全世界都迫切需要优质的服务。服务做得好的公司——看看西南航空（Southwest）和美国网络鞋店Zappos——在保证盈利的情况下都实现了企业增长，并赢得了回头客。服务做得不好的公司则受到了无情的惩罚。美国银行（Bank of America）经常在客户满意度调查中排名垫底就是一个活生生的例子。

    企业有太多理由要服务好客户，那么，为什么优秀的服务依然不多见？

    原因之一就是“好意”。事实证明，优质服务的核心障碍并不是落后过时的想法，也不是麻木不仁的管理层，很多时候问题恰恰在于人们希望做“对的事情”。美国银行最大的问题可能就是现在它不想让任何人失望。

    而且，像这样的情况并不少见。谈到服务，下面三类好的出发点往往会造成适得其反的结果：

1. 凡事力求做到最好

    最好的服务提供商总是在客户最看重的事情上不遗余力，在客户最不看重的事情上则留有余地。美国著名的医学中心梅奥诊所（Mayo Clinic）为患者提供当日预约服务，条件是放弃选择指定医生的权力。但任何急难症患者（这是梅奥诊所擅长的领域）都会乐于接受这样的安排。

    此类折衷策略构成了成功的服务模式，没有人需要为此致歉。西南航空（Southwest Airlines）无需为不提供正餐和行李转运服务而感到羞愧，因为正是如此，它们才能提供廉价的密集航班，而这些也正是顾客真正想要的东西。

    如果西南航空力求事事做到最好，如果它既想成为一家廉价航空公司，又想提供高端豪华的舱内体验，同时每天多次飞往全球任何一个地点，这套模式绝对行不通。这家公司最终会亏欠，而且什么服务都流于平庸，这正是大多数大型航空公司走下坡路的原因。

    如今的美国银行（Bank of America）似乎正在向零售银行的所有领域推进，可以预料的是，效果不会令人满意。美国银行正在试图降低成本、提高便捷性、扩充产品领域以及提供友好的服务，或许它的名字就已经决定了，一家面向全美国人民的银行绝不能让任何人因为任何事情失望。

    美国银行没有设计一个或多个服务模式【看看丰田（Toyota）和雷克萨斯（Lexus）各自的策略】根据关键服务要素进行优化，而是选择全面铺开，胜算渺茫。它不是最便宜、最方便或最友好的储蓄银行。它让所有的人都大失所望，原因却又各有不同，僵化的策略无法让任何人真正满意。

    你们的客户最看重什么？如果确保他们获得这些，他们愿意放弃什么？回答好这些问题，是提供优质服务的第一步。

    The world is desperate for good service. Companies that get service right – see Southwest and Zappos – are rewarded with profitable growth and devoted customers. And companies that get it wrong are relentlessly punished. Bank of America's persistent presence at the very bottom of the rankings for customer satisfaction is one such example.

    There are powerful incentives to serve customers well, so why is service excellence still so rare?

    Here's part of the problem: good intentions. It turns out a central barrier to service is not backward thinking and callous management. More often than not, it's the very human desire to want to do the right thing. BofA's biggest problem may be that it's trying not to disappoint anyone right now.

    The bank's not alone. When it comes to service, below are three good intentions with consistently bad outcomes:

1. Trying to be great at everything

    Great service providers tend to over-deliver on the things their customers value most, and under-deliver on the things they value least. Patients at the Mayo Clinic can get same-day appointments, but in exchange for that exceptional access, they must give up control over which physician they see. It's a deal that anyone with an urgent, complex medical issue – Mayo's sweet spot – is more than happy to make.

    These kinds of strategic tradeoffs are built into great service models, and no one apologizes for them. Southwest Airlines (LUV) shamelessly refuses to feed you a meal and transfer your bags, because that's precisely what allows them to deliver cheap, frequent flights – the things their customers really want.

    If Southwest tried to be great at everything, if it tried to be the low-price airline with a tricked-out, high-touch cabin experience that flew anywhere in the world multiple times a day, the model wouldn't work. The company would end up losing money while being mediocre at everything, which describes the trajectory of most of the major airlines.

    Bank of America now seems to be pushing itself on every aspect of its retail offering, with predictably disappointing results. It's trying to win on cost, convenience, product scope and friendly service, a strategy that's captured in its epic name: a bank for all of America can't let anyone down, on anything.

    Rather than designing a service model – or multiple service models (see the distinct strategies of Toyota (TM) and Lexus) – that are optimized for key service attributes, Bank of America (BAC) is going for it on all dimensions, hitting it out of the park on none. It's not the lowest-cost, most convenient or friendliest place to deposit your money. The bank is disappointing all of us in different ways, without the strategic freedom to make anyone truly happy.

    What do your own customers value most? What would they give up if they could reliably get those things? Answering these questions is often the first step towards exceptional service.

