We desperately need the expertise of those who are educated in the human, cultural and social, as well as computationally.
—Steve Jobs
The management and performance of the added service in the servitization strategy continues to be a challenging process for the leadership of the company. Rethinking the skills required of employees in their selection and training processes will ensure the quality of service, interaction, and relational experience with the user to guarantee the business success. These capabilities are not only focused on technical skills or transactional processes but also in soft, transversal, or socioemotional skills, which enable the service professional to interact and relate effectively with their peers or others.
Identified as socioemotional or professional T-shaped skills, currently highly appreciated by companies, are the component or integration in an entity or entity of specialized knowledge in an area (vertical bar) with the transversal skills (horizontal bar) that they give an open, global profile that is very easy to adapt.
This professional, also known by the title of service engineer or STEEP professional, for its acronym in English, is the basis of training today and the service and manufacturing industry, and understands the STEEP factors: Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political.1, 2
Occupational and Service Management Skills
Advances in the knowledge and practice of the service have established a set of generally accepted standard capabilities for its effective performance and management. These range from the actions of routine, habitual, or unskilled work to activities of high complexity and great personal autonomy.
These standard competencies are known, applied, and periodically evaluated by companies and brands of recognized prestige in the market in their selection and training processes for their personnel.3, 4
Professional Performance Skills
The effective performance of a service is based on the knowledge and development of five factors:
Principles of Service
Provide reliable customer service. Three key components make up the development of this competence:
Theoretical Foundation. What knowledge is necessary?
An academic and multidisciplinary research effort to seek, develop, and promote knowledge of the nature of services, improve, create, and innovate in service, resulted in a set of theories and methods that have given rise to the principles, approaches, methods, and tools that allow understanding and managing the process of value co-creation in business. These foundations enunciated under the denomination of Service Science and exposed throughout this work serve the valid purpose of education and training for the service.5
Organizational context. What purpose to serve?
The ability to know, identify, assume, and fulfill the company value promises with the user: the concept of service, organizational principles and values, policies, standards, processes, and delivery procedures of the service proposal.
Environment/Experience of the Service Encounter. How do you act in creating a positive user experience?
The knowledge of the physical conditions and circumstances, the emotional modulation, and the adequate performance in the interaction process of the service delivery constitutes the essential elements for a positive and satisfactory experience with the user.
Image and Impression of the Service
What elements should be of high consideration?
Give the customer a good personal, company and service impression. The image and the first good impression are, in addition to the presentation letter of a service, a differentiating element (branding) and an integrating axis of socioemotional capabilities (service culture). They are a source of reputation, growth, and profit for the company. The characteristic competencies to project an image and generate a positive first impression of a service are personal presentation (image, presence, and aesthetics) and modulation of socioemotional skills (attitude, empathy, communication, etc.).
Fulfillment of the Service Commitment
How do you fulfill the promise of value?
Developing the ability to comply with the user request means knowing how to identify and define a strategy and a service delivery system. In section D, systematicity and transversality of the service (Chapter 1) and the management of service compliance (Chapter 4) that develops the process of assuring delivery and compliance with the company’s commitment, this process is addressed, and the aspects are detailed that serve as a guide for the development or strengthening of this competence.
Management of Critical Situations With Users
How do you deal with customer complaints, requests, and problems?
The ability to recognize, manage, and act with resolution aptitude in the face of potential conflict situations in the service with the user is a key issue for perception and an opportunity to improve the service, as well as a personal professional challenge. In this context, the contents of the training programs emphasize socioemotional skills. The mastery and deployment of these skills are put to test in each service encounter and determine the difference in the user experience.
Development of the User Relationship
How do you create effective, productive, and lasting relationships?
Interaction with the users and the search for new and innovative ways to delight them are the key to a long, effective, and productive relationship. Developing this personnel ability strengthens the potential of linking the user with the service and the company, creates loyalty bonds, and establishes a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the business.
The following table displays in detail the five standard occupational skills for the direct performance of the service with the user.
