90 Designing Service Excellence
when of service). Together and separately we have worked in organizations
that not only didn’t know what their customers needed (which we would
include in basic knowledge), but also, in some cases, did not have a clear
picture of who their customers were. Conventionally, leaders have tended to
ensure that frontline service-providing employees are tasked (and sometimes
fully trained) to give service. The rationale seems to be that as these employees
are the ones that the customer sees and from whom customers expect to
receive their service, other employees do not need to be fully informed or
educated in attributes of service provision. However, as we know from expe-
rience, service quality can be decient because ...