Good service not servitude

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are endless.” Mother TeresaTHE RESULTS of the recent politeness test survey conducted by the National Initiative for Service Excellence (NISE) found that Barbadians still have a long way to go in terms of service excellence.This should come as no surprise to those who deal with the many public and private sector entities in this country. One only has to listen to the call-in programmes to hear of the horror and uncouth behaviour meted out to the public doing legitimate business with these businesses.One could be forgiven for thinking that in the 21st Century it would not be necessary to have to teach people to greet customers with a simple “good morning” or “thank you”, but unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule.According to the survey, Barbados fell down badly on the service test. Only 57 per cent of the times were customers thanked for their purchase. This is a simple courtesy that should be a condition reflex and is a serious indictment on our country as a services destination.We do not want to pour cold water on NISE’s efforts to improve service standards but doubt whether the introduction of five characters as part of its Live Excellence campaign will make much difference without a dramatic change in attitude towards service in our population.It is also felt that many of our businesses do not put sufficient effort into training of staff before they are thrust into jobs which require consistent encounters with the public and for which they are not prepared.This was borne out in NISE’s other survey of 3 000 school leavers where it was discovered that 80 per cent of them admitted they were not ready for the world of work. This makes the issue of training before entering the job market even more pressing.This is going to be a major task going forward if Barbados is going to be a competitive destination. It is not unknown that a customer could go into a business place and will not even be greeted; much less get an offer to help.There is still a lingering perception that service is servitude. This is going to be the major task for NISE and all employers. We have said in the past that there needs to be a new approach to the treatment of training on the income statement.We consider training to be an investment and therefore should not be treated as an expense, but as a capital investment. It could therefore be amortised over five years, so that companies could be encouraged to invest in their employees through accelerated training and development.We believe that this would impact far more significantly on the service excellence and would enhance productivity in the workplace. It would also allow employers to spread expenses over a longer period.