管理大忌：三大致命的美好愿望

    全世界都迫切需要优质的服务。服务做得好的公司——看看西南航空（Southwest）和美国网络鞋店Zappos——在保证盈利的情况下都实现了企业增长，并赢得了回头客。服务做得不好的公司则受到了无情的惩罚。美国银行（Bank of America）经常在客户满意度调查中排名垫底就是一个活生生的例子。

    企业有太多理由要服务好客户，那么，为什么优秀的服务依然不多见？

    原因之一就是“好意”。事实证明，优质服务的核心障碍并不是落后过时的想法，也不是麻木不仁的管理层，很多时候问题恰恰在于人们希望做“对的事情”。美国银行最大的问题可能就是现在它不想让任何人失望。

    而且，像这样的情况并不少见。谈到服务，下面三类好的出发点往往会造成适得其反的结果：

1. 凡事力求做到最好

    最好的服务提供商总是在客户最看重的事情上不遗余力，在客户最不看重的事情上则留有余地。美国著名的医学中心梅奥诊所（Mayo Clinic）为患者提供当日预约服务，条件是放弃选择指定医生的权力。但任何急难症患者（这是梅奥诊所擅长的领域）都会乐于接受这样的安排。

    此类折衷策略构成了成功的服务模式，没有人需要为此致歉。西南航空（Southwest Airlines）无需为不提供正餐和行李转运服务而感到羞愧，因为正是如此，它们才能提供廉价的密集航班，而这些也正是顾客真正想要的东西。

    如果西南航空力求事事做到最好，如果它既想成为一家廉价航空公司，又想提供高端豪华的舱内体验，同时每天多次飞往全球任何一个地点，这套模式绝对行不通。这家公司最终会亏欠，而且什么服务都流于平庸，这正是大多数大型航空公司走下坡路的原因。

    如今的美国银行（Bank of America）似乎正在向零售银行的所有领域推进，可以预料的是，效果不会令人满意。美国银行正在试图降低成本、提高便捷性、扩充产品领域以及提供友好的服务，或许它的名字就已经决定了，一家面向全美国人民的银行绝不能让任何人因为任何事情失望。

    美国银行没有设计一个或多个服务模式【看看丰田（Toyota）和雷克萨斯（Lexus）各自的策略】根据关键服务要素进行优化，而是选择全面铺开，胜算渺茫。它不是最便宜、最方便或最友好的储蓄银行。它让所有的人都大失所望，原因却又各有不同，僵化的策略无法让任何人真正满意。

    你们的客户最看重什么？如果确保他们获得这些，他们愿意放弃什么？回答好这些问题，是提供优质服务的第一步。

    The world is desperate for good service. Companies that get service right – see Southwest and Zappos – are rewarded with profitable growth and devoted customers. And companies that get it wrong are relentlessly punished. Bank of America's persistent presence at the very bottom of the rankings for customer satisfaction is one such example.

    There are powerful incentives to serve customers well, so why is service excellence still so rare?

    Here's part of the problem: good intentions. It turns out a central barrier to service is not backward thinking and callous management. More often than not, it's the very human desire to want to do the right thing. BofA's biggest problem may be that it's trying not to disappoint anyone right now.

    The bank's not alone. When it comes to service, below are three good intentions with consistently bad outcomes:

1. Trying to be great at everything

    Great service providers tend to over-deliver on the things their customers value most, and under-deliver on the things they value least. Patients at the Mayo Clinic can get same-day appointments, but in exchange for that exceptional access, they must give up control over which physician they see. It's a deal that anyone with an urgent, complex medical issue – Mayo's sweet spot – is more than happy to make.

    These kinds of strategic tradeoffs are built into great service models, and no one apologizes for them. Southwest Airlines (LUV) shamelessly refuses to feed you a meal and transfer your bags, because that's precisely what allows them to deliver cheap, frequent flights – the things their customers really want.

    If Southwest tried to be great at everything, if it tried to be the low-price airline with a tricked-out, high-touch cabin experience that flew anywhere in the world multiple times a day, the model wouldn't work. The company would end up losing money while being mediocre at everything, which describes the trajectory of most of the major airlines.

    Bank of America now seems to be pushing itself on every aspect of its retail offering, with predictably disappointing results. It's trying to win on cost, convenience, product scope and friendly service, a strategy that's captured in its epic name: a bank for all of America can't let anyone down, on anything.

    Rather than designing a service model – or multiple service models (see the distinct strategies of Toyota (TM) and Lexus) – that are optimized for key service attributes, Bank of America (BAC) is going for it on all dimensions, hitting it out of the park on none. It's not the lowest-cost, most convenient or friendliest place to deposit your money. The bank is disappointing all of us in different ways, without the strategic freedom to make anyone truly happy.

    What do your own customers value most? What would they give up if they could reliably get those things? Answering these questions is often the first step towards exceptional service.