Who is the customer here?

I’m going to start by reiterating a statistic from my last post, that the latest figures show that 75% of the public (the customers) are dissatisfied with their public services. Yet, for over a quarter of a century successive politicians have promised the public better and better public services, to be achieved by them allegedly putting more money into local services, health services, policing and education.

The outcome of these promises has been to raise the customer expectation to unrealistic levels, that the leaders (and finances) of our public services cannot meet. This raised expectation also means that we now have a society which considers every one of these services as their right to have. This creates one of the largest challenges to meet with the impending cuts in public service spending; the customer expectation.

Leaders of the public sector will have to create more streamlined organizations that are fit for purpose in the new financial landscape. Due to the continual discussions and media reporting of the country's deficit, it would be understandable for future strategies of public sector organizations to put ‘making budget’ as the primary consideration. However, they must remain customer focused, at exactly the time when the customer is going to be most demanding. On 9th March 2010 Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of Marks & Spencer's, commented, "Our customer, Tesco's customer, Sainsbury's customer etc are not stupid. They know that the UK economy is in a difficult situation, they know effectively we are over borrowed and they know there is medicine to be taken.”

Whilst this is true, none of us like taking medicine and the challenge is to persuade the customer to reduce their expectation of their public services, which will need to be done in specific stages. The first stage has got to be a clear demonstration by every public sector organization that they are not ‘carrying fat’. There is much empirical evidence to show that the public (the customer) see too many layers of management and too much bureaucracy in public-sector organizations as a hindrance and a waste of their money. Good quality frontline services are delivered in spite of, not because of, these internal processes. Many of these customers also see this bureaucracy as preventing them from accessing the public services in the first place.

When the customer sees a scythe being put through these organizations, the next stage will be re-focusing on core services, which may be more challenging than it first appears. When I work with public-sector organizations and ask what their core business is it often appears to be the show-stopping question. This is not surprising because the mission statements of various public sector organizations have evolved over a number of years, often in response to stakeholder requirements; especially those from successive governments.

The fiscal difficulties facing us in the coming decade provide an opportunity now to integrate various parts of the public services, to provide a better quality frontline delivery in a more cost-effective way. At the same time as will provide an opportunity for public sector organizations to revisit their mission statement; a clear and succinct statement of the organization's purpose for existence.

This mission statement can go a long way towards managing the customer expectation, as long as it is supported by a clear vision statement together with strong strategies as to how the mission and vision are going to be achieved. For example, I do not believe that the National Health Service (NHS) can currently continue to provide all the services that it does and it may well be the right time to redefine what the customer can expect from the NHS and what they will have to pay for. This may need to be a twenty or thirty year strategy due to the possible requirement of the ‘customer’ needing to take out private medical insurance to access the services that the NHS will no longer deliver.

This kind of strategy will be unpopular with the customer and one that will only be accepted if there is clear and transparent evidence that the organization is being run effectively and providing as good front-line services as possible, that is to the customers benefit.