Table 4.1 Occupational performance capabilities
Occupational standard | Capabilities |
Fundamentals of service | a. Know and understand the conceptual foundations of the service b. Know and understand the company’s service proposal c. Provide the service following the principles and regulations of the organization |
Image and impression | a. Give the customer a good personal, company and service impression b. Attend and process service information request c. Fulfill the promise to the user d. “ Customize” the service e. Go the extra mile and exceed expectations f. Communicate effectively with the user via written, telephone, or internet g. Attend and treat the user with cordiality, promptness, and respect h. Identify and promote additional services or products i. Use the service as a competitive tool |
Fulfillment of the commitment | a. Provide consistent and reliable service to the user b. Provide a service that fulfills the promise to the user c. Recognize diversity and serve it while providing the service d. Develop and maintain a safe, healthy, and enjoyable service environment e. Plan, organize, and control service operations f. Evaluate the quality of the service |
Management of critical situations | a. Develop trust at the level of the service provided b. Process and solve potentially conflictive situations (complaints, requests, and problems) c. Analyze and select the best option to solve a situation d. Implement the solution e. Monitor and evaluate potential risks |
Develop relationships with the user | a. Ensure the satisfaction of needs and exceed user expectations b. Build the relationship between the user and the company |
Source: ADAPTED AND WITH PERMISSION of the Institute of Customer Service. 2006. Overviews of National Occupational Standards in Customer Service at NVQ/SVQ Units at Levels 2, 3 and Level 4, UK.
What must leaders and managers do to inspire the organization to focus on users and achieve excellence in service delivery?
A look at the organizations that have succeeded in developing and maintaining a reputation for excellence in service serves as a reference and guide for companies in their quest to add value to their business through the adoption and implementation of a servitization strategy. This observation shows that the main components of care are: a clear service culture, a distinctive service personality, committed talent, and user-centered systems, all under a single holistic approach.
The impact of these developments on the company’s employees is considerable. It strengthens the recognition that the key to making a real difference in service performance standards is in knowledge, skill, attitude, and personal judgment.
Likewise, often the people in contact and direct customer service positions have been hired, managed, and recognized according to their ability to manage specific and internally oriented activities and processes of the organization. This has changed and organizational leadership has adopted a talent endowment, training, and development approach that enables it to:
• Apply well-established behavioral skills in such a way that they allow individual and satisfactory service to each user, be able to co-create an environment for a positive experience, and identify additional service or product opportunities.
• Solve, proactively and reactively, potential conflict situations based on the ability to properly identify and interpret critical service issues.
• Appreciate “the integral vision” of the service experience to make better decisions, understanding the consequences of their actions for the company.
• Identify opportunities to improve procedures and systems.
• Interact in a cordial and concerted way with their peers and other collaborators to make the learning and experience shared and enriching. Also, that they know and stay updated with the products and services of the company.
This direction occupies a central role in managers to make sense of all these incentives and create the environment in which workers are continuously stimulated to make the service add value to the business of quality, productivity, competitiveness, and profit.
Studies carried out for the identification, development, and validation of standards for managerial positions in business service indicate that businesses are in search of a significantly improved user/customer approach by managers, whatever their level is in the organization. This implies that all managers need to:
• Demonstrate leadership and develop the conviction that the company and its people can achieve not only what they say about the importance of their customer orientation but also their actions are based on a firmly articulated set of values.
• Build relationships with clients and allies that guarantee permanent loyalty.
• Challenge the current conception of service, follow its evolution, and be receptive to new contributions that will base continuous improvement in the provision of services.
• Support and encourage those who have responsibility in the process of encounter, delivering and bonding with the user.
There are additional challenges for the growing number of managers with explicit responsibilities in the provision and allocation of resources, particularly the human one due to its criticality in the user experience.
• Create an environment in which people, especially those who are in direct contact with the user, are encouraged to achieve greater attainments.
• Advise and support people in the internalization of the principles and values of the organization and stimulate the development of personal efficiency.
• Encourage people to value, commit, and take care of their own learning and development.
• Model the culture and profile of the best performance in the encounter, contact, and direct interaction with the user.
• Demonstrate perseverance in innovation and constant improvement in the provision of services.
• Understand the economics of the business and contribute to the service strategy.
The chart below illustrates the standard managerial capabilities for service management.
Table 4.2 Management performance capabilities
SOURCE: ADAPTED AND WITH PERMISSION of the Institute of Customer Service. 2006. Overviews of National Occupational Standards in Customer Service at NVQ/SVQ Units at Levels 2,3 and Level 4, UK.
The Services Professional
The servitization process is considered as adding value to manufacturing companies through the integration of service activities or related to the business value chain. It breaks into the dynamics of the organization and encourages the reconsideration of its dynamic capabilities, particularly those related to the skills of human talent.
Is there a distinctive and relevant factor of human talent in the performance of the service that determines the success in the value creation interaction?
Let’s think about the socioemotional capabilities (soft skills) that, being inherent to human action and required or not by all work activities, are decisive for the satisfactory result of service management due to their high level of intensity and variability of the environment. For its part, job performance in the manufacturing company is predominantly focused on hard skills or scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical competencies (STEM Education Model) where the level of intensity required of soft skills is lower depending on the limited environment and little variable internal interaction of the organization.
