"We need a process!"
"We need a consistent approach to handling customers. We need to define what our employees say to our customers, so it doesn't matter who our customers talk to, they get the same answer every time. We need to be like Starbucks, delivering the same thing everywhere!"
"Makes it easier to recruit & onboard staff if we have a process. They don't need to think, they can just do the job by reading from the script."
The joy of Starbucks is that it really doesn't matter which cafe you go into. You get the same tasting latte wherever you are. Until you've had enough of the same and go to your local independent, where you feel like an individual again.
I speak to my electricity provider about getting a smart meter installed - they take me through a script. I give them my full name, my date of birth and when I opened the account. That gets them through to a screen with my account details. I get reminded that calls are recorded for quality and training purposes (I guess that's a joke), that I'm speaking to Nicola and I'm asked if she can call me Howard. I agree. All very predictable. We agree stuff, she reads out a load of irrelevant contractual nonsense. We get to the end. She asks if I'd like to do a survey.
"I'd love to!"
And that's it. So what's the problem?
The problem is that Nicola is putting none of her personality, her knowledge or her experience into the call. You can hear in her voice that she doesn't care. She's bored. She's not using her brain or what she's been taught. Because she's not been taught anything. She didn't need any training because the computer tells her what to say. She has no authority to make decisions or use her initiative. I'm just another transaction that gets her closer to the end of the day. One day soon she'll be replaced by AI, because it can do process cheaper. Nicola can fuck off.
We're no longer living in a world where you feel you're a human being - with feelings and ideas and personality and dreams. Your human-ness is irrelevant. Initiative is not a requirement anymore; the ability to think, and solve problems, and ask questions and be inventive is redundant.
If you want the best from your team (wherever they are in your business) you need to challenge them, and give them responsibility and opportunity. For God's sake give them the opportunity to use their grey matter, and they will pay back in spades.
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