MUCH that Barbados does as a country to earn our keep is heavily dependent on the quality of the service we render.
Two pillars of our economy, the tourism industry and the offshore sector, are particularly sensitive to the need for the delivery of high quality service because of their competitive nature and the fact that they have critical international components.
The country’s national service enterprise, known as NISE (National Initiative for Service Excellence) emphasises the need for resourcefulness and creativity in a drive to achieve the values of honesty, courtesy, responsibility and compassion in the day-to-day business interactions, a boon to these pillars.
Born out of the novel Barbadian experiment known as the Social Partnership, NISE enjoyed the support of Government, the trade unions and the business sector, all of whom saw its value as significant to securing sustainable service excellence and indeed a sustainable future.
After 12 years, this endeavour has long survived its honeymoon and is deserving of critical assessment. The next 50 years of the development of Barbados as an independent country will heavily depend on the extent to which the level of service we offer is of international quality.
The chief executive of NISE, Kim Tudor, charting the way forward for Barbados, wrote recently that “inconsistency in service does not set the right tone for enhancing our competitive position at the organisational level, attracting foreign direct investment or differentiating Barbados as a country capable of delivering consistent world-class service experiences.”
She also noted: “During the recent holiday season, we received several reports of good service. However, these did not outweigh the accounts of negative service. This is the result of a culture of businesses not making the customer experience an intentional and strategic priority.”
This statement appears to be a diplomatic way of admitting that NISE would have hoped for a greater transformation in our attitudes to service, resulting in a bold new approach by many businesses in Barbados.
This, however, does not provide NISE with an excuse for any shortcomings of its own.
NISE really has nothing to be ashamed of in terms of its outreach. It has been in the forefront of advocating an enhancement of our service attitudes, but its suggestion that there is a culture flaw that is inimical to speedier development of the cause should be obvious to all but the blind among us.
The point made is that in many organisations, senior management fails to foster the level of employee involvement needed to give life to the NISE concept.
Perhaps NISE needs to engage or re-engage those at the top of our enterprises who are required to inspire the changes needed at the level where the rubber hits the road. Too many business leaders neglect to appreciate their role in embracing new concepts like NISE as the first step to effecting advancement of their own operations.
In addition, in the interest of accountability and transparency, we would urge that the Social Partnership take a look at the growth achieved, or not achieved, and measure it against what was anticipated in the area of service development. These things have to be measured if they are to be well done.
