Customer Service Management: A Difficult Language in the Public Sector?

Introduction

Much of business success today depends on effective management of customer service. Organisations that ‘do well’ and those that ‘do good’ are the ones that do their homework on provider-customer relationship. The first group represents the business sector and the other, the public. Successful organisations recognise that their existence depend on customers. So in a service-based world, what language should our public service providers speak? Are we doing enough for our customers? Why should public demand good services? Which comes first, the provider or the customer? What are the present customer service challenges and opportunities? How can we translate our public sector values like “efficiency, effectiveness and transparency” into reality? These questions might need some head scratching.

This paper is thus an attempt on raising customer service consciousness among our public sector organisations. I have been little audacious in presenting this area of management as ‘the language of customer service.’ It’s simply an approximation of the need that I perceive to be looked into by our service deliverers. Learning to speak such a language will definitely require service deliverers to rethink their organisational perspectives on it. Where do we stand in terms of service management? How often we use the language of customer service? How often do our organisations recognise for whom they exist for? How should they set their service performance standards? These are some of the issues, which need to be answered.

Customer Service and the Public Sector

Customer satisfaction or loyalty is what all businesses want. It does add to their bottom-line benefits. But for public institutions, it is the customer service accountability and improvement in delivering their services. All kinds of governments all over the world have these basic tenets. In the past, both public and private sectors were regarded as separate extremes of a continuum for various policy purposes. And today, public sector organizations are beginning to emulate the private sector’s good practices and success stories in service management.

Public sector in our context would include government departments, organisations, autonomous agencies, national enterprises and corporations that serve the general public. Some of its key features are;

1. distinct set of customers who receive the service (s) as per their rights based on the terms and conditions exercised by the RGoB. This determines our customers’ status. A person wanting to build a house in Thimphu would be a good example here. It would involve the Department of Urban Housing and Development (DUHD) and City Corporation in exercising construction rules and regulations;
2. customers of the public sector agencies have little or no influence to determine which services should be produced, how it should be marketed and delivered. Except in social sector, service marketing concepts in others are uncommon.
3. service output measurement is in general, done in terms of inputs instead of outputs. For example, land, buildings, manpower strength, equipment and office utilities rather than measuring in terms of outputs like the ‘number of educated Bhutanese’ (i.e., for the department of education) and the ‘number of people using a newly constructed bridge’ (for the department of roads);
   Financial inputs for producing and delivering service (e.g. investments and operational costs) are evaluated based on the overall development needs of the country and its public sector borrowings and
   
4. customer feedback on the quality of the product or service is not a normal practice. It may be sought either when the provider needs to review the service package or when there is something terribly wrong with the service itself.

The way these features are designed into the overall service system greatly determines its performance capacity. There are various ways to support those citizens or ‘customers’ whose needs are met less by our business sector. This is perhaps the main difference between these two sectors. By the virtue of its existence, the public sector and its agencies have command over providing some services either as a right for all citizens or as a special form of development support for the deprived section of its population. For example, the public sector can create employment opportunities, provide living allowances for dependants of employees, protect consumers’ rights, lower rental tariffs for the utilities, and so on.

Of Service Needs & Expectations

Whether we like it or not, we come into contact with our public service providers. They will exist as long as we have the need for their services. We cannot choose to buy all services from the private sector. Because of the business that the public sector is in, it will continue to enjoy its monopoly. But this should not let public service providers to undermine its customer needs and expectations. It should learn to speak the language of customer service. Public service providers are no doubt indispensable but then such a position should not make them behave as if customers are petitioners for service.

The days when we had limited needs are gone. Improvements in our public sector are common today but not much in developing and delivering the services. We are a service-dependent society. So it is imperative that the public sector practises the language of customer service. Access to cable television and internet, for example is stirring our awareness of customer service. So does the kuensel, which is the only national news agency in the country. Customers are finding ways to voice their concerns for better services. Some customers are already sharing their scathing views on our service systems but many offer their brilliant suggestions in improving it.

Expectations are also rising, gradually among the public, dramatically among a few well-traveled citizens. In fact the pressure on the health staff, like comments on the internet, comes mainly from this section. Although a comparison of the national referral hospital with a high-end hospital in Bangkok is obviously unfair, the pressure is very real and it continues to grow (Kuensel, May 18 2002).