Talent in Services
The academic approach or training for performance in the service industry forms, in addition to natural talent, a category of knowledge and skills with a differentiated emphasis on two aspects: emotional and interpersonal skills, distinctive in relation to workers in the manufacturing industry. The emotional ones are related to the ability of a person to autonomously modulate the expression of his or her emotions, while interpersonal skills are formed by the set of behaviors and habits necessary for appropriate interaction and collaborative work with others and with the diverse environment.
These soft skills, a distinctive factor in organizational performance and a key to success in the service business, demand a strategic approach in the manufacturing business:
• Identification and development of the weakest soft skills in the organization.
• Selection, training, and retention of collaborators, through carefully defined support mechanisms as in the case of customer groups (segmentation).
The following table, adapted from Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman,6 illustrates the main socioemotional capacities with their attributes in the business environment that impact the high performance of the service and that it is convenient for every business to promote:
The cultivation and practice of these dynamic and differentiating capabilities strengthen the organizational culture of performance and give the service professional, active in the design, management and operation of the service. A multidisciplinary profile, by integrating socioemotional skills with categories of knowledge, made up of adequate proportion of scientific-technical, economic-business, and cultural-social knowledge.
Table 4.3 Socioemotional capabilities
Skill | Attribute |
EMOTIONAL | Self-control |
SELF KNOWLEDGE • Awareness • Self-appraisal • Confidence | Internal states, preferences, resources, and own intuitions • Own emotions and their effects • Own forces and limits • Certainty of value and own powers |
SELF-MODERATION • Self-control • Reliability • Rigor • Adaptability • Innovation | Modulate internal states, impulses, and own resources • Harmful emotions and impulses • Practice of honesty and integrity • Responsibility for personal performance • Flexibility for change • Willingness for new ideas, approaches, and information |
MOTIVATION • Achievement • Commitment • Initiative • Optimism | Emotional inclination that guides/facilitates achievement • Effort toward excellence • Assume the purposes of the group or organization • Willingness to seize opportunities • Persistent in the face of obstacles and setbacks |
SOCIAL EMPATHY • Understanding • Support for • To serve • Diversity • Political consciousness | Relationship management skills • Perception, understanding, and interest in other people’s feelings and perspectives • Help and promote the development of others • Co-create value with the user to satisfy their needs and expectations • Cultivate opportunities through personal differences • Interpret the emotional current of a person or group and its relationship to power |
SOCIAL SKILLS • Influence • Communication • Problem solving • Leadership • Catalyst for change • Establish links • Collaboration and cooperation • Team skills | Ability to induce desirable responses in the other • Persuasiveness • Ability to listen actively and issue clear and convincing messages • Negotiate and resolve differences • Inspire and guide individuals or groups • Willingness to initiate or manage change • Create, maintain, and strengthen bonds • Work with others to achieve shared purposes • Create synergy to achieve collective purposes |
Source: ADAPTED AND WITH PERMISSION of Penguin Random House LLC. Goleman, D. 1998. Working with Emotional Intelligence, Batam Dell.
This fact in a manufacturing environment raises rethinking the selection and training of employees to respond to the demands of new additions to the integral business value chain.
This means enhancing business benefits through the development of human resources strategies:
• Investment in human development vs. staff turnover and training costs.
• The positioning of the service through the development of qualities in the employees that are more effective than their competition counterparts.
• Eliminate unnecessary emphasis on rigid policies or support systems that interfere with employees’ ability to solve customer problems.
• Quality improvement by reducing individual judgment in the delivery process and service experience.
Capabilities for Selection and Training
Objective
Strengthen knowledge and develop skills to identify capabilities required for the performance of service positions in the company.
Instructions
Considering the capabilities for service performance developed in the previous chapter:
(a) Select a professional and a managerial position from a known service of interest to you.
(b) Identify for each of the positions, the key occupational and managerial performance capabilities.
(c) Identify and outline the key socioemotional capabilities for those positions in the selected service.
(d) Prepare the professional profile required for the two positions identified.
Outcome
Appropriation of knowledge on occupational and managerial capacities for performance in services and development of skills for the selection and training of prospects and collaborators.
Final Acknowledgment
Upon completing this application exercise, the reader will have acquired sufficient knowledge about the occupational, managerial, and socioemotional capacities to perform in the services, and will be able to put them into practice in the selection and training of candidates and active collaborators of a company.