I think it’s high time that Trinidad and To­ba­go be­comes known for de­liv­er­ing tru­ly stel­lar cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ences. Change is nev­er easy, ei­ther for in­di­vid­u­als or for busi­ness­es. Adopt­ing new ways of work­ing can feel un­com­fort­able when old habits have been ce­ment­ed over the years. Yet many busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to cling to fa­mil­iar ser­vice prac­tices, even as their cus­tomers’ ex­pec­ta­tions evolve. The ef­fort re­quired to re­fresh out­dat­ed strate­gies or in­tro­duce new ser­vice be­hav­iours sim­ply hasn’t been in­vest­ed. A step up to ser­vice ex­cel­lence is long over­due.

Across the lo­cal land­scape, cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence re­mains stuck in a kind of ser­vice sta­sis. Too many busi­ness­es still op­er­ate with a drip-feed­ing ap­proach to ser­vice de­liv­ery, and too many cus­tomers have grown ac­cus­tomed to ac­cept­ing the re­sult­ing medi­oc­rity. Aside from a small group of for­ward-think­ing, cus­tomer-ob­sessed or­gan­i­sa­tions, we have not seen the kind of bold, trans­for­ma­tive shifts that re­de­fine how great cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence should be im­print­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

So, where does a busi­ness be­gin if it wants to re­verse slug­gish ser­vice de­liv­ery? The first step is to iden­ti­fy the true root caus­es. Shoot­ing in the dark wastes time and en­er­gy. Strate­gies built on ver­i­fied in­sights, not as­sump­tions, are far more ef­fec­tive. This al­lows clar­i­ty to ac­cel­er­ate progress.

An­oth­er crit­i­cal move is to make com­pli­ance with “stan­dards of care” non­nego­tiable. This may re­quire cre­at­ing new stan­dards or sim­ply en­forc­ing the ones that al­ready ex­ist. Lead­ers must com­mit to the dai­ly dis­ci­pline of hold­ing every team mem­ber ac­count­able for ap­ply­ing these stan­dards con­sis­tent­ly. Over time, these learned be­hav­iours be­come lived be­hav­iours. Em­bed­ded, au­to­mat­ic, cus­tomer-cen­tric and em­blem­at­ic of the brand of the busi­ness.

Learn­ing should al­so be en­joy­able. When the goal is to make cus­tomers smile, the process of learn­ing how to do so should spark en­er­gy, not dread. Pair­ing for­mal train­ing with an in­ter­nal pro­mo­tion­al cam­paign can help em­ploy­ees em­brace new be­hav­iours more en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Recog­ni­tion and re­ward for ef­fort or im­prove­ment can dra­mat­i­cal­ly ac­cel­er­ate adop­tion and build mo­men­tum.

Too many busi­ness mod­els still sup­press em­ploy­ee con­fi­dence and em­pow­er­ment. They are built on the as­sump­tion that de­ci­sions must be es­ca­lat­ed up­ward, rather than re­solved on the spot. But, when a busi­ness in­vests in tal­ent­ed peo­ple, it should al­so trust them to make de­ci­sions close to the cus­tomer. Re­duc­ing un­nec­es­sary es­ca­la­tions be­comes a pow­er­ful dif­fer­en­tia­tor and cus­tomers ap­pre­ci­ate deeply, a first­con­tact ap­proach to res­o­lu­tion.

Slug­gish­ness of­ten thrives in am­bi­gu­i­ty. A com­pa­ny’s in­ter­nal val­ue sys­tem should be­come a liv­ing, breath­ing sys­tem that guides be­hav­iour, de­ci­sion-mak­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion. When this hap­pens, every de­part­ment un­der­stands its role in keep­ing the cus­tomer’s jour­ney fric­tion-free. Op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy tight­ens, and ser­vice fail­ures give way to a re­newed sense of ser­vice en­er­gy.

A word of cau­tion. Once a busi­ness com­mits to re­vers­ing slug­gish ser­vice de­liv­ery, it’s go­ing to be step­ping in­to a full-scale cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence trans­for­ma­tion. This de­ci­sion sig­nals some­thing even big­ger, that of a cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion. The busi­ness will not re­main the same. It will evolve, strength­en and re­de­fine it­self in ways that will ben­e­fit both em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it will be an evo­lu­tion well worth em­brac­ing.