Service is all about flexibility and being able to accommodate your customer’s every whim.
Or is it?
If you go into a delicatessen you expect them to be able to give you a chicken piri piri brown baguette with extra pineapple, hold the mayo.
That is flexibility, that is great service.
But once you have ordered it, you don’t expect them to be able to take the chilli out of the piri piri. (I hope you would feel like a fool even asking).
That is being accommodating that causes rework, that is expensive, that is slow.
So why do we expect service providers to be able to accommodate us when we change our minds?
Just as importantly, why do they let us get away with it?
Good service is about flexibility, and then delivering like a train. Look at Dell, or Amazon.
If your customers change their mind mid order, smile politely, cancel the order and send them back to the end of the queue.
Image by Jessica Mullen
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