Performance and Expectations

Expectations run ahead of performance. It does even when service qualities improve. Satisfying customers’ expectations is therefore, a constant process of setting performance standards or goals. Take for instance, the Road Safety and Transport Authority (RSTA). Its customers such as motorists, vehicle owners and the general public expect them to ensure road safety and driving convenience. To this, the RSTA has already introduced service improvement initiatives such as refresher courses for professional drivers, general meetings for taxi drivers and the weekly public announcements or messages on road safety. Despite these initiatives, expectations continue to rise.

A good example of expectations running ahead of RSTA’s service performance would be the vehicle fitness test, which is conducted twice in a year. There are customers who expect more than what the present fitness test offers. Roadworthiness for your vehicle is approved if its light (for signals, breaks, headlights) and gear systems are in order. Anything beyond that seems to be out of their control, which in reality shouldn’t be the case. Service standards need to be constantly revisited. For expectations become only needs over a period of time.

People often talk about their personal documents not being attended to, or approved on time (e.g. citizenship identity card, passports, clearances, certificates and so on). Some would even brag about how easily they can get these things done in a day or two. Still, many would wish they knew the correct procedures of availing these services. Sometimes in civil service, we find ourselves calling up some department on behalf of our cousins when another customer is being kept unattended right in front of our desk.

On Managing Service and Customer Feedback

For any business service, listening to customers and inviting customer feedbacks play an important role. This helps companies to measure their achievements and learn from mistakes. Managing customer complaints or feedback means assessing how well a business organisation is meeting its set targets and customer promises. It determines the business capacity to retain customer loyalty. Successful businesses have always recognised the importance of managing this key aspect of customer service.

We know that it exists in businesses as well as in the public service agencies because of customers. In general, the customers of the public sector are the same customers of the business sector. The key difference is in terms of their target customers. This has been indicated elsewhere above. We may call the customers of public service as clients, stakeholders, beneficiaries or whatever, but we are accountable to them as we would be to customers of the business sector. For they are the best judges of services that we produce and deliver. So it is important for us to listen to their service needs and feedback. The more we listen to customers and act on it, closer the way we come towards service excellence.

Many of our public service providers are bereft of formal customer feedback mechanisms. We are most of the times preoccupied in our offices, trying to chalk out wonderful strategies and programmes in isolation, far away from what our customers would actually need in reality. Think about how little our service agencies invest in developing or reskilling their staff that handle customers. Unlike in a business organisation where they have right people in managing customers, a public agency may not acknowledge the need. Nor is it necessary to have its entire staff trained in this area. But it is important that it prioritizes and identifies the posts where customer management is crucial and thus reallocates its staff who are good at it.

This is an information age. Customers are interested in assessing the performance of service providers. People talk about the ways they have been dealt by service providers. As always, there are for instances, customers both corporate and private who want to get their documents processed, customers who want to seek more information on how things work in public organisations, and those who do not know where to turn to when services they receive remain below their expectations. Word-of-mouth relaying of service experiences is so common in our society, and thereby, the public’s assessment of service quality.

Should our leaders and service providers learn to manage customers’ needs and expectation? Yes, they must. To understand this from customers’ perspectives is very essential which in reality is very hard to practise. Consider customers’ complaints or opinions in Kuensel directed to some public agency. Experience tells us that these feedbacks are usually volleyed back defensively. We do react apprehensively to such complaints, and thus, we would see it as detrimental to our corporate reputation and image.

Customers’ Difficulties

Customers in Bhutan may find some difficulty in understanding and managing their interactions with the public sector organizations mainly because of the following reasons:

• lack of knowledge and skills required to understand how public services are produced and delivered;
• lack of awareness of what actually gets processed when customers go there and which ‘front office’ to approach;
• lack of interest in public service functions, roles and standards;
• lack of proper customer information (e.g. customers’ permanent address)
• indifference to observing the service protocol or systems for example, falling in queues and filling up a form, as prescribed by the service organization;
• welfare and cultural attitude to providing service feedbacks; our public sector customers have high regard for their institutions and service agents;
• lack of ability or will to control one’s behaviours or actions as per the service providers’ practices. E.g. a customer failing to sign on his document on time;
• culturally accommodating to complaints or in expressing discomforts;
• language difficulties, especially in case of the services that are highly technical or scientific in nature.