2. 要求员工更卖力地工作

    一旦出现问题，人们很容易将其归咎于不够努力。很多人认为，只要再加把劲（通常说的是直接下属），服务就会得到改善。但这种观点可能忽略了一个事实，即系统架构本身就已经决定了员工难以提供令人满意的服务。

    呼叫中心就是一个很典型的例子，而且它的星星很荒谬。呼叫中心往往要求员工最多需要关注8个屏幕，同时还要接听并处理来自全球各地来电者五花八门的问题。很多呼叫中心还对服务代表的通话时长进行计时，而且不得将来电转至上一级，即便他们没有权限和信息来解决来电者的问题。处在这种情况中，再努力也无济于事，因为员工的工作面临着很大的障碍。

    有没有更好的办法？我们可以设计一套管理体系，让每个人轻轻松松就能拿出出色的表现。Zappos将服务代表视为公司建立客户关系的一线大使。服务代表有服务客户的工具和权力，每天24小时提供服务，同时公司还鼓励他们不计时长地接听电话。超长的通话时间甚至已成为服务团队的某种荣誉勋章。

    对于那些服务遭到投诉的公司，我们的建议是别再告诉你们的员工做110%的努力了。认真审视一下，是否是系统问题导致客户不满。

3. 提供免费服务

    慷慨大方是良好关系的核心，客户关系也不例外。为付钱给你的人们创造巨大的价值，然后从中为自己争取一部分。这就是成功的服务公司背后的慷慨经济学。

    不过，无条件的爱可行不通。必须为你的慷慨获得某种回报，否则你可支撑不了多久。举个例子，精致游轮（Celebrity Cruises）在竞争日益激烈的市场中新增了150种“取悦”客户的方式，包括免费香槟酒、落日瑜伽、泳池边的果汁冰糕、寿司吧以及订制披萨等服务。

    但问题是没人需要为此多付一分钱。由于游轮业的现状导致涨价几乎不可能，这个昙花一现的计划沦为“可有可无”的免费服务，收回成本的概率几近于无。

    美国邮政局（The U.S. Post Office）在全国范围内推出的周六递送服务（递送量较低）也是一项免费服务。我们自然都喜欢这项服务，但大多数人除了邮票，不愿额外多付一分钱。这项服务堪称邮政系统的免费香槟。

2. Getting your employees to work harder

    When things go wrong, lack of effort is an easy target. Many think service should improve with a little more commitment, usually from your direct reports.. But this argument obscures the fact that you may be systematically setting your employees up to fail.

    Call centers are the classic, absurd example. Typical call center employees are asked to watch up to eight screens at once, while fielding questions from callers all over the world on a complex mix of products. Many service reps are timed on call length and instructed not to escalate calls, even though they lack the power or information to solve callers' problems. Trying harder in this environment isn't going to do much good – there are serious barriers to employee performance.

    What's the alternative? Design a management system that allows everyone to excel casually. Zappos sees its service reps as company ambassadors on the front lines, building customer relationships. Employees have the tools and authority to take care of customers, 24-hours-a-day, and they're encouraged to stay on the phone for as long as it takes. Extended call times have even become a badge of honor for service teams.

    Our advice to any company suffering from service angst: stop telling your employees to give 110%. Instead, take a hard look at whether you're setting them up to make your customers miserable.

3. Giving service away

    Generosity is at the core of great relationships, and customer relationships are no exception. Create tremendous value for the people who pay you, and then capture some of that value for yourself. Those are the generous economics behind successful service companies.

    But unconditional love doesn't work. You must get something in return for your kindness, or you won't be around for long. Take Celebrity Cruises. In an increasingly competitive market, Celebrity added 150 new ways of "delighting" its customers. The initiative produced flutes of free champagne, sunset yoga, poolside sorbet, sushi bars, and pizza-on-demand.

    Here's the problem: no one would pay extra for it. The dynamics of the cruise industry made a price hike impossible, and so this short-lived initiative turned into gratuitous service, service nice-to-haves donated to customers with little chance of recovering the costs.

    The U.S. Post Office delivers gratuitous service when it blankets the country with low-volume Saturday delivery. Sure, we all like the option, but most of us are unwilling to pay more than the price of a stamp for it. It's the postal version of free champagne.

    简单而言，我们认为服务必须收费。新的收费和上调价格只是一种方式，往往也是最没有创造力的方式，许多市场都不能接受。

    服务收费遇到困难？首先，要确保你是在为客户创造真正的价值。然后从中为自己争取一部分。

    我们经常接触到很多企业管理者，他们的想法和出发点都很好，但没算好经济帐。他们的问题不是对客户不够全心全意，而是死守一种观点，认为“只要有好的出发点就足以成功”。然而，好的出发点不仅不够，有时甚至恰恰相反，会成为企业发展的绊脚石。

    弗朗西斯•弗莱和安•莫瑞斯是《与众不同的服务：将客户置于业务核心的制胜之道》（Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of your Business） 的作者。

    译者：早稻米

    Our message, simply, is that service must be funded. New fees and price increases are just one approach – often the least creative – and many markets won't tolerate them.

    Having trouble getting paid for service? Make sure you're creating real value for your customers. And then try to capture a fraction of it.

    Every day, we work with leaders whose hearts and minds are in the right place, but their numbers aren't. Their problem isn't a lack of commitment to customers. Rather, it's an attachment to a worldview that assumes that good intentions are enough to succeed. Not only are they not enough, but they are also sometimes the very things standing in your way.

    Frances Frei and Anne Morriss are the authors of Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of your Business.