I was relaxing on a flight last month in my usual window seat, happily reading a book with the soft, natural sunlight beaming through the window. A member of the cabin crew passed by and, seeing me reading, stretched out her hand and switched on the light above me. She smile, and then she walked away.

I was distracted from my reading, and a little puzzled. The extra lighting from above was too bright for my comfort. I like soft, even dim lighting when I read, but friendly cabin crew did not know that. She thought she was serving me well. After she left, I reached up and turned off that the light.

Richard Whiteley’s blog post – ‘Six reasons why ‘customer centricity’ initiatives fail’ – highlights how often initiatives fail due to inadequate education.

He wrote: “While mindset matters, great service needs great skillsets too… Proper training is required”

This stirred up memories of my early experiences working in a retail company.

Most new frontline staff joined the company with a very positive mindset and uplifting attitude – but as they regularly encountered situations they were not prepared for, their enthusiasm started fading.

The best service isn’t necessarily about getting a plane to depart on time or sticking to policy. In fact, it can mean making a decision to put one customer above others.

The pilot held back a plane with hundreds of passengers for twelve minutes – so that one passenger could make the flight. As Christopher Elliot, the consumer advocate and journalist who first broke this story wrote: “Twelve minutes may not sound like a lot to you or me, but every second counts when you’re an airline. Southwest can turn an entire plane around in about 20 minutes, so 12 minutes is half an eternity.”

In this instance, the pilot put one category – service mindset – above others in the four categories of value in “The BIG Picture”

Service education leads to creative thinking and practical action. This action produces new and greater service value. What happens in effective service education?

1. A new understanding of service value
2. Colleagues learn and apply a common service language
3. Personal behavior models beliefs
4. Taking new and valuable actions

Managers are the essential link between service education programs and the results your organization wants to achieve.

As a manager, it is your responsibility to ensure educational courses create value for your team members, and your team members create even more value for your customers and each other.

These five action steps can help you make this happen:

Service can be a competitive advantage even in an industrial B2B environment. Watch this video and listen to the results Vopak Asia has achieved.