Article 15
The South African Buzz
MOTIVATING PEOPLE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Organisations that excel at service 'buzz'.    Their people are switched on and they make it happen for customers.     It is down to all the little things they get right.    They focus on what counts and in the world of public service as well as in commerce there is only person one that counts, and that is the customer (or often in the case of the Department of Health: the patient).   Everything else is secondary.   The   principle of serving the customer well over-rides all other principles and bears dividends in every sense.  

When the service buzzes customers are delighted,   employees are motivated and everyone is proud to be associated with the organisation. Its reputation is enhanced as a result.   Everyone is happy. These buzzing organisations have a dynamic that transcends the mundanity of the essential routines of serving customers.   Their employees seize every opportunity to please customers by going beyond the repetitive transactions and routines that of necessity form a part of everyday life.   They put a spark into the way they carry out their work and this   ignites positive relations which customers cherish. The spark comes from the minutiae of behaviour, from the look in an employee's eyes to the words he or she chooses in speaking with a customer (or patient).   The aim is to make every minute with a customer a high quality minute. When this is a achieved a buzz is created.  Conversely when there is no buzz everything is flat.   Employees are switched off and in turn they switch off their customers. There is no imagination and no initiative.   Procedures are followed and that is all.   There is too much bureaucracy and the   service is minimal in every sense.   Little energy is expended on customers and the prevailing attitude is to get away with as little that can be given away.   Smiles are rare, indifference is the order of the day and attention is focused elsewhere, sometimes on costs, sometimes on tasks, sometimes on merely following the order of the day.   Everyone is unhappy and it shows.   Mediocrity and ordinariness are the best descriptors of these organisations - and regrettably they are still in the majority around the world despite two decades of debate about how best to provide excellent service.   In these organisations the majority of minutes with customers are low quality minutes.

THE TEAM BUZZ

When most people talk of excellent customer service   they talk of heroic acts, of employees who went the extra mile on their way home to deliver urgent items to   customers, of front-line people who made major exceptions to the rule and actually spent money on customers,   of   store assistants who dazzled customers.   Whilst this helps the BUZZ is best created when every single interaction with a customer, routine or otherwise is of exceptionally high quality and reinforced by a substantial amount of positive emotional energy.
Too many organisations still focus on the hard impersonal side of their business. They become task driven and focus on numbers, targets, analyses, mechanisms and processes.   Everything is 'systemised' even down to a 'scripted welcome' and a procedure for railroading a customer through a routine.

None of this creates a BUZZ, in fact it creates organisations   that are 'flat' or devoid of energy.   The excessive reliance on systems, cost reduction, mechanisation and the impersonal aspect of service drains energy from customers and employees alike and leads to the alienation and demotivation referred to above.   However there are exceptions, for example I have come across companies in South Africa such as RandAir which put a lot of time into getting the customer service things right.     Their executives put a lot of emphasis on the 'soft aspects' of business management in order to create this vital BUZZ that attracts customers.   It means focusing on the psychology of the organisation in terms of behaviour, attitudes, relationships, motivation, communication and how managers can radiate positive energy which transmits it way through the structure to the front-line and the interface with customers.      The ultimate outcome is a wide range of positive everyday behaviours which absorb this radiated energy and this reflect it on to customers.   This is the BUZZ.   Customers sense it as soon as they walk through the door or pick up the phone.   They know that this organisation just hums with energy and that everything is going to go right for them.  

These positive behaviours are often of a minor nature and might initially seem insignificant.   However from the experience of the author (including the research he has undertaken on the subject) they can have a significant impact on the perceptions of customers and therefore the relationships customers form with the company.   In other words 'little things can make a big difference',   especially in relation to customer service.   The BUZZ comprises a vast array of these small everyday behaviours (what the author terms as 'microbehaviours') which, when added up, amount to sizeable and positive impact on the service provision of the company.

In the delightful day I spent running a workshop for over 200 managers, professionals and front-line people from the Free State Province Department of Health I was incredibly impressed with the positive spirit I found there.   Credit is to be given to the people who organised the event:   Dr Ronald Chapman a leader who passionately believes in people and supporting them in providing a superb service to the Department's customers across FreeState.   Credit is also to be given to Gela Naudé who worked incredibly hard to make the event such a success. Overall this was an example of the practice of batho pele (people first).   I look forward to my return.

Dr David Freemantle

Dr David Freemantle is one of the world's leading experts on customer service, leadership and motivation. He is the author of 12 best-selling business books which have been published in 19 different languages.   He travels the world running workshops, seminars, training programmes and speaking at conferences and is renowned for his highly thought-provoking approach.   His clients include Singapore Airlines, The John Lewis Partnership (UK)   and   Bank Atlantic (USA).   Whilst based in Windsor, UK he is a frequent visitor to South Africa where his clients include RandAir,   Central University of Technology - Free State and Mangaung Municipality.

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