In 1988, Michael R. Mantell wrote the book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff.” Now we know that Mantell was wrong about Field Service. That is because failure to set achievable expectations will have major negative business outcomes.
Here is the real story!
In the coming months and years, your organization will likely implement steady changes to how you do business. Some of these changes that are on most service leader’s minds are:
- Touchless service
- Blended workforce
- New business models – XaaS, IoT
- Circular economy
- Digital transformation
- Servitization
- Predictive maintenance
- Artificial intelligence
Each of these changes is complex and will impact your customers differently. As part of each rollout, you must create a set of expectations that will be shared internally and with each customer. These must be achievable expectations, which means each expectation you communicate will be achievable 99+% of the time.
Some applicable definitions and other background information
Before we jump into the details, we must understand an idea and three definitions.
The ideas expressed in this article originated in “How small service failures drive customer defection: Introducing the concept of microfailures” by Sean Sands, Colin Campbell, Lois Shedd, Carla Ferraro, and Alexis Mavrommatis. The article is easy to read and has many valuable ideas not discussed here.
Service failure – any service that fails to meet a customer’s expectation. Because individuals’ emotions influence service quality, the following definitions are imprecise and may leave you uncomfortable. Don’t worry!
They come in two varieties – macrofailure and microfailure. – Sands et al. define a macrofailure as a “negative service encounter in which customer expectations go unmet by a wide margin.”
Microfailure – On the other hand, a microfailure is an “encounter where customer expectations go unmet by only a narrow margin.”
Since each of us will react differently to any specific outcome, the best guidance we can provide is to quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward in a 1964 decision about whether a movie was pornographic:
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”
Until you get customer feedback that a particular transaction did not meet their expectation, you or someone who works with you must be the internal judge as you design services and set the expectations you will share with your customers.
First, an example of a macrofailure and a microfailure
An example is a service technician going to a customer whose product equipment has failed, and the production line was shut down.
A macrofailure – When technical support decided that a service technician had to be dispatched, the support person said, “Joe Brown has just finished up his job and will be at your facility within 30 minutes.” Unfortunately, the dispatcher did not tell Joe that the whole factory was shut down, so Joe stopped for lunch. He arrived 45 minutes late. The plant manager was furious, and after Joe departed, she called the SVP Field Service and blasted him.
A microfailure – Another day, the field technician showed up within the promised window and immediately got to work. One of his repair steps was to reboot a controller. This step usually takes 8 to 10 minutes. He called the office to update his status, but the customer only saw Joe standing about 20 feet from the equipment, talking on his mobile phone. She didn’t say anything to Joe, so he never had the opportunity to explain that the repair was still happening while he was on the phone and watching the controller. He ended the call as soon as the reboot was complete. A short communication with the customer would have set achievable expectations,
Why are microfailures important?
When a customer experiences a macrofailure, they usually complain to the company. Service departments are exceptionally good at quickly and efficiently solving big problems and communicating their results to customers. If done well, most customers either stay as loyal as they were before the incident or increase their loyalty! After all, the customer knows how their service provider will act in a messy situation, and the customer comes away with increased peace of mind.
However, when a microfailure occurs, the customers usually suffer in silence. Generally, they are embarrassed to make a big deal over a minor problem and don’t want to create a reputation for being a complainer.
But there is another set of factors that come into play:
- We remember negative situations and forget positive ones
- The adverse conditions grow in our minds, and the ill will accumulates
When it comes time to renew their contract, the customer who has experienced a small number of microfailures blows them up in their mind and finally unloads on the service seller. Typical outcomes are:
- The salesperson is depressed or demotivated
- The customer declines to renew their contract
- The customer demands a discount before renewing
- The customer shares their frustration with other customers or prospects
- The service organization does not have an opportunity to make things right before they become apparent at an inopportune time.
How to prevent microfailures from growing into a significant issue:
Don’t forget to ensure your team thoughtfully sets achievable expectations!
A final comment
In the July-August 1990 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Christopher W.L. Hart, James Heskett, and W. Earl Stasser, Jr. published the classic article “The Profitable Art of Service Recovery.”
The second paragraph of the article states:
“While companies may not be able to prevent all problems, they can learn to recover from them. A good recovery can turn angry, frustrated customers into loyal ones. It can create more goodwill than if things had gone smoothly in the first place.”
About Middlesex Consulting
At Middlesex Consulting, we partner with the field service teams of B2B capital equipment companies challenged to grow their top and bottom lines. We use value creation, services marketing, and customer experience techniques to identify and create service offers that achieve customers’ desired business outcomes. To discuss how we can grow your business write to Sam here.
Field Service News published the article on March 18, 2021.
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