Alternatives for Service Improvements

Whether in business or public sector, we do have educated, well trained civil workforce and professionals. Generally, this lot has a fair view about what should be the desired or right service quality standards that we should be receiving. Of course in reality, it is not usually the hard service (‘core service’) that matters to us most but the soft peripherals such as the way the service is delivered. Readiness on the part of a staff to help the customer find his way out from a huge intimidating office or kadrin chey(Thank you in Bhutanese language) from the cashier after she receives some utility payment would be a good example.

Following are some of the alternatives that may be relevant to improving customer service practices in the public sector.

1. Set up Relevant Information and Communication System

   Use of right information and communicating it to your customers play a crucial role in offering good services. The more a customer is aware of interacting with a public sector organisation, the more that customer is likely to be in a position to satisfy his service needs. Relevant service information systems therefore, should be introduced to collect information on customers, their interactions with the provider, both quantitative and qualitative assessments of services delivered, complaints and remedying actions.

   Internal communication system of an organization is just as important as its external communication. Employees both at the customer interface (or ‘front stage’) and those in the ‘backstage’ should effectively communicate their experiences of customer-related problems and challenges. Such a clear process of communication would provide better results in designing and delivering good service (s).

2. Recruitment and Selection

   Staff at the customer ‘interface’ should have right aptitude and competence in handling customer-issues. More than knowledge or qualification, they should have personal attributes and skills in dealing with people. They should be able to provide information as required by service users.

3. Focus Group Discussions and Research

   Customer feedback is important to any public service providers. But the staff members who handle customer issues (front stage staff) are the most indispensable ones. This group would understand the real customer-service issues in your organisation. And also they are most likely to be more critical of their own organisation’s customer issues than the customers themselves. Heads of public service organisations should therefore, initiate focus group discussions (FGDs) in order to understand their existing customer scenarios. Customer research or studies may be other useful ways of designing customer improvement programmes.

4. Organise Workshops on Quality Service or Productivity Improvement

   Short workshops in areas like service quality improvement and customer orientation would be very relevant to most of our public sector organisations. It would raise quality consciousness among service providers and thus help build quality culture in the public sector.

5. Motivation Initiatives

   Introduce motivation programmes for your staff. This should be incorporated into any of the above alternatives. Money should not be the only means of initiating motivation programmes.

   In designing any service improvement plans, focus on few areas where you can make a great difference. Start small but make it visible. Tell your customers that you work for them. Publicize your achievements. Repeat these in other areas; reinforce your team, and continue to learn from your internal and external customers.

On Public Sector Standards

We have heard of “efficiency, effectiveness and transparency” for more than five years now. The drive for such a wonderful public sector slogan has been well received by its agents. It has great potential to improve public service standards, and to build good relationships with its customers. It is still very popular but seems to be short of workable systems and processes to make it realizable. For example, to effectively implement these standards, we would require setting standards with which an organization is to be judged; its performance measured and activities assessed if they were performed publicly. The organisation then in turn would require itself to assess its employees based on these similar criteria. It would also involve reviewing our existing performance evaluation factors.

Today, based on these civil service values, the public sector organizations should

1. provide evidence to its customers of how well they are managing their service systems, and more importantly
2. nurture partnership to form a learning relationship from their feedback.

The Way Ahead

Customer service management does not exist in a vacuum. We need to think about the very business that we are in. And for that matter, as public service providers, we have to concentrate on our development objectives and priorities, consider the ‘doable choices’ and strive to achieve them. No matter what you do and how you decide to serve as public sector organisations, remember that you are doing it for the PEOPLE who are your CUSTOMERS. If you work with this end in mind, the way ahead could be all ours.

1. Weiser R Charles (1997), ‘Encouraging Customer Feedback’, Gower Handbook of Customer Service, 253-266
2. Prof. Stone, Merlin & Gardner Ros (1997), ‘Public Sector Service Standards’, Gower Handbook of Customer Service, 267-283
3. Chapman, Paul (1997), ‘Roles, Not Jobs’, Gower Handbook of Customer Service, 320-341
4. Scott, Dru (1991), Customer Satisfaction: The Other Half of Your Job, California: Crisp Publications, Inc.
5. Kuensel, A Vital Service (editorial), May 2002