What'S The Secret?: To Providing a World-Class Customer Experience

Chapter 10. Commandment VI: Implementation and Execution

How to go from ideas on paper to consistently executed concepts

Becoming world-class is not an event.... It is a cultural evolution.

World-Class service organizations have a solid process allows the realistic implementation of the customer service initiatives and systems that are executed consistently by front-line employees.

Without execution, systems in manuals are nothing more than ideas on paper. This is where most companies fail, the execution of these systems. The implementation and accountability of these standards and systems are every manager's responsibility.

Consistency and Continuity

The two most important words in the success of implementing systems are consistency and continuity. Nearly every company has more ideas than it knows what to do with. Here's a scenario familiar in every company: Some executives attend a fantastic seminar, get dozens of great ideas, and return to work all fired up and eager to start executing all those ideas. A month later, not even one idea is being executed even 10 percent of the time. The managers are either preoccupied with a crisis or have moved on to a new focus.

Have you ever attended a seminar so great that six months later it had dramatically changed the way your company does business? Probably not!

The real problem is that more ideas are the last thing companies need. Managers are ...