When we rely only on systems, we give our customers a fantastic experience right up until we come up against an unplanned for occurrence. Then, we give them a lot of pain.
I am a fan of systems. Systems allow for consistency and scale. In fact, I would argue that your business isn’t a business until you systematize it. Without systems that cover your core functions, your company is at best a practice: A collection of smart people who each do things their own way.
Systems make it so we, as owners, can go on vacation and know that our external and internal customers are still getting the same high-quality service. When joining, new team members learn the way we do it and don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
The catch is that the world is too complex and the inputs too varied for us to be able to design a system to handle all possible inputs. This is why we need empowered people who can support each other and our clients when things go awry.
Systems don’t deliver a consistently good client experience without empowered humans
Ritz Carlton empowers team members to make it right without any managerial intervention. One of the Ritz’s service values is, “I own and immediately resolve guest problems.” Your child forgets their stuffed animal at a Ritz? The loss prevention team will make it right. The Ritz gets that their systems aren’t perfect. Problems that they didn’t plan for occur. If the people within the system are empowered to fix the unexpected, your customers will be potentially happier than if the issue didn’t happen.
Additionally, as systems get complex, they need more help from humans, not less. For example, Twitter employees are predicting that the Twitter code based will inevitably stumble without humans to keep it running. You’d think that code just runs, the process just works, and human intervention isn’t necessary. It strangely doesn’t work that way.
Systems don’t do well with unexpected inputs
I just had a particularly classic airline mixup. I had a multi-leg flight from Seattle-Chicago-Florida and my luggage was only checked through to Chicago. What complicated matters is that my second flight was on what’s called a code share. It was the same ticket, but a different airline.
I landed, some 3,000 miles from my original destination, waited until all the luggage had come and gone, realized mine wasn’t coming, and made my way to the luggage office. Of course, Airline #2 had no record of any luggage ever travelling with me. There was nothing they could do, they informed me. Later it turns out this was incorrect, but I was not, at the time, an expert in lost luggage. The catch was that I was leaving in 36 hours for a scuba diving trip and all my gear was in those bags!
I found myself calling the regular 800 number for Airline #1 and got a particularly thoughtful representative. She promised me that she would track down the problem. I believe that this was her intent, and maybe she did, but I never heard back from her.
An hour later, when I called again, I hit a brick wall. The baggage department told me there was nothing that they could do. Legally, they couldn’t work on this problem until airline number 2 files the missing baggage claim.
Lost in bureaucratic limbo
I was trapped in airline bureaucratic limbo. Airline #2 refused to help because they had no record of my luggage. Airline #1 wouldn’t help because the other airline didn’t file a lost luggage claim for luggage they never had.
No one was willing to help because there was no process for dealing with this problem. Normally, I would watch this with some detached amusement, especially with the killer clothing sales that were going on down the street at the local mall. But, as I said, I had just over a day to solve this problem before I left the country.
Empowered people can solve unexpected problems
Through persistence, I was able to get the phone number for Airline #1’s baggage room in Chicago. I was also able to get the phone number for the baggage room for Airline #2 in Florida. This is where I wanted my bags to be. I explained the problem and asked Airline #1 to put my bags on a flight to Florida and let Airline #2’s baggage room know to expect it.
Shockingly, they all agreed. Once I found the right people, it was beyond easy to make it happen. The problem was that I had to go through almost 4 hours of phone trees and various support levels before someone broke down and made the connection for me. The system wasn’t designed for this scenario and I had to hack it with charisma and persistence.
Later that day, my bags with a special RUSH tag arrived at the right airport.
I made it work because I found the people in both airlines and across the system who were empowered to fix this relatively simple problem.
Unfortunately for both airlines, it was a rather negative customer experience. No one in the phone tree was empowered to help. In fact, I believe they both broke regulations in connecting me directly to their baggage rooms. We literally had to break the system to get my luggage before my plane took off for my next trip.