"Service-centric" has become a common term in the property management industry, and the most iconic is the guiding behavior of changing the name of "property management company" to "property service company" in the regulations. However, at present, most companies still focus on "point" work, that is, to reflect the spirit of service by requiring the words and deeds of service personnel. As a manager, it is more instructive to analyze this problem from the perspective of the management of the whole enterprise.
Tenants are a resource for property service companiesFrom a management point of view, the product is defined by the customer, not by the company itself. Similarly, the products and services of property service companies are defined by the tenants, and it is the needs of the tenants who create the property management market, thus accommodating the property service business.
Experienced sailors know that the guidebook is of extraordinary significance to their voyage, as it will determine whether they are going in the right direction or not, and even affect their survival. In the entire socio-economic environment, property service companies are just a ship in the ocean, and they also need to correct the "course" in real time, and the compass they rely on can only be the needs of the owners.
This requires property service enterprises to regard the owners as their own management resources, and take their needs, feedback, opinions and suggestions as the basis and basis for improving services and management innovation. This includes complaints, criticisms, etc., and even those that seem to be "nonsense", at least provide an opportunity to self-examine the quality of service. In the history of the development of management, every typical successful case reflects this point.
To be "service-centric", managers of property service companies need to ask and answer questions such as: "What do owners need?"What is the value in the eyes of the owner?But this is not easy to do based on two things:
1. Managers are unconsciously inclined to "speculate" on the service needs of residents, but this is not reliable, even if it seems to be the same community, its service requirements may be very different;Clause.
Second, the needs of the owners are never obvious, just like a few years ago when people bought PHS was actually buying a "cheap wireless communication method" rather than the machine itself (so after the one-way charge of mobile phones and the reduction of tariffs, everyone will mercilessly abandon PHS). This requires a systematic and painstaking effort to truly understand the needs and expectations of the occupants, and to serve as a guide – the only one – to improve their services.
However, the frequent conflicts and public incidents in the property management industry reflect that a considerable number of property service companies have not yet recognized this and still regard property owners as a potential threat. It is foreseeable that only when this understanding becomes the consensus of the industry, will the property management industry enter the fast lane of healthy development.
Establish organizational design principles in your workIn football, it has become common knowledge that the "433" formation is a typical offensive idea, while the "541" formation is defense-oriented. If the players are asked to attack with all their strength and the "541" formation is formed, it will cause confusion, not because the players in the midfield and back are not capable of attacking, but because the main range of activities specified by the coach limits their opportunities and possibilities to participate in the attack.
Similarly, in order to embody the principle of "service first", property service enterprises must also consider the organizational structure and job arrangement.
In any business, first-line managers have basic managerial roles – their performance ultimately determines everything else, while higher-level managerial roles are derived to help first-line managers perform their roles better. This is no exception for property service companies, whose final performance depends on the actual service results of each service center or management office. This requires that in the organizational design, around the service center or management office, any management level, a professional position allocation, should be based on the front-line service quality assurance and support as the premise. For example, the president and chairman of a successful wholesaler of medical supplies in the United States visit 200 of their 600 customers every year, and they spend a day in each hospital and don't sell their products — they refuse to accept orders, but instead spend time discussing customer needs and problems, and asking customers to criticize their products and services. The company's top priorities were an annual customer survey, which showed that the company had grown 18-fold in 12 years.
In the actual work of property management, all supervisors and managers at all levels should take the initiative to work around the service center or management office, provide all kinds of necessary information, consultation, guidance, and adjust and improve their respective job functions through front-line feedback and needs. In performance evaluation, the performance of each senior manager or professional should focus on whether they have contributed to the protection and improvement of service in the field, just as the work of a football coach is evaluated primarily on whether he has made a proper contribution to the team's victory.
The means of information communication should be fully utilizedAn enterprise is an organization composed of people, and whether the information communication is adequate and effective determines the overall work efficiency and performance of the enterprise. This requires that every staff member, whether managers or operators, ask and answer the question: "What information do I need to provide myself in order to provide a qualified service?"To whom?And what external information do I need for myself?From whom do you get this information?In what form should this information be provided?”
General Electric set an example of this more than 50 years ago, trying to take into account customer needs and satisfaction from the design stage, with marketers involved in the design and manufacturing process from the outset, explaining to engineers, designers and manufacturing what the customer's specific needs were. Therefore, as early as the first engineer picked up a pencil to draw a design, "how to make the product better meet the needs of the customer" has already come into play, and the actual sales action is only the last step.
Lenovo has recently revamped the computer keyboard, and this innovation is not an unfathomable technological innovation, but a seemingly technically easy change - greatly increasing the area of the "Delete" and "Exit" keys!The reason for this is because Lenovo engineers carefully studied the user's usage habits and found that the average user taps the "delete" and "exit" keys more than 700 times a week, so the ease of use of these two keys is important for the user's operating experience. The quality of communication, service awareness and management level embodied in these subtle innovations are not inferior to drastic macro decisions, and it is no wonder that the Associated Press has reported on the theme of "Lenovo boldly innovates computer keyboards"!
The reason why "service-centered" should become a communication principle for property service enterprises is because this work is not only a matter of customer service center or management personnel, but a matter of the entire enterprise - the equipment maintenance plan or update decision of the mechanical and electrical supervisor, the greening maintenance plan of the greening supervisor, the training plan and content of the training supervisor, etc., should reflect the idea of "improving service", and require close attention to their superiors, The needs of subordinates and peers, understanding their work, and communicating appropriately with the right information.
Ask for an emphasis on contribution rather than busynessThere's an old story: someone asked three stonemasons what they were doing. The first stonemason said, "I'm making a living." The second stonemason said, "I'm doing the best stone carving in the country." The third stonemason looked up and replied with a wistful gaze, "I am building a cathedral." ”
The third stonemason is a real manager, because he has very clear goals and is able to exercise self-control. The first stonemason, who knew what he was going to get and would try to get it, could well "work fairly every day in order to be able to get paid fairly", but he was not, and never will be, a manager. The problem is with the second stonemason, who is very skilled and can even become an expert in stone carving, but who focuses only on his own skills and regards the improvement of his skills as a work achievement - which is dangerous for the company!
For enterprises, professionals should be encouraged to improve their skills, but they should always be linked to the needs of the enterprise as a whole. However, the danger of the danger of the vast majority of managers and technicians, who are similar to the second stonemason, are concerned only with professional work: the vision and efforts of these personnel may deviate from the goals of the enterprise, and no longer focus on what the performance goals of the entire management team are, but aim to continuously improve their own professional level.
With the improvement of property service requirements and the increase of technical content, the number and level of professional management personnel and professional and technical personnel in property practitioners are rising, and how to manage these personnel has brought the challenge of "knowledge management". This is beyond the scope of this article, but one thing is clear: for professionals, the focus should always be on the contribution to the service, rather than being closed to the professional.
To sum up, "service-centric" should be a part of the work of all employees of the property service company, rather than the whole work of some employees (customer service center personnel, front-line managers and operators, etc.). It should become a strategic guiding ideology of the company, which needs to be implemented through organizational design, institutional arrangements and daily management, and ultimately become the foundation of the core competitiveness of the enterprise.