(Please see below for an invitation to a new LinkedIn Discussion group – Change for Leaders.)
It’s lunchtime. We’re in a city hotel. A single receptionist is checking in guests. No sign of a concierge. A line has formed. One in the queue has a pre-arranged meeting with a staff member. Another wants to book a table in the restaurant.
The one with the meeting picks a moment when the receptionist is not actually speaking to a customer and asks if she can phone her colleague. The receptionist says she’ll do that when she’s finished with the people she is serving.
The line lengthens.
A delivery man arrives, places some packages on the counter and asks for a signature. Still the receptionist insists she will finish with the people she is currently serving first. She resumes watching those guests fill in the check-in forms.
Eventually the pressure builds and after 10 minutes the receptionist starts multi-tasking.
Perhaps she has been trained to focus completely on one customer at a time. Perhaps that’s appropriate. Really, perhaps it is. Or is it just what she prefers—a little bit of control?
So, there’s a management problem around staffing levels.
That aside…
What’s the right policy? Should someone serving focus totally on the customer in front of them, or should they process simple requests in parallel as and when they can? Which approach is most respectful overall?
What do you think? What would your service policy be? How would you instruct your staff?
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You are invited to a new LinkedIn Discussion group: Change for leaders
Ever noticed that much written and said about change is all about doing to change to other people? And yet lasting transformation begins within ourselves and flows to others through our leadership. I’ve created a new group called Change for Leaders specifically to share learning about this key to successful change, on a large scale or a small scale.
If you’d like to be part of the new group—and I hope you would—please go to the join page here…
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Change-Leaders-4501602/about
Looking forward to seeing you there.