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Editor's Notes

• #2: Changing and creating a culture that is pervasive does not happen by lots of communication. It happens by focusing and paying attention to the values that underpin the culture. It happens by creating experiences that resonate with the values. It happens when these experiences become the stories that are told in an organizationToday I am sharing with you a story of customer service extremism that emerged from a very strong culture.1:08
• #3: The Taj hotel in Mumbai is one of the top 20 hotels in the world. It was built by JN Tata, who founded the TATA group, in 1903. The legend is that he was not allowed to enter the navy yacht club and the security guards pointed to the sign that said no Indians and dogs allowed. Tata was very angry and decided that he would build a hotel that was so beautiful and with such a level of service that would be beyond the imagination and the ability of the ruling British. The service culture stays till today. Their customer service extremism really came to light on 26 Nov 2008 when it was attacked by Terrorist extremist, resulting in many deaths and injuries.1:07
• #4: The staff reacted in an amazing way. And their stories are destined to be legends for a long time. They did not have a manual or a boss or a process to tell them what to do and to tell them how to react when the terrorist attacked. Yet their actions showed their dedication to duty, their quick thinking and their instinct to put the customer first.The kind of customer service I have been use to is around “positive communication” which is being polite without losing any money for the hotel. Never did me any good. The Taj had a more committed approach made its employees the customers ambassador so that they would not think of the hotel first. 0:45
• #5: Now a hotel, just like even this hotel we are in, has got many escape routes and back doors which you and I may not know but a hotel staff would. If the staff wanted to save themselves, I am very sure they would have found a way to get out of the hotel without being hurt. The telephone operators stayed at their posts until the next morning to tell customers to stay in their room lock the door and not open it for anyone. I can only imagine how frightened they would have been. I can certainly imagine how scared I would have been.0:35
• #6: In the banquet hall, Unilever was having a farewell dinner for their CEO. Mallika Jagad, the manager in charge was a 24 year old trainee manager. When she realized what was happening, Mallika asked the guests to hide under the table, she locked the doors, switched off the lights and even asked husbands and wives to separate so that if something happened the whole family wouldn’t be hurt. This was her quick thinking and not from a process manual.While they were trapped in there days, she made sure that they had water and food. She even went out of the room to get supplies when it was needed. She could have been easily shot. Because of her instincts to protect the customer, all the people in that hall escaped thru the window a day later. Later she would say that “It was my responsibility, I may have been the youngest person in that room but I was still doing my job.” 1:04
• #7: Thomas Varghese was the head waiter at the Japanese restaurant, Wasabi. He took the precautionary steps and even created a human cordon of the waiters around the guests to protect them. They managed to contact the security personnel and were asked to try and escape. He chose a back spiral staircase to escape and as they were going down they could hear shots behind them. Such was his dedication to duty that he insisted that he would be the last person to leave and as he went down the stairs, he was shot dead. Ratan TATA the current CEO of the Tata group visited Thomas wife at his funeral and was apprehensive of the abuse he might get from a grieving widow. But what she said was that “My children and I are so proud. I did not know that for 25 years I lived with a man of such courage and bravery.”1:20
• #8: Karambir Singh Kang was the GM of the hotel and he lived on the 6th floor of the Taj. He was away on another function. When he rushed there, he took over command of the rescue operations, and thought that his family would be safe on the 6thfloor. When he realized that the terrorist were already on the upper floors, he tried to go to his family but the 6th floor was on fire and he couldn’t get through. Most men would have fallen on their knees but Karambir was the GM of the Taj. He went back to his job, certain that his family had been killed. It was only at noon the next day that he called his father to tell him what had happened. His father’s response was, “Son, do your duty. Do not desert your post” .Karambir replied, “ If the hotel goes down, I will be the last man out.”0:58
• #9: So what did Taj do? Actually you have picked up on quite a few things that they did. Its not really different from what you’ve said. They recruited on values, introduced knowledge management, empowerment, recognition programme and employee welfare. So what was different? But those 5 things is not what they really did. What they did was to build consistency around those values. These things permeated all their actions. It was the standard by which they worked and lived everyday. It was how the management ran the company.
• #10: Taj recruited people from smaller villagers to capture traditional Indian values of respect for teachers and elders, humility, consideration for others, discipline and honesty. They asked headmasters to recommend the students who were cheerful, respectful and had very needy families. They did not ask who scored the best in math and English.They hired managers from fresh. So that they could indoctrine their culture rather than bring in people from other hotels.They avoided the top universities in India, as they thought others prioritize hard work and dedication more than money.
• #11: But these people that they hired they trained for 18 months! They did train very extensively in grooming, technical knowledge eg like knowledge of wines, and managing customers. But beyond that, they asked their own managers to run training rather than consultants, so that in learning the technical knowledge they would also learn the tacit or unwritten knowledge that was held not in manuals but in the culture of those managers and unique to how things were done in the Taj.
• #12: Employees as Ambassadors of the customer are assured that the managers including the CEO will support any decision that puts guest from and center.Once a very angry customer was checking out. He was angry because his air conditioner had not worked that night. He swore he would never stay at the Taj again. The trainee manager on duty immediately offered him breakfast on the house, complimentary transportation to the airport. She made sure the next Taj hotel he was booked in picked him up from the airport. She could do that without asking anyone because she knew that she would be supported. This was not from a 5 point customer service principle slide.
• #13: Taj was very focused on what they recognize – service of the customer. They made sure that recognition was immediate and by the supervisor and not by “management”. Their annual incentives are based on points collected through a compliments and suggestions programme called the STAR. There is nothing diff about this programme from 100 I have seen or designed before, in fact I think I have implemented a programme called star before. The difference was HR had 48 hours to respond on whether it was valid and if they didn’t respond in 48 hours , the employee will get the points by default. It was this response time that made the programme compelling. We have all experienced enough suggestions schemes where we never knew where the suggestions went.
• #14: In the stories of the staff, I have left one more story for last which also demonstrates the way Taj treats their employees. It treats its employees like it wants its employees to treat its customer. When the terrorist attack happened, Ratan Tata the CEO, was on the scene all the time. I’ve worked in an org where when a disaster happened and lives were lost and the CEO said, on email, which was later made public, that what an inconvenience and it spoilt my holiday. The HR team, was quite nervous with their staff support proposal after the attack, because they were worried that it was too generous. Ratan Tata’s response on reading it was do you think we are doing enough. For the employees that died, their families would receive their last salary for life. They provided medical care, counseling and every kind of help you can imagine. He even helped the vendors on the streets who had lost their carts and finally paid millions of rupees. He visited all 80 families who had staff that were injured or died and attended the 12 funerals of his employees. The 12 lives the hotel lost, in saving 1500 guests.
• #15: This is a story of customer service extremism and yet it is not. It is a story of Attention Density, the concept of what happens when you focus and pay attention to a particular thought or activity. When you focus and pay attention to a particular thought or activity the related chemical circuits in your brain are strengthened. If enough attention is paid to them then physical changes happen in the brain which reflect this new way of thinking ad a new culture is born.Attention density means that the values of the people you hire, the communication that you undertake, the policies and procedures that you put in place, the reward & recognition that you offer and the management behaviour and actions all resonate with each other. If you can do this you will change the stories that are told in your organization.