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ITSM Basics: Cherry Coke Syndrome

Posted by Julie Montgomery on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 @ 01:05 PM
 

The importance of a strong request management process coupled with a well thought out service catalog is worth its weight in gold.  Consider this story.

It's Saturday and you've just had a great gym workout.  You're going to meet family or friends at your favorite burger joint.

The server you see everyITIL Request Management time enthusiastically greets you, takes your drink order and bounces off.   Cherry Coke.  You love that stuff.  You only will indulge in it on Saturdays after a power workout. This continues every Saturday for an entire spring.  

Unbeknownst to you, your favorite server has been creating your Cherry Coke using maraschino cherry juice poured into your coke.  

One day, much to your dismay, your favorite server is not there.  In her place, is a new guy. Ok.

You request your Cherry Coke.  "Sir, I'm sorry, but we don't have Cherry Coke."  To which you reply, "Mr. Newbie, I've had Cherry Coke here every Saturday for about 4 months.  Don't tell me you don't have Cherry Coke."

The guy looks a little embarrassed and walks off saying, "I'll check."  Within a few minutes, up walks a guy with spectacles and a pencil behind his hear, wearing khakis and a plaid button down shirt.  "Howdy!  I understand you are looking for a Cherry Coke!"  

"Yes," I reply, "That's me."

"Well, we have never served Cherry Coke.  I'm the owner, and I can assure you that you must be confusing us with another restaurant."  Suddenly you're annoyed, the owner is annoyed and bad karma is happening all the way around.

What does any of this have to do with managing IT services (ITSM)?  A lot!  

  1. Request Management (ITIL)-  Taking a rogue approach to making the Cherry Coke cost the restaurant more than their projected cost to make that drink.  If the restaurant had a request management process via which staff could provide input as to products that had been requested by customer, but not available, the restaurant could have seen that there was a solid demand for Cherry Coke.  They could assess this request and order it, deliver it and price it properly. 
     
  2. Service Analyst Training -  The human factor is always the toughest part of any of this, isn't it?  Training those interfacing with the customer to take a request and document it, rather than doing "anything" to make a customer happy, will create a better pay off for all in the long run.  But you really have to train your team to understand this.  Otherwise, the human nature of people in a service role is to take care of the customer.  At any cost.
     
  3. Service Catalog-  It all comes down to the service catalog, in this case, the menu, doesn't it?  If the server had kept to the menu, but taken the request to the manager, the manager would probably still have made the Cherry Coke in the rogue fashion, but would be able to note the request.
Remember, a solid service catalog (menu) is one of the most critical assets that you can create in ITSM.   Teach your team to stick to it, but also give them an outlet to record other requests.  Your customers will love you for it.
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Comments

Great illustration and I couldn't agree more. All the customer focus in the world will be a flash in the pan unless it is MANAGED. The loop has to be closed back to the business. But I think this goes even farther and I personally would argue that the Service Catalog (or any other document or tool) is by no means the most important asset created by ITSM. The cafeteria had a service catalog on its menu board to no avail. What it lacked was trained people executing thier roles in integrated processes whose goal was to meet customers values. Those processes can't end at the counter but carry data about what customers value back to the business. The desired 'customer experience' is all important but only if it is captured and responded to by the business. Me,I am going to find out were my waitress went and follow her.
Posted @ Tuesday, January 24, 2012 2:11 PM by Steve Janssen
Julie - 
 
First off, thanks for the post. A story is such a great way to illustrate a point. However, I really have to disagree (at least to a point) with your conclusion. The real issue here is a question of culture. I think that we in the world of ITSM sometimes take the standardization of process too far. Should we really capture every small request from a customer? Should we really insert a governance process into every element of the customer experience? If your waitress had been required to "log the request" and "get approval" to drop a little cherry juice into your coke, the fact is that she probably would have decided that it just was not worth the effort. Far easier to simply tell you, as your second waiter did, that they did not carry Cherry Coke. Would that have given you a better experience? Would that have been better for the business? While not at "any cost", the first rule of any customer support professional should be to protect the customer experience. But that is a matter of culture. In your story, it was clear to see the failure. The manager was not interested in the customer experience. He was interested in his rules. I think that this is a problem that is endemic in IT organizations. We build highly structured process, but we lose sight of the goal we are really trying to achieve. 
 
Instead, we need to look at the In-n-Out model of request management. They have their "official menu" and it has not changed much in years. But over time, customers began requesting their burgers in unique ways. Their first reaction was to protect the customer experience. But their management was not in the back room pushing their pencil, telling their people that every new request must go through "the process." They were on the front lines. And they were listening. As they understood that these secret menu items were being requested with some frequency, they simply built support processes behind the scenes so that they could adequately support their customers.  
 
Service Request Management, closed loop processes, governance of the service catalog - these are all vitally important - but only to the extent that they serve the customer experience.
Posted @ Saturday, January 28, 2012 11:32 AM by Charles Araujo
Good point Charles. This is the risk of analogies and even examples, while they may suit one point they will always fail at another. This discussion is about, among other things, portfolio management which may eventually impact the service catalog. ITIL warns about impulsive redesign which would include modification to the catalogue. It must be business justified. At what level of detail do we need to track the customer experience? We know that every request is to be tracked but to Charles point at what cost? Are we talking about actually logging every instance or are we also going to include the input by the ‘BRM’ which could enter into the Portfolio Management through another managed channel.  
 
Depends… I was drinking ‘cherry colas’ in the fifties at the soda counter that was at the pharmacy because colas and Dr. Pepper were marketed largely for their medicinal properties. It was until the late 80s and after extensive market research that Coca Cola finally added Cherry Cola to its portfolio. Did the drugstore need to track every customer request to know what the customer wanted? Certainly not in a log, we didn’t even have paper in ‘cash registers’ at that point. But the ‘soda jerk’ knew what was up in his market place and how he could increase sales by a different combination of assets he had on hand. The large bottling company is in a different world or market place, or, thank you Charles, a different culture. It was going to have to modify its marketing, manufacturing and suppliers to the tune of millions of dollars and, in my opinion, not so much driven by customer experience as by market share strategy.  
 
Posted @ Monday, January 30, 2012 1:02 PM by steve
JJMONTGO! Thanks, that was an excellent analogy! I've been looking for a good one to try to get this concept across to the folks I work with.
Posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2012 4:31 PM by Rick Jenkins
Rick 
Great to hear from you an THANK YOU for reading! Use as you like!
Posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2012 4:37 PM by Julie Montgomery
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