Answer:
Henry has a decision to make. The disgruntled customer in front of him has a valid point. There has been a mix up on the part of Henry’s service team and things have not gone smoothly. It wasn’t the end of the world but the customer has already been inconvenienced and now the ‘fix’ is going to inconvenience him again. Henry feels that the considerations the customer is asking for are not unreasonable, but how can this be handled? How would your company handle it: using a centralized leadership model or a distributed leadership model?
Explanation:
To make a decision, Henry has to contact his manager. The manager has to stop what she is doing, come to where the customer is, listen to the story, hear the customer’s request, determine if it’s reasonable and make a decision. Meanwhile Henry is standing there listening, waiting, and being unproductive. Only after his manager makes her decision can Henry resume his activity. Much time has passed and the customer is losing his patience and thinking about his time being wasted. If the customer is still not satisfied, he might ask to escalate his request to yet another higher level manager. His blood pressure is rising and if he’s not taken care of you can be certain that his friends and colleagues will hear about how they should stay away from Henry’s company.
