“They Don’t Pay Me to Look Good” in Service Delivery

At one of our Proactive Service® workshops, one of the techs – let’s call him John – told me, “They don’t pay me to look good, they pay me to fix things!”.  We were discussing the importance of how we personally present ourselves at the customer’s facilities.  John, who looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days and was wearing a well-worn company T shirt, was obviously not convinced about the importance of appearance in service delivery.  It wasn’t the first time I had heard this.

“Actually John”, I replied, “they pay you for both – fixing things and looking good.”  John was not convinced.

I asked John if he had been to a wedding recently and it turns out he was just the month before.

“What did you wear?” I asked.

“Sports Jacket and dress shirt – no tie.”

“What day of the week was it?”

“Saturday.  Why?”

“Is that what you usually wear on a Saturday?”

“You’re kidding, right?”  John responded.  “It’s usually torn jeans and a stained T-shirt”.  John smiled broadly and looked around the room at his peers.

“Really?” I asked in mock astonishment.  “Why didn’t you wear those to the wedding?”

“Because you just don’t that’s why.  You dress up for a wedding.  It shows respect.”

“But surely John, you weren’t invited to look good, you were invited to share the joy of the bride and groom’s big day.”  I stated, paraphrasing what he had said earlier.

“This is different!  I was talking about work and the need to get something fixed.  My customers wouldn’t care if I came in boxer shorts so long as I fixed the problem before I left!”

“Okay John.  How about this?  Have you seen your doctor in the last 12 months?”

“I just had my check up.  Why?

“What was he wearing?”

“Nice pants and a dress shirt – white I think.  He also had a phone on his belt and a stethoscope around his neck.”

“Any bloodstains on the shirt?”

“What????  No!!!”

“What if there were?  What if your doctor was wearing clothes with bloodstains and that looked like they had been slept in, wore a two-day beard and had unkempt hair?  How would you feel about that?”

I went on to explain to John that the service that our customers’ experience is derived from two distinct yet inseparable components.  One is the actual service performed – the troubleshooting and repair, the maintenance activities, the installation, etc.  This component is the service outcome.  It is the reason that the customer called us in the first place.  It was what John was thinking about when he spoke about the fact that customers don’t pay him to look good.

The second component that makes up our customers’ service experience is how the service is conducted – the smile on the tech’s face, the cleanliness of the work area, the quality of the repair description and even how the technicians chooses to present him or herself.  This is called the service delivery.

Because in most cases the customer can’t truly assess the quality of the actual service outcome, they look to how the service is delivered to determine the quality of the service provided.  In effect, they use the service delivery as the lens through which to view and assess the service outcome.  Both service delivery and service outcome are important and cannot be separated.  Together they add up to the total service experience.

Therefore, since customers are paying for the total service experience, it is fair to say that customers do pay us to look good AND fix things.  It is up to us as managers to ensure that they are getting what they are paying for when purchasing services from us.

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Jim

“Your appearance, attitude, and confidence define you as a person.  A professional, well-dressed golfer, like a businessperson, gives the impression that he thinks that the golf course and/or workplace and the people there are important.”

– Lorii Myers, Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace