Story 07: Customer Service
The story: The team agreed to improve customer service. Everyone left the meeting satisfied. Then the manager saw her in a T-shirt and asked where the top-tier service was. She was confused. She had taken customer service to mean the quality of her work. He had taken it to mean that presentation comes first. Same goal, two different things to fix.
What it means for organisations: Customer service is one of the most used and least defined phrases in business. Each person fills it with their own priority: appearance, responsiveness, tone, expertise, follow-through. Every one of those is defensible. That is why the word survives so many meetings without anyone testing it. When a team commits to improving it without saying what it means for their specific role, each person improves something different and the total improves by nothing in particular.
Where next?
Read the comic as text
The Alignment Gap, Story 7
by Stavros Stavru, Ph.D. (weallagreed.com)
Scene 1: The team email
A close-up of a laptop on a desk, next to a pen holder, a notebook, and a potted plant. On the screen is an email from Stavros titled "Team Agreements," sent to team@ahaplay.com: "We all agreed to work on improving our customer service." A voice speaks from off-panel.
Voice (off-panel): Ok, let's improve our customer service.
Banner between scenes: “What could go wrong?”
Scene 2: The office
A bright office with bookshelves, a hanging lamp, a chart on the wall, and a window looking out on the city. Axel sits at his desk in his usual shirt and tie, frowning and gesturing at Ally. Ally sits across from him in a casual yellow T-shirt, smiling, her laptop nearby.
Axel: Is that a T-shirt? Where's our top-tier customer service?
Ally: Isn't my work quality what defines our customer service?
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