The Frontline Services

The most common among the big fast food chains is the warm welcome that the counter attendants afford the customers at any given time. The accommodating and warm welcome is either further upped or become crisp and efficient in high-end establishments such as hotels or corporate offices. On the other end of the bar are the less prompt, less accommodating, and somewhat grouchy responses from the purported front-line service providers. This is especially noted in some government licensing offices. The service awareness, comfort of the working environment, maybe the salary scale, and foundation skills could be deemed contributory to the quality of the frontline services. Thus, it is highly noticeable that attendants in fuel stations of a certain brand are consistently offering the brand add-on services such as wiping your windshield, checking car tire pressures, water for the radiator, and other services that a traffic deadbeat or work-zombied driver had overlooked. Definitely but without pejorative connotation, these station attendants have a less comfortable working environment, lesser pay than government employees have, and lesser foundation skills and yet offer the services in well-meaning tones and often with hospitable smiles. It cannot be helped but gravitate towards that fuel brand or for that matter, any brand that welcomes its customers.

Simple military thoughts on how to do things may aid in understanding the differences in frontline service quality.   

Marching in Cadence

The traditional military march emanated from the earliest organized armies. Soldiers need to march in cadence to ensure that their formation shall be maintained, their shields tightly aligned, and their weapons especially the lances, will not trip the troops. The cadenced march reflects the level of discipline and training of the army, the strength of its battle formations, and its chances of winning the battles. The cadence synchronizes the troop movement through one command, one purpose, and one direction. 

Corollary to this, it is presumed that businesses have one singular purpose – increase revenues. Underneath is that an effective frontline service will greatly enhance the business prestige. An enhanced business prestige, aside from revenues, ups the company’s value through its brand.  It is further assumed that business leadership, at any level, is fully aware that one fundamental to increasing revenue is customer satisfaction at the first engagement point. Thus, it is interesting to know how some businesses exude the warm welcome while the brusque brush-off by some frontline services goes unnoticed or uncorrected by others.    

Discrimination in the Philippine setting is subtle but definitely discernible. Observe how an attendant readily addresses sir or madam a well-dressed individual but hardly looks at a shoddily attired customer in some of the less desirable service counters. Take a test case by asking the drivers of a dilapidated vehicle and a Porsche to violate a traffic rule and observe the demeanors of the traffic enforcer or ask them to register their vehicles and observe how they will be assisted. These situations definitely highlight a discriminatory difference in value for money.  

The challenge is how to make the troops march in cadence. The simplified answer is leadership and troops’ capabilities. 

Unit Pride

Organizations of men under arms usually refer to unit pride as morale or esprit de corps. The fundamentals are that an organized group of men and women believe in the righteousness or correctness (value judgment) of what they are tasked to do (duty) and they dedicate everything that they have (collective as well as individual skills, competence, strength, resolve, etc.) in performing their duty.

Unit Pride could be simplified as the employees’ sense of belongingness to the company and sense of ownership of its products. It is the logical awareness that the quality of the individual’s outputs redounds to the business and collective welfare of the employees. However, the attainment of unit pride is equally dependent on clear and felt leadership from all management levels. Leadership must provide a clear purpose, direction, and tempo, and serve as the model of how the business wishes to move. Leading from the front definitely sets the pace, direction, and destination. 

The platoon leaders that lead from the front inspire the troops. The platoon leaders can be equated to the business junior to mid-management levels. These leaders can literally observe if their people have colds, unbuttoned shirts, or fail the designated performance measures. These leaders can fairly see the potential of their people. Moreover, these leaders can define the business’s operational and administrative gaps from direct observations. They must correlate the causes of their people’s failings to meet the designated business performance measures with the defined business operational and administrative gaps. These are the leaders that report to the higher echelons the actual ‘battlefront conditions’.

Forward Edge of the Battle Area

The battlefront and the positions of the friendly troops are delineated on a tactical map by an imaginary line. This delineation is the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA). The easiest definition of FEBA is that it is the foremost limit of the friendly troops’ deployment. FEBA is the frontline service in the business. This is the first business engagement level. This is the first contact point where customer satisfaction is determined. Relatively, this is where the competitor can define the strength or weakness of the business. This is the outer layer that may denote the totality of the business.          

Note: This article was published in the printed Issue. No. 13 of The Corporate Magazine, Guide and Style for Professionals Magazine.