"Service With a Smile"
Industrial Engineer
August 2006, pp. 40-44
The author of this article says that the same paradigm underlying manufacturing mass production is responsible for the current state of customer service. She calls this Mass Servicing, the hallmarks of which are "semi-skilled customer care representatives trained a mile wide and an inch deep handling a high volume of calls for all customer inquiries. The representatives are typically the lowest paid employees in the company, yet the ones customers see as the company." Incentives are often tied to how fast the customer care representative can get the customer off the phone.
An alternative to this approach is Lean Servicing. The elements of Lean Servicing are:
- Customer-centric work cells reduce cycle time and offer seamless one-stop service
- A level service system is achieved through pulling customer demand and maintained through visible metrics, decreasing cycle time, and need for inventory and associated costs
- Servicing to demand decreases the need for indirect labor and associated costs
- Direct workers are provided ongoing training and a voice in the business in return for their continuous improvement ideas and flexibility
- Quality and process controls are built into the servicing process through poka yoke, standard work, and 5S, eliminating the need for quality checks and associated costs and time
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