“Rules are guidelines to the wise and obedience to the fools.”
– Derek Powell
Nobody likes rules, especially so in New Zealand. Not least even me – after all, I left a country that is enchanted with rules (Singapore) and moved to one that detest any. Let me relate two incidents of how ‘business rules’ came into my world.
The Case of Xtra
Many years back, I was with the NZ Telecom Xtra contact centre offering internet support services to the public. At that point in time, Xtra was just starting up its broadband support. The team consisted of a diverse group of individuals who were keen to provide excellent service.
There was an inherent problem with providing services of the computer nature – computer technology was changing at an astronomical speed; people were upgrading from Win 95 to Win 98 and then to Win XP. Some were using Apple computers. However, when Xtra was training the frontline staff, it could not even catch up with the speed of change.
So, the ‘older’ staff members (the longer serving ones) were trained in Win 95 and Win 98. They were brought in to upgrade their knowledge in Win XP. Newer staff members were trained in Win XP as it was the most popular model. Then, we would spend an extra two days to skill people in Apple.
When a customer with a Win 95 problem rang and was dealt with by an ‘older’ member, the person could walk the customer through the entire issue. But if the customer rang and spoke with a ‘newer’ member, s/he was simply flicked away with a “Sorry, we cannot help you. Why don’t you upgrade to a …..” This resulted in inconsistent service level. And customers started to complain.
As a process, they knew how to resolve the problem. But what should they support? Everything? Ever expanding technological systems – Win 95, Win 98, Win XP, Win 2000 …. The list went on.
Here is where rules became critical. And this is where my journey started.
Driving on the Road
Ever been to Waiheke Island (An island off Waiheke where the ‘rich and famous’ resides)? Well, I did although I have to admit that it had been some years since I did.
I was told that Waiheke Island had one traffic light and it was meant to distinguish a JAFA (an uncomplimentary term for an Aucklander) and a Waihekian. You see, that traffic light actually does not work but a JAFA will stop there J
Now, if we are in Auckland, we cannot live without traffic lights. Because it would be an utter chaos as you can well imagine. Why? Because of the sheer size of our population of 1.4 million people.
Think of Business Rules as a set of highway road codes with ‘how to drive’ as the process. That is what it really is.
Xtra - Continued
Xtra was growing bigger. Everyone wanted to provide good customer service. But everyone had their own view of what good service ought to be. The result? A confusing delivery of service.
The issue was not one of ‘good service’ as defined by each person’s definition. It was one of ‘consistent service’ as a company, a Telecom standard; one that Telecom could live with and that the customer would not mind.
We got together and went through some analysis and, using statistics, we knew what percentage of customers had Win XP, 98, and 95. Using that statistics, we decided that as a company, we would only support Win XP and 98 for that point in time and not Win 95. When we studied the stats more intensely, we realised that there was only a small percentage (actually a very, very small percentage of the population) with Apple although these customers were what was termed as ‘early adopters’, people that we might not be able to ‘offend’ as they could influence the larger market.
Hence, we took the following actions:
- Established a business rule for the contact centre only to support Win XP and 98 so that customers could have reliable and consistent service (a Telecom standard),
- Continued to support Win 95 but not via the phone. We directed such customers onto the Telecom website as well as mailing out instructions (if they were ‘stuck’ with no internet support)
- Created a specialised team to deal with Apple issues and stripped the two-day training out from the original induction module.
- Establish a set of business rules to ensure consistency of behaviour across the Department.
- Change-managed the contact centre members to accept the concept of business rules through a fun-and-game storytelling using the concept of highway road code as well as getting them to complete a test online. NOTE: Explaining the ‘why’ was critical as well.
- Quality checked members based on phone conversations (Telecom had a quality control centre and listened in to all phone calls, scored and feedback to all staff during their one-on-one).
The end result was that 200 staff members adopted this stance. The initial response from the customers were some degree of frustration but, over time, customers understood and they were getting consistent responses from every staff on the centre. The customer engagement score went up.
That became the start of business rules across Telecom which is now the established norm.
The Story of the PAC Team
The People Advisory Centre Team of a bank had quite similar issues. The PAC team had to work with the hiring TAT (Talent Acquisition Team) team. There was lack of clarity in regard to what the PAC and TAT teams could support.
For example: who is an employee – A permanent staff? A contract staff? What about a ‘Forced Rehire’?
Both sides had different views of the same things. It was like two persons looking at an elephant from a different angle. So, they were great misunderstanding. That became a real struggle.
As a result, a document was created to establish clarity in regard to definitions and also when did work start for PAC and end with TAT. We created an initial 11 rules for the latter and here is Rule #3:
All key information found in the RFA (Requisition for Agreement) must be completed correctly by TAT. Emails to PAC to request for inclusion into the incomplete RFA will not be accepted.
Does it sound like a procedure? If we say, “emails to PAC to request for inclusion into the incomplete RFA will not be accepted”, then it becomes a rule. It is to make the obvious even more obvious. Nonetheless, before we implemented, we made sure that there was maximum involvement on both sides to engage the teams so that we could change-managed these without any difficulties.
The best change management is when change occurred without staff members even realising (because it was ‘their’ idea after all). Involvement was the crux in the PAC-TAT success. Now, staff members worked well without even knowing the background to the alignment attempt.
What is Business Rules?
In the classical article, Defining Business Rules – What Are They Really, by the Business Rules Group (this article was created by a diverse group of professionals including a few IBM staff members , rules are divided into four main categories as follows:
- Definitions,
- Facts relating terms to each other,
- Constraints, and
- Derivations.
Definitions would be simple enough because it ensures that both sides talk the same language.
Let us look at a car rental company.
Business Rule “Fact” –
- A rental class is composed of car models.
- A car model (e.g. Honda Civic) is in the Class C category.
- Cars can only be rented out in a legal, roadworthy condition to our customers.
Business Rule “Constraint” –
- “If any lights are not working, the bulbs should be replaced. If tires are worn, they should be replaced.” – constrained by the need to rent out in a ‘legal, roadworthy condition to our customers.”
Business Rule “Derivations” –
- “Rental charge is based on base rental price, optional insurances and refuelling charge.” i.e. Rental charge = Base rental price + Optional insurances + Refuelling charge.
Business Rules and Procedures
Now, business rules are NOT procedures. ‘Procedures’ tells you how to do your work. ‘Business Rules’ tells you what is acceptable while you are doing your work, i.e. what is our standard.
Nobody likes rules but because we are working for a company, we need these “rules” to bring about consistent behaviour so that our customers can enjoy a reliable service, i.e. same service everywhere. For example, can you imagine McDonald serving a different Big Mac in different outlets?
Franchisors are especially stringent on rules and they audit each outlet and their suppliers based on them because they know that these ‘rules’ represented the concept of ‘quality’ to their customers. I know because I worked for a McDonald’s supplier. Believe me, McDonald was not very forgiving when we failed their ‘quality rules’.
Staff members are then trained according to these ‘rules’ because that is the ‘McDonald’s Way’ or the ‘Disney Way’; because that is how we do things around here. Disney is as strict as anyone that I can think of.
OK, we don’t need rules down to the fine detail but we need to tell people what we expect. At the end of the day, it is managing the expectations of our internal customers so that we can manage the expectations of our external customers so that we can have consistent service.
While ‘rules’ are a must for technologists as they put up programmes so that computers know what and how to interpret situations, they should not be ruled out for us too. Even just basic things like ‘definitions’ will shape our ability to communicate better.
Rules are NOT STATIC
“Rules” are, of course, not static. What is ‘the rule’ today can change tomorrow based on the changing needs of customers.
Hence, I can partially agree with Derek Powell’s statement: “Rules are guidelines to the wise and obedience to the fools”.
If they are good guidelines, then the wise must follow. But if they are not good, then the wise must question and make them better. There is a time for everything, “Time to follow and time to question.”
Hope I have clarified why I am so passionate about this simple topic re ‘Business Rules’.
No comments:
Post a Comment