April 13, 2014

Uncommon Service
How to Win by Putting Customers at the
Core of Your Business
Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

©2012 Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

Adapted by permission of Harvard Business School Publishing
Corporation
ISBN: 978-1-4221-3331-6

Key Concepts
• Someone has to pay for it. Service excellence must be • Demand excellence from average employees. Excellent
funded in some way. service organizations deliver outstanding results
• It is not employees’ fault. Employees matter, but from average employees.
what matters more is the service model companies
create. Introduction
• Manage customers. Companies must be deliberate In Uncommon Service, Frances Frei and Anne Mor-
about involving their customers in creating the ser- riss challenge conventional thinking about customer
vice experience. service. They suggest that quality customer service is
• Service Excellence = Design x Culture. Culture is an immersed in counterintuitive thinking, not business-
equal factor in the uncommon service equation. as-usual practices and that forward thinking and
• Going all the way. Customers should be embraced uncommon customer service is a process of manag-
as contributors and producers of services offered. ing employees and customers. Successful businesses
• Customer management tools. Employees should be have core values that reflect their cultures. Frei and
taught to use tracking tools (pricing and retention) Morriss present real-world examples of companies
to make profitability transparent. that created cultures and winning business models
around customer service.
• It is not possible to be great at everything. The means
to uncommon service is honesty and a painful look A Service Economy
in the mirror. The goal of service excellence is to be Frei and Morriss highlight the fact that today’s economy
willing to overcome the need to be great at every- is a service economy. In the 1950s, industrial workers
thing. were the largest job sector, but today, 80 percent of jobs

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Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

are in service. Companies that provide excellent ser- retail model, not as a traditional financial institution.
vice have more profit and customer loyalty. CB offered low rates for little return and became the
fastest growing retail bank in America. Hill had a
Unfortunately, bad service seems to be all too common
plan to excel by providing better banking hours and a
in many service-based businesses. Good service is
friendly atmosphere. Customers wanted convenience
hard to find, even though it is an instinctive human
and customer appreciation, and Hill planned a series
trait. Frei and Morriss suggest that uncommon ser-
of tradeoffs to meet those goals. CB opened from
vice does not emerge from an attitude, but is a design
7:30am to 8:00pm weekdays, with a drive-through
choice built into the business model. The biggest chal-
window open until midnight on Fridays.
lenges are in the psychology of good service: it is easy
to deny reality, ignore tradeoffs, and avoid counter- The problem with many service businesses is failure
intuitive thinking. Excellence requires sacrifice, and to embrace their weaknesses. A company cannot be
CEOs need to have stomachs for doing things badly. good at everything. Tradeoffs can be opportunities to
provide excellent customer service. According to the
Frei and Morriss note a case where the CEO of a major
authors, “choosing bad” is the way to achieve quality
health care provider believed he had to be excellent
service and avoid mediocrity.
at everything, lowering the bar was “dishonorable.”
Even the CEO’s management team disagreed with his Frei and Morriss explained how to decide where to
heroism. The team understood that tradeoffs were be good and where to be bad. Companies should
necessary for good service. think about some important tradeoffs they can make
in their service models. CB transformed its culture by
The Four Service Truths
first looking for its customers’ “pain points”: limited
The four service truths address tradeoffs leading to
banking hours, surly bank employees, and custom-
excellent service. They provide the elements of a suc-
ers feeling that the banking industry was inherently
cessful, high quality service model:
unfriendly. Next, CB hired employees with strong
1. A company cannot be good at everything. The idea is to interpersonal skills and enthusiasm, although it
minimize activities that customers value less and
maximize activities they value most.
2. Someone has to pay for it. The right funding mecha-
nism gives customers a way to pay for goods and Further Information
services.
Information about the author and subject:
3. It is not the employees’ fault. Businesses can design a uncommonservice.com
model that helps each employee practice uncom- Information about this book and other business titles:
mon service. hbr.org
4. A company must manage its customers. Engaging cus-
tomers helps keep them productive and loyal. Click Here to Purchase the Book
These four service truths are tools that help companies
Related summaries in the BBS Library:
develop cultures of excellent service. If a company
Service-Ability
wants to expand its services, the choice is to continue
Create a Customer Centric Culture and Achieve
doing the same thing or do things differently. Doing
Competitive Advantage
things differently involves creating a new service
By Kevin Robson
model.
The Zappos Experience
Truth Number 1: You Can’t Be Good at 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and WOW
Everything By Joseph A. Michelli
Commerce Bank (CB) was started in 1973 by Vernon
Hill. His vision was to develop a bank framed as a

Business Book Summaries® April 13, 2014 • Copyright © 2014 EBSCO Publishing Inc. • www.ebscohost.com • All Rights Reserved
Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

was an expensive endeavor. CB [I]t’s important to stay tethered to reality. Nothing strengthens
wanted to change the industry
that connection more than an ongoing dialogue with your cus-
by making the banking business
fun for their customers. Friendly tomers. Don’t’ outsource this to the marketing department….
employees created the “Wow Pick up the phone and confront the truth.
Patrol” in each branch office. Apple’s MacBook Air is another example that helps to
With longer banking hours and outstanding service, explain the interactions between tradeoffs and being
customers felt appreciated. bad and good. It was supposed to be “best in class”
for lightness but it had limited memory. Although
the Apple engineers wanted to improve both fea-

About the Authors tures, there had to be a tradeoff—to keep it light, the
memory had to be secondary.
Frances Frei is UPS Foundation Professor of Ser- Frei and Morriss described how a business can focus
vice Manager and chair of the MBA Required its tradeoffs according to customer needs. The idea
Curriculum at Harvard Business School. Her starts with a graph called an attribute map. The ver-
research investigates how organizations can more tical axis lists the distinct features of a service based
effectively design service excellence. She has been on their importance to the customer (location, price,
published in top-tier journals, such as Manage- variety). The horizontal axis ranks the quality of the
ment Science and Harvard Business Review. She service for the customer (low, medium, high). This
serves on the board of directors of Advance Auto tool can help managers and employees see where the
Parts and on the board of advisors of several company’s strengths and weaknesses lie. A company’s
companies. She received her PhD in operations attributes can reveal hidden factors that are easy to
and information management from the Wharton ignore.
School at the University of Pennsylvania, holds an
ME in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania The attributes map can uncover different customer
State University, and received a BA in mathemat- needs within a targeted segment. Many businesses
ics from the University of Pennsylvania. separate customers by market segments (the horizon-
tal axis), a tool used to communicate with different
Anne Morriss is managing director and co­founder types of customers. The operating segments (the verti-
of the Concire Leadership Institute, which helps cal axis) are based on service priorities. Different units
leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sec- and divisions may have different attributes maps to
tors uncover and remove barriers to excellence. identify different customer needs and priorities.
She has worked with companies and governments
in the U.S. and Latin America on strategy, leader- Frei and Morriss worked with Oschsner Health
ship, and institutional change. As an OTF Group System (OHS), the “largest nonprofit integrated
senior advisor, she worked with the Office of Pres- healthcare system in Louisiana.” Founder Warner
ident Leonel Fernandez to redesign the Dominican Thomas wanted excellent service in poor communi-
Republic’s industrial strategy. She has partnered ties damaged by Hurricane Katrina. OHS has four
with the World Bank to help leaders in emerging operating segments based on the complexity of ser-
economies increase local entrepreneurship and vices (high or low risk) and care urgency (planned or
innovation. She serves on the board of GenePeeks, unplanned). The low-risk segment included patients
Inc. and chairs the board of InnerCity Weightlift- needing a yearly physical examination (planned care)
ing, which promotes achievement among urban and flu patients (unplanned care). For these patients,
youth. She holds a BA in American studies from convenience was more important than appointment
Brown University and an MBA from Harvard time. The high-risk segment included back surgery
Business School. patients (planned care) and breast cancer treatment
patients (unplanned care). The surgery patients
valued quality of care and breast cancer treatment

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Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

patients valued appointment time. OHS understood Lower costs with improved service is common in
the different operating segments and included them education: a classroom or situation that helps stu-
in its delivery system. dents learn from each other promotes learning more
than private instruction between one student and one
A good example of a business that redefined its cus-
teacher.
tomer value was IKEA, the world’s largest furniture
retailer. IKEA started in Sweden in 1943 as a local cat- To lower service costs, Intuit founder Scott Cook used
alog company selling hard to get items (silk stockings, a strategy to improve the quality and cost of customer
cigarettes) during the war years. IKEA added a local service by reducing the unpaid demand for it. The
delivery service and eventually started selling low- product development team covered the call center
cost home furniture. The company’s success stemmed and gained valuable information from the customers
from its ability to change customer preferences in fur- about problems in the company’s software. Tech-
niture: furnishings with physical durability combined nology changes lowered tech support costs and call
with “tasteful design.”IKEA started a new trend volume.
selling “unboring,”cheap, unassembled, and easy-to-
Zappos put their money into inventory manage-
ship furniture. It also added an element of fun for the
ment: free shipping options and fast delivery (orders
customers.
placed by midnight on the East
Loyalty programs—designed correctly—are a great way to Coast were delivered eight hours
later). CEO Tony Hsieh called it
get paid for your premium service. Unfortunately, too many the “Wow!” effect. The cost of
of these programs are simply paying their customers, through extra services was passed along
discounts, to stick around. Companies stick a loyalty label on a to customers who pay for higher-
priced shoes. But marketing costs
thinly veiled customer-retention program.
are lower based on repeat business
Truth Number 2: Someone Has to Pay for It from Zappo’s loyal customers.
Successful businesses build in a resource to pay for Outstanding service makes customers better. In the
outstanding service, for example, Celebrity Cruises airline industry, customers prefer the self-check-in
launched Tastes of Luxury to improve the passen- kiosks to waiting for an employee behind the coun-
gers’ experience. Glasses of champagne, sunset yoga, ter. The kiosks give customers more control over seat
and sushi and pizza bars were readily available. The selection and reduce the need for interactions with
authors recommend four mechanisms to fund out- busy employees.
standing service:
Charging extra is the easiest way to fund uncommon
1. Charge customers more. service. Managers avoid charging more as a tradeoff
to better service. There are three ways to get custom-
2. Lower costs that also improve service.
ers to pay more:
3. Improve service that also lowers costs
1. Examine cost structure: The biggest bucket of costs
4. Let the customer do the work. offers the biggest bucket of savings. Companies
Customers are happy to pay more. It is hard to get should think about limiting the time needed for
customers to pay outright, but creative businesses use customer interactions.
a more palatable approach. In the case of Celebrity 2. Monetize strengths: Companies should monetize the
Cruises, the company relied on travel agents who thing they do better than most and capitalize on
offered a limited cruise package. Naturally, most that service delivery in their target markets.
people picked the least expensive cruise, and Celeb-
3. Unleash customers: Introducing self-service can cut
rity had a hard time funding the cost of its Tastes of
costs in one area while raising prices elsewhere.
Luxury program.

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Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

Truth Number 3: It’s Not Employees’ Fault 2. Chart complexity over time. Find out if customer ser-
The “bad guy” in a call center is not the trained tech- vice is declining relative to task complexity and
nician with few interpersonal skills; the system is the employee training.
bad guy. If a company provides inconsistent customer 3. Close the gap. Either remove complexities from
service, then the service model is misaligned with the tasks with little customer value, or break jobs into
skills of the employees. It is not the employees’ fault. smaller tasks.
Inconsistent customer service
is distracting and frustrating [K]eep in mind that money may not be the most powerful incen-
for customers and employees. tive for your employees. Research keeps piling up that recogni-
Many companies apply the try- tion and status may matter even more, along with a sense of
harder solution: if one employee
purpose and belonging. Everyone needs to believe that what he
provides excellent service then
everyone can do it. Individual or she does matters.
effort is not the answer, and the
Truth Number 4: Manage Customers
authors blame the employee management system.
The customer-operator (CO) is the special role of cus-
Businesses with less employee training and more job
tomers in the service interaction. For example, when
complexity cannot provide quality customer service.
a customer takes a long time to decide what to order
In this management system, the employee is able and
at a restaurant, that person changes the cost and qual-
motivated for excellence.
ity of service. Customers are untrained and unpaid
For example, Bugs Burger Bug Killers (BBBK) is the employees who “work” for a business. Companies in
largest extermination company in the country. Their the service business should include COs as part of the
competitive advantage is satisfaction guaranteed team even if their participation is erratic—the solu-
or a full refund, plus one year’s worth of another tion is to plan for uncertainty. Customer variability
provider’s service. BBBK guarantees complete pest might look like this:
elimination. At BBBK, employees were extensively
• Arrival: People shop in the grocery store at differ-
screened because frontline service people (perfec-
ent times and they want to shop at their own con-
tionists with a flair for excellence) are its competitive
venience.
advantage. BBBK had a five-month training program,
“like a boot camp in the army, only it’s three times • Request: People order different things, such as dif-
as long and twice as tough.” Owner “Bugs” Burger ferent sizes of coffee.
trains new employees himself to ensure imprinting • Effort: COs decide how much effort they will exert.
service excellence on new employees. The job design For example, shoppers who do not return shop-
process matches tasks to the employee’s attitude and ping carts to the store.
aptitude. Tasks include checklists, incentives, and
• Preference: COs have different ideas about quality.
scripts to keep people focused on BBBK’s mission.
For example, some prefer coffee with a meal while
BBBK also offers good salaries and performance others prefer it before a meal.
bonuses. The culture is designed for transparency Managing variability is the best way to design effec-
and employees are required to reveal all details of tive customer service. This happens in two ways: by
their client interactions. BBBK forgives mistakes, but lowering chaos with fewer choices (fewer choices are
does not tolerate liars. a tradeoff to losing customers wanting variety) and by
Poor customer service is the result of an employee- adapting to chaos (have skilled employees work with
task gap. These diagnostic tools can close the gap: chaotic customers).

1. Go undercover. By trying to do the employees’ jobs Frei and Morriss say a customer management system
and spending time learning about their challenges is similar to an employee management system. Cus-
leaders can gain useful insight. tomers should be screened for specific qualities. For

Business Book Summaries® April 13, 2014 • Copyright © 2014 EBSCO Publishing Inc. • www.ebscohost.com • All Rights Reserved
Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

instance, Shouldice Hospital specializes in hernia sur- Now Multiply It All by Culture
gery, and designed a service model to attract targeted, A good service model is energetic, optimistic, and
low-risk, high-reward “customers.” Shouldice selects calm. But the basic feature that brings it all together
a narrow group of patients to control its efficiency. is culture, or how people interact with each other.
But even selected customers need training. Shouldice Developing both the service model and culture will
picks patients who are interactive in their recovery. build a great company.
Training encourages patients to be healthy, active, and
committed to a successful recovery. In the case of Southwest Airlines, the service model is
to offer faster gate turnaround than other airlines. The
If customers have to perform a task, it should be a company has more time in the air as a tradeoff to low
simple one. In the case of eBay, the CO role is con- fares. Southwest’s culture requires outstanding coop-
trolled by other customers involved in advertising, eration between units, and “ego-free cooperation.”
ordering, fulfillment, and shipping. The technology is
easy to use and tasks are simple. An example of how Southwest’s culture works is the
“team late” concept. If the plane is
It’s not enough to design your service model right. Uncommon late, everyone is penalized. Every-
one does what needs to be done
service is achieved when great organizational design meets a without being told what to do and
culture of service excellence. A basic way to think about it is maintains consistency in the com-
this: service excellence is a product of design and culture. pany. Southwest is unionized, but
has never had layoffs; people keep
Many companies try to manage customers through their jobs even during the bad times. Employees help
late fees. Blockbuster designed customer compliance each other and the culture is a reflection of a great
to ensure that DVDs were returned on time. Netflix company.
tried different incentives that included a monthly
fee to keep a certain number of DVDs in circulation: Operations are the starting point for building culture.
the customer returned a DVD, and Netflix automati- At Ochsner Health System part of everyone’s job is
cally sent a new one. Customers were incentivized to to recognize the humanity in people, and just say
return DVDs through a simple point-and-click down- “Hi” to someone. This is evidenced by their 5-10 rule:
load system. All employees visually acknowledge anyone within
ten feet of them, and verbally acknowledge anyone
Organizational culture matters to both employees and within five feet.
customers. In the case of Zipcar, the business culture
is “we’re all in this together” and customers feel obli- There are three patterns of culture:
gated to return cars on time. For Shouldice Hospital, 1. Clarity
the core value is that recovery can be fast, active, and
2. Signaling
social. A company’s culture should build employee
and customer value. 3. Consistency
Managing customers means: Zappo’s culture includes taking orders until midnight
with delivery to the customer before breakfast. As a
1. Getting control. Companies must find out how the
result, Zappos has a 75 percent repeat customer rate,
customer affects costs and quality and guide them
even though its prices are high. The company devel-
in a better direction.
oped its service model around outstanding service as
2. Use COs. Companies should enlist consumers to a tradeoff to higher priced shoes. Zappo’s values its
help improve processes (e.g., add customers to a employees for being who they are, for their loyalty,
design team for a new service). and for delivering happiness to the customer. Zappo
3. Go all the way. Companies should use customers as CEO Tony Hsieh’s core values include:
producers to help design a company’s service. 1. Deliver wow through service.

Business Book Summaries® April 13, 2014 • Copyright © 2014 EBSCO Publishing Inc. • www.ebscohost.com • All Rights Reserved
Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

2. Create fun and a little weirdness. the Hotel Cipriani (Venice, Italy). Each hotel offers a
distinctive experience to reflect the atmosphere and
3. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
cuisine of the immediate location. Customization and
4. Build open and honest relationships with commu- tweaking help to build value in a service model.
nication.
Another way to improve customer service is by using
5. Do more with less. different models within the same organizational
6. Be humble. structure. A company can provide multiple services
for a range of customer needs. This model requires
Imprinting culture on employees is critical during the employees with a range of skills to deliver a range of
first few days on the job. For example, JetBlue’s David services.
Neeleman flew as a member of the crew each month.
He wore an apron, served coffee to the passengers, When a competitor steps in to pluck off one operating
and introduced himself. This gesture signaled to segment businesses can go through the Five Stages of
every employee that JetBlue was about customer ser- Strategic Grief:
vice supporting the mission to “bring humanity back 1. Denial. A business can be in denial that the compe-
to air travel.” tition is taking away business.
The Mayo Clinic’s culture is a forward-thinking prac- 2. Anger. Anger replaces denial as customers go to a
tice of team-based medicine. Service delivery puts the competitor offering better customer service.
patient first, and CEO Glen Forbes designed the cul-
3. Rationalization. When the realization hits, busi-
ture around excellence. But the biggest challenge is to
nesses hire an outside consultant.
prevent “culture creep” from separating culture talk
from culture deed. The main question (“Is this right 4. Despair. At this stage, the company must realize
for the patient or not?”) can refocus decisions to sup- that the competition will not go away.
port the clinic’s culture of excellence.
5. Acceptance. The managers understand the reality
• Most businesses have some area of their cultures and figure out how to deal with the competition.
that need improvement. Frei and Morriss offered
Frei and Morriss explained that when faced with
these questions to explore a company’s cultural
focused competition, many businesses are not resil-
framework:
ient. The reaction is often to merge with another
• What’s the problematic behavior? company. A better solution is to develop a multi­
• What are the shared basic assumptions driving the focused company, providing different services under
behavior? a business brand. A portfolio of effective service
models offers different brands under one umbrella.
• What can we do to change those assumptions?

Getting Bigger g g g g
Organizational growth is the focus of this chapter
and Frei and Morriss identified two ways to expand: Features of the Book
continue to focus on the company’s operations (status
quo service model) or do things differently (a new Estimated Reading Time: 3–5 hours, 247 pages
service model). Uncommon Service is useful for employees, CEOs,
As a company goes through its growing pains, even- general managers, customers, marketing people, and
tually management should decide which customers to business students in management or administration
target and which ones to ignore. The growth process who work in the service industry. It can help busi-
requires standardization to streamline operations and nesses find their competitive advantage in today’s
examine tradeoffs. For instance, the Orient Express marketplace. Special features include tables, graphs,
Hotel owns the Hotel Splendido (Portofino, Italy) and references, and “Uncommon Takeaways,” which

Business Book Summaries® April 13, 2014 • Copyright © 2014 EBSCO Publishing Inc. • www.ebscohost.com • All Rights Reserved
Uncommon Service Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

provide a summary of key points in each chapter. It

also includes several case studies on real businesses
that built their cultures around outstanding cus-
tomer service, such as Southwest Airlines, IKEA, and
lesser-known businesses like Bugs Burger Bug Kill-
ers and Orient Express Hotel. Case studies include
clear action steps for service-based companies to get
a handle on that elusive quality customer service. The
book should be read cover-to-cover.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: If This Is a Service Economy, Why Am I
Still on Hold?
Chapter 1: Truth Number 1: You Can’t Be Good at
Everything
Chapter 2: Truth Number 2: Someone Has to Pay for It
Chapter 3: Truth Number 3: It’s Not Your Employees’
Fault
Chapter 4: Truth Number 4: You Must Manage Your
Customers
Chapter 5: Now Multiply It All by Culture
Chapter 6: Getting Bigger
Conclusion
Notes
Index
About the Authors
g g g g

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Copyright of Uncommon Service is the property of Great Neck Publishing and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.