Question: Service quality or lack thereof has been a source of frustration for customers in the U.S. One hears so many horror stories whether it is operating on the wrong leg in health care or missing bags in airline travel. Why is service quality so bad? 

Question: Is this something particular to the U.S? What are some of the root causes of such problems and what can service organizations do to fix them?

Townsend:

Well, in part, we are back to basic service versus manufacturing question. Service is more personal, it’s more interactive, and it’s more obvious, so it’s easier for customers to take personal offense. If you buy a new car, and some place in the first month and you discover that there are some mistakes in the stitching and carpeting in the trunk; you don’t take that personally. If you do file a complaint, the complaint is pretty general and emotion free. Service employees do not get that kind of break. They are called to make judgment calls right in front of people, right on the phone or right, personally, in front of them. It makes it harder for them because it makes them more personally prone to criticism. Now, you add that to the fact that American customers in the last, say, two decades, have become far more educated and become far pickier. Stuff we used to accept without a shrug twenty years ago, we don’t put up with anymore. So we’ve heightened the standards a great deal.

That also contributes to this idea of a weaker service quality line. I am not so sure it is. It is just our standards have gotten higher. Compared to other countries, I do know that when my wife, who is also my co-author and my partner, and I were giving a workshop in India recently to a top management group from TATA motors; I had the occasion to be in a very nice fabric store and I decided to buy a shirt. Great experience. I had three young ladies waiting on me. Much laughing, giggling, and smiling. Got a shirt that I love and I still wear it frequently. Got a nice picture of us all together and all of this good stuff. Great service, great memory. But in all honesty, the job could have been done just as well by one middle aged clerk. So was that really good service or was that more toward servitude? Was it something that was a commendable effort to employ more people? So you’ve got to look at the situation. And the question about the wrong leg being operated on, that is more akin to manufacturing problem than a service problem.