Several years back I worked for a small company that provided operational and strategic support services to major companies such as Xerox, Nortel, Trane Corporation and American Standard.

My company was recognized as being the place to turn if you were a larger organization looking to outsource one or more aspects of your business, typically relating to logistics ( for example, warehousing and distribution) so you could focus on your core business activities, usually making and selling products.

We were particularly adept at taking over the responsibility for other companies' operations, hiring many of the employees and making significant improvements in a very short period of time. Typically, we would rely on cost reductions achieved through efficiency gains to increase profits, so it was in both our customer's and our own best interests to get up to speed quickly.

One of the greatest challenges and opportunities in each outsourcing project was getting the employees to buy into the idea of looking for and implementing new and improved ways of doing things. A barrier we often encountered was the perception that if what the employees were doing needed improvement, then they must not have been doing a good job. Their resistance and defensiveness had to be eliminated in order to create a continuous improvement culture and make the kinds of quantum leaps in performance required by our customers and shareholders.

My boss and mentor taught me how to overcome this obstacle in a quick and simple manner. One day, I was in his office when a new warehouse employee asked if he could have a few minutes of his time. It turns out that earlier in the day, the employee was involved in an accident stacking pallets of products with a fork lift and an entire column of products fell to the concrete floor and smashed (they were ceramic). After explaining how the accident happened, my boss asked a series of simple, yet very important questions: "What is the process for stacking those products?" The employee answered correctly. "Did you follow the process?" Yes, the employee did. "Fine, then." my boss answered,"It's not your fault."

My boss explained to us that there are only two reasons that most problems or, in this case, accidents occur:

** Someone didn't follow the process, and it resulted in a problem.

** The process was followed, but the process is no good.

That's it. From then on, that one-two punch combination stuck with me: Do you understand the process? Did you follow the process? I often use this simple logic to isolate and identify the cause of a problem.

As simple as that sounds, it has become a common practice for business people to look at performance in one dimension -- people. However, businesses performance is affected by many things in addition to people, one of them being processes - standardized, repeatable ways of doing things, often described as systems. The risk in looking at a business purely on the basis of people is well described by the management guru, W. Edwards Deming, whose philosophies and approaches to management and quality systems are at the root of the increased focus on customer satisfaction and quality in high performing organizations today.

Mr. Deming argued that management often victimizes employees for poor performance when the true root of the problem is that work process is incapable of delivering the business results management requires. When this happens employee morale and performance drops. Instead of placing blame on employees, Deming suggests that managemers should focus their attention on developing effective work processes and systems along with the associated training that people need to carry out their work effectively.

As a person that makes a living assisting companies in business development and performance improvement, I try to keep tabs on how organizations in general are performing in this area. The good news is that there are a growing number of businesses that proactively work at improving the extent to which they service and ultimately satisfy customers. The leaders of these companies are working very hard at talking the talk and walking the walk for Customer, Customer, Customer all the way. The bad news is that very often, these same companies look at the customer service skills of front line people that interact with the customer as the primary problem.

It's that whole people versus process issue in true form. Front line people may in fact need better customer service skills including personal interaction, effective communication and listening or handling conflict. But often, this is only part of the problem. In many cases, it is the way work activities and jobs are designed, for example the work processes, that require improvement. All the customer service training in the world cannot ensure satisfied customers if the processes and work environment are lacking.

As consumers, we see examples of customer service problems that go well beyond any one employee. How many times have you called a company with a problem, maybe a phone or utility company, and waited on hold for a customer service representative, then once you finally spoke with a live body, he or she could not solve your problem entirely. You had to be transferred to another area, because the first person didn't have the information, the computer access or authority to do what you needed to be done - even if it is a seemingly simple task.

It is frustrating experience to go through, and all of the polite greetings, thank yous and "Is there anything else I can do for you today?" don't cut it. As the customer you are dissatisfied with the situation, and it reflects negatively on your overall perception of that company.

Customer service skills are not a solution in this case. They are merely a Band-Aid for the wound. A large part of the problem is the company's processes and systems do not lend themselves to the customer. The problem may in fact be due to internal departmental barriers, poor planning, issues relating to job responsibility, authority and empowerment or limited technology. No matter what the case, the only thing the customer cares about and remembers is the run around he or sheexperienced.

So the next time you are faced with a service problem and are looking to solve it, ask yourself, "Is it the people or the process?"