T o succeed, all businesses must estab-lish strong working relationships withcustomers, partners, suppliers andother stakeholders. This is especiallytrue in the world of London
Underground (LU), where responsibility for main-taining, upgrading and renewing the assets of theunderground system, a £30bn investment over thenext 30 years, has been taken on under public pri-vate partnership (PPP) contracts by two consortia,Metronet and Tube Lines. Metronet brings togetherthe skills and resources of five core consortiummembers: WS Atkins, Bombardier, EDF, ThamesWater and Balfour Beatty. Tube Lines brings togeth-er the talents of Bechtel and Amey.
Both organisations aim to combine the best ofthe commercial marketplace with LU’s uniqueknowledge of the underground system. To do thisthey must integrate staff from the old LU with adiverse range of people from different commercialorganisations, each of which brings its own legacy,practices and culture, and create a common identityand way of working. Steve Furmston, contractsmanager at Tube Lines, has said: ‘The contract isn’t
black and white but a good partnership will facili-tate its management, help us work through thegrey areas and better ensure that everyone is think-ing win-win.’
It is not surprising that both Metronet and TubeLines cite partnership as one of their fundamentalvalues. It is a concept that all levels of managementare accountable for as part of their individual objec-tives, but putting high ideals about partnership intopractice is not easy, especially when there are manydifferent business relationships to negotiate.
The success of each partnership can be judgedfrom three perspectives:• value for money • whether the work specified by the contract is
being delivered and if there are visible signs ofimprovement for long-suffering London com-muters
• the quality of the relationshipThese perspectives are all interrelated.The quality ofrelationships, for example, influences the level andspeed of delivery which, through the contractpenalty and incentive mechanisms, drive profit forthe PPP contractor and cost for the client (see figure
1). There are also strong feedback mechanisms atwork, as a delayed or problematic delivery of thecontract can have detrimental effects on relationshipquality. The fact that much of the work of the con-sortia must be done in a four hour (maximum) slotwhen the tube is closed creates a massive challengeto the maintaining of progress. Over-running engi-neering works mean train delays, compoundingpublic criticism and diminishing staff motivation.This, in turn, can further undermine delivery.
Cause and effectA central task of the partnership is to manage thischain of cause and effect and maintain the right bal-ance between the PPP contractors and LU. BothMetronet and Tube Lines recognised from the outsetthat managing relationship quality would be a keyenabler to progress. Every day there are hundreds ofinteractions across organisational boundaries: fromthe calls to the fault reporting centre made by LUstation management; to the exchange of longer-term planning information among senior manage-ment.The overall health of a relationship is made upfrom the quality of each individual interaction. Low
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Gregor Marshall is a direc-tor of Symbia Ltd. Formore information contacte: [email protected]
Ted Marra is an associateof Symbia and heads theCentre for InnovationManagement Europe. Formore information contacte: [email protected]
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Figure 1:Interrelated partnership
perspectives
Figure 2.The number and quality ofclient/partner interactions.
Relationship quality
LU view
PPPcontractor
view
Delivery of contract Cost and profit
quality interactions and negative attitudes may gounnoticed but the effects can be devastating. Ifbehaviour becomes defensive, working arrange-ments can lose the flexibility needed to overcomeday-to-day challenges. In essence, the challenge is toshift the distribution of interactions, eliminatingthose that are unacceptable, increasing the numberof ‘special’ interactions and reducing the variabilityto give a consistently good experience.This is illus-trated in figure 2.
Metronet has explicitly addressed this issue bydefining ‘good relationship practices’ in tangible,practical terms and communicating a policyrequirement across the organisation. A similarapproach has also been adopted by the LU engi-neering team, which has improved its stakeholdersatisfaction rating by over 30 per cent. ‘Quality rela-tionships’ should always be defined, measured andmanaged, and in the case of LU, Metronet and Tube
Lines, a 30 year contract means that the smoothinteraction between the parties is essential to over-coming gaps and inadequacies while supportingefficient planning and decision-making in thelonger term.
But how is ‘relationship quality’ defined? Itrequires both sides to jointly decide which aspectsof performance and behaviour are most important.Using focus groups, both Metronet and Tube Linesidentified the primary attributes of a good relation-ship as communication, reliability, pro-activity,knowledge and empathy, for example. Each primaryattribute was then broken down further untilaround 20 explicit criteria were agreed as a basis fordefining relationship quality.
The next step is to measure. Metronet and TubeLines do this through a monthly process of sam-pling up to 100 staff from across the relationship,and asking them to score the defined criteria andprovide comments if appropriate. To reinforce thepartnership, this measurement is a two-way processwhich captures not only LU’s view of the effective-ness of its PPP partner, but also the partner’s view ofhow effective LU is as a client.
Active listeningPaul Vincent, change manager at Tube Lines,believes: ‘You can’t help your customer and yourcustomer can’t help you unless you listen and learn.’The comments received from staff as a result ofmonthly samples were much more useful thannumbers alone. The information was consolidatedand analysed to give a regular report which tracksthe trends and adds commentary and context to the
Unacceptable Acceptable Special Quality of interactionsPoor Good
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data. Management can use such information toidentify current concerns and, over time, build up apicture of systematic problems. ‘What’s important’,says Andrew Cleaves, Tube Lines director of assur-ance and contracts, ‘is that you take the feedback atface value. The approach needