to see how that can be accomplished.
It is possible that you have been overdoing something. Maybe your beautiful graphics impress your supervisor. But if she always deletes them before including your data in the final report you are doing good but unnecessary work.
Widgets have always had a red stripe that is added by hand, By asking you may discover that the stripe doesn’t serve any purpose. It looks nice, has always been done but is not important.
It is entirely possible that the next person along the line will not know what is most important – they have lost sight of the purpose and need. If so, enlist their help to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Broadly speaking, we all fall into one of two camps. The first camp believes that what they do is the most important thing being done in the entire organization. They believe they are the only one who knows how to do it (and will often go to great lengths to make sure no one else finds out how to do it).
Those in the second camp secretly believes that what they do is of little or no importance. And they spend a lot of time trying to make sure that no one else figures that out.
Those in the first camp never think to ask if they are meeting their customer’s needs. To them, what they do is complete, important and beyond reproach. Those in the second camp are afraid to make inquiries. What if the work really is unimportant – even unnecessary?
Too often we all feel like a cog in the machine and it is difficult to know just how much value we add. This fear is almost certainly not founded on fact. Often, a process of discovery will uncover useless procedures or tasks – like the red stripe on the widget, or making three photocopies of a six part invoice. But take heart. It is extremely unlikely that the company will discover that they don’t really need the report, the widget or you.
What will happen is that you will rediscover the value of your work.
Stop waiting for the organizational feedback loop to give you a signal. Find your customer and ask what they need. Find ways to make that happen. If you truly understand what you do – and recognize and believe the need – you can’t help but take pride in your work. By internalizing the process you take ownership and will find ways to do what you do well. You don’t need the board of directors to set a policy. You don’t need the president’s stamp of approval.
Take back your job. Identify your customer and provide the service and product they deserve.