December 11th, 2024

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I’ve been reading a lot about Organizational Culture lately. In particular Michael Henderson’s book Above the Line. There are a few key areas that Michael focuses on in his book which can be viewed as ownership and accountability, alignment, measurement, change management, leadership’s role, communication and employee engagement. Do these seem familiar to you? They certainly do to me! So where does Culture fit in with ISO 9001 and a quality management system? This got me intrigued and so I took a new look at ISO 9001 with a fresh focus on organizational culture just to see what I would find.

Seeing as one of the benefits of a quality management system is facilitating opportunities to enhance customer satisfaction, I thought I’d start there. We know that in the Customer focus clause the focus is on enhancing customer satisfaction. This goes beyond merely fulfilling requirements; it aims to exceed customer expectations. It involves aspects like usability, customer service, reliability, and emotional connection, among others. The focus here is not just on the product or service but on the entire customer experience.

In the context of ISO 9001 and a quality management system, focusing on “enhancing customer satisfaction” compels the organization to adopt a more holistic approach. It encourages businesses to look beyond mere transactions and compliance to build a relationship with the customer.

According to Michael Henderson, nothing brings more joy to customers than a company culture genuinely focused on making each customer interaction a pleasurable experience. This sense of delight isn’t something that can be scripted or included as a routine part of customer service or a quality management system procedure. Instead, it emerges spontaneously from a culture where each employee is empowered to go above and beyond to please the customer.

This proactive approach requires staff and management to be attuned to opportunities for enhancing the customer’s experience, going beyond mere efficiency or system-driven processes. It’s not about a broadly defined “customer experience” as a selling point, but about the immediate interaction happening right now—whether it’s in-store, online, or over the phone. When a culture is geared toward creating these moments of delight, the quality of service naturally elevates. Conversely, when employees are disengaged or uninterested in their work, customers sense that apathy and are likely to take their business elsewhere in the future.

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My 21-year-old son, Isaac works in retail for Stateside Sports. He is the epitome of customer delight. He regularly exceeds store targets and KPI’s and it’s not because he’s a great salesman. It’s because, in his words “he makes a friend before a sale”. He most recently had an older couple contact Stateside Sports Head Office to pass on the customer experience they had with Isaac. An older couple in this type of retail store can be uncomfortable as there are so many items that just don’t make sense (I know, because I’m one of them 😊).

Isaac struck up a conversation with them and found out they were shopping for their grandson and so asked the right questions to understand what he liked and how he dressed, what music and sports he followed and just generally and genuinely ‘made a friend’. The couple were so comfortable they walked out of the store knowing that their grandson would just love what they (Isaac 😊) had picked for him. They were so awe-struck with Isaac when they rang head office, they told them that they had never experienced customer service like it in their 60 odd years of shopping. This is customer delight happening ‘in the moment’!

This could be a challenge for hard-core systems people to get their heads around. You see, a quality management system promotes a ‘system’, it promotes processes, procedures and evidence that they were followed. However, to build a culture to achieve enhanced customer satisfaction it should be happening ‘in the moment’. I can see some of you running and screaming already! This knowledge has made me feel more open to understanding what this looks like in a quality management system. Are we always going to be stuck on ‘this is the procedure, and we must follow it’ – I can’t believe that I said that! I do understand that we need procedures for consistency however if we are ‘in the moment’ we require our systems and procedures to have some flexibility.

In the HBR article Trust Your Employees, Not Your Rule Book they examine a major business blunder involving United Express Flight 3411. The issue didn’t lie with the staff of United but rather with a corporate culture heavily reliant on strict guidelines. With 85,000 employees hesitant to deviate from extensive rulebooks and comprehensive manuals, the outcome was an utter debacle. Despite following the rules to the letter, the situation resulted in failure and bad publicity.

Contrastingly, retail giant Nordstrom adopts a radically different approach. Employees are guided by a single 5×8 card that simply advises, “Use best judgment in all situations. No more rules are needed.” This ethos forms the foundation of Nordstrom’s reputation, celebrated for its exemplary customer service and innovative problem-solving.

The 4C Pyramid: From Conformance to Customer Delight

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• Customer Satisfaction – The ultimate goal of  a customer delight is elevated by a strong culture.
  
• Culture – The top level is where the organizational ethos goes beyond compliance and conformance with a focus on customer delight.
  
• Compliance – The middle level where organizations not only conform to standards but actively uphold them.
  
• Conformance – The foundation level where organizations meet the set guidelines and regulations.