The rules we make
A customer left her item for repair, and our executive gave her a receipt. She wasn’t able to personally collect it, so she sent her driver.
But the driver did not bring back the receipt. The executive insisted to either talk to her (the customer) over phone, or send the driver back to bring the receipt. If everyone sent their drivers, chances are, we would be turning away more disgruntled customers than serving happy ones.
The executive is merely doing her job. The rules are the rules. But the question is, why these rules? Who do these rules best serve? We created a checklist to ask whether we were helping the customers, or causing them inconvenience.
Rules Checklist
1) Why does this rule exist?
2) Does this rule benefit the majority of our customers? How?
3) Do we have difficulty looking people in the eye when we explain this rule? Why?
4) What story does this rule tell the customer about our values?
5) How does this rule make us better?
6) What would happen if we scrapped this rule?
People (on the other end) expect us to do things their way. But it’s not necessary to accept the way they expect.
Photo by Erik Mclean:
