M’s the Word: In praise of imperfection
Bring back personal service, however imperfect it may be
By on Jan 3, 2012Well, two hours of battery life before I scrabble in my suitcase to see if there is an adaptor, after all, lurking in a dark corner. Actually, I prefer to finish and turn off and watch a video, without reaching that ‘Come to Jesus’ moment when I am inconvenienced by the black screen.
I am heading to a meeting in Seoul, and then a short hop to Tokyo. This has been planned meticulously by my Japanese colleague, so there is a warm smugness as I anticipate the courtesy of a driver in white gloves, with a printed sign bearing some approximation of my name, as I bolt through customs.
And that is enough to set me thinking. The knowledge that I am going to be met, and the confidence I have in Takashi’s arrangements, means I rise to the occasion. I am mentally rehearsing the thank you speech I will make. I am constructing the welcome address I will deliver to the 87 (he has counted them; see what I mean about thoroughness?) delegates. I am suffused with wellbeing. The years roll off me, and I re-live the shining confidence of my youth.
It is curious, how sometimes we can change our behavior, and the behavior of others, by raising expectations, achieving something that was beyond the expected. There was a time, in the late 1980s, when every management guru had something to say about customer excellence or customer delight.
Like most of you who lived through that particular fad, at the time I humored the poor souls who struggled with those concepts and envied the cadre who actually wrote about it and achieved the income from book sales. The crest of that wave did not last more than five years. Anyone still writing about customers in the 1990s would be about as interesting as cassette recorders in 2010.
However, the fullness of time means it is worth dusting off the concept and seeing if it applies again now. I wonder if we have absorbed the jump in service and are now inured to it or whether we have become blasé and accepted things as they are now. I have this ugly feeling that we have allowed technological advance to cloud our expectations.
So many of our needs can now be gratified instantly through automated response systems with no area for human involvement that we have forgotten the thrill of imperfection. We no longer marvel that things happen on time. We no longer accept a delivery date as an approximation. For most purchases, the acquisition process is accomplished in seconds, leaving us with no time to appreciate the confirmation of our behavior.
When delivery is automated, there is no space for uncertainty. The excitement of not knowing for sure whether something will happen has been removed completely from transactions. It is hard to recall the days when genuine service, perfect delivery, were rare enough to set a thrill running though us when they happened.
Somehow, purchasing has become such a dull and lifeless process. It is as un-remarkable as breathing. Once the unpredictability has gone, the opportunity for excellence has gone with it. We need to jolt ourselves to appreciate the value of things.
So I am wondering if we have reached the time when an imperfect service, with the element of danger of non-fulfillment, might be desirable. I cannot help thinking there is now room for the introduction of imperfection. Personal service, rather than personalization of service, I guess, like the circus performance of the high wire artist, where the risk that they might slip is as important as the delight in a smooth performance.
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