By Alan Williams
Edition 2 – February 2013 Pages 20-23
Tags: Brand • Customer Experince • Service
Workplace management (including FM) has long grappled with its own identity – the definition of what it does. I have often heard it packaged as the provision of a range of services such as reception, catering, security, meeting rooms, housekeeping and engineering, all within a built environment. This is the same list as a hotel general manager would propose for a hotel – a built environment with an almost identical range of services. In both situations, these services are provided to customers – guests in a hotel; employees and visitors in a corporate workplace. So, if the two service scenarios are so similar, why is there such a gap between the level of service you would expect in a hotel and that which you are likely to receive in so many workplaces? This article will focus on some of the issues around this question, and what is needed to create a “service brand”.

What is a service brand?
Having made the assumption that in many (or perhaps most) cases a hotel will deliver a higher level of customer service, we need a way of generically describing that hotel-type of organisation. We have called it a service brand – any organisation that provides a more general experience for the customer, beyond a pure product. There are various degrees of service brand but, as service becomes the battleground for di!erentiation, the traditional service brands such as hotels, leisure facilities and airlines are being joined by products that are being developed into service brands.
The technology and automotive sectors are classic examples where the product alone can no longer be relied upon for competitive advantage. Service brands do not just happen. Any leading service brand did not get to that leading position without having developed and applied a methodology. As an example, our “Servicebrand” methodology supports organisations to align and coordinate three key areas of strategy to create a strong service brand:
brand identity, employee engagement and customer experience.
The output of this approach is a tailor made plan to deliver:
• A clear sense of purpose and identity, unique to the organisation
• Inspired employees being the best version of their organisation
• A customer experience driving advocacy
The underpinning concept is to manage holistically the areas shown in the diagram, in a truly integrated way, so that consistency and credibility is achieved in a sustainable way at all touch points of an organisation (inside and out). The coordination and alignment of the three areas creates the service brand. It also generates additional value which could take the form of any combination of the following: increased profit, increased customer satisfaction and advocacy, improved employee engagement and retention, improved brand recognition and reputation.
This approach is relevant in any service environment, including workplace and facilities management. Whilst the service provision in a workplace environment may not be on a direct transactional basis, as in a commercial service business scenario, the same principles of service delivery management apply. Can we really apply the best of hotel service culture to the everyday workplace? You might argue that these two environments – hotels and workplaces – accommodate such entirely di!erent activities that the parallel is inappropriate. But I would suggest that, as employees become more mobile, the level of service and hospitality experience that will be required (probably expected) when visiting the o”ce (as opposed to being based there every day), will increase. In this way, the workplace is becoming an extension of any organisation’s service brand just as a hotel or any other face-to-face retail operation is. And there are already some organisations that are leading the way. Debra Ward, managing director at MITIE Client Services recently cited a conversation with a very good friend who works for Google; this friend is heavily pregnant with twins (with a two year old at home) and yet she still makes the 40-minute commute into work every day. Debra said, “Everyone would understand if she just worked part time from home.” But when Debra asked her why she continued to go to work, her response was rational assessment. In a unfaltering:
“The food is fantastic and always available and they cater to some of my nutritional requirements and strange requests, there are sleeping pods for me to lie down for 20 minutes in the afternoon, my chair is repeatedly adjusted to meet my changing needs, there is a masseuse on site every week, I feel productive and valued and my team are all there… why would I want to stay at home?”
This is an organisation that understands the impact of workplace services – not only on employee productivity, but also as a way to reinforce the brand image and ultimately, employee and visitor advocacy. It is fascinating that for many other organisations these services are just regarded as a part of the business to outsource (and often outsourced means out of mind).
What could be done di!erently in the workplace environment? From discussions with colleagues in both sectors, the di!erence between the management of a hotel and a corporate workplace seems to be about a sense of central purpose, a focus on customer service and operating as one team. The crux perhaps is in the way the leadership and structure of the service delivery organisation is approached.
FMs often consider themselves as custodians of the built asset, whereas hotel managers are owners of the guest experience. A hotel is operated through a coordinated communication framework, including a daily operational review, a periodic events planning meeting, a monthly operational meeting, performance reporting by department etc. In FM, communication is too often managed and reinforced at a service line level with little e!ort to align practices, make use of common formats (e.g. for reporting) or coordinate activity across service lines.
In a hotel, the all-important leadership is generally provided by a person who has strong customer service or operational experience, perhaps gained in food and beverage, the rooms division or sales and marketing. A common thread is an understanding of the importance of customer service and the ability to lead and motivate teams of people around this singular goal. These leaders tend to manage by walking about, interacting with guests and employees to find out what is happening, as opposed to relying on management reports and meetings. These leaders are supported with specialist experts in areas such as finance, human resources and property. The identity of the hotel as a whole is the key driver, and the constituent parts recognise the importance of their role as part of the whole. In FM, there is still much room for improvement in this area of a single point of coordination and alignment rather than an emphasis on management in functional silos. Of course, if there is a range of service partners (or even di!erent divisions of the same company!) this is more of a challenge, but adopting a virtual organisation” approach is a good starting point….