LOCAL research has revealed a ‘lip-service’ only approach to customer service is often bred within corporate cultures that are neither understood by management nor talked of openly and honestly by employees.
Employees from private and government organisations in Western Australia have reported customer and client complaints are sometimes left unreported for fear of making department performance figures look comparatively poor.
One employee even descr-ibed the reporting of an outside complaint as a “career-limiting move”.
This is just one example of an unwritten ground rule that can defy the stated service objectives and policies of an organisation and all attempts to change its corporate culture.
Author of Cracking the Corporate Culture Code: Unwritten Ground rules, Steve Simpson, says the local study, backed by both the University of Western Australia and Curtin University, has confirmed the existence and power of these unwritten rules, which he terms UGRs.
The study provided Mr Simpson with the evidence he needed to back up his long-held hunch.
As a service consultant, Mr Simpson had worked with various organisations in Australia, the US and South-East Asia, but often felt there was something within the culture of some of these businesses which would preclude them from achieving their service objectives.
Mr Simpson believes the most positive outcomes of the study are the benefits an organisation can gain, firstly from being aware of the UGRs underpinning its culture and then by using the concept to manufacture and develop UGRs to support a desired culture.
UGRs are not confined to companies and organis-ations. They govern most relationships and entities, including families and sports teams.
Mr Simpson says positive UGRs are often exemplified on sporting fields and has included analysis and quotes from the Australian women’s field hockey team, the Chicago Bulls basket-ball team and the New Zealand rugby union football team in his expose of corporate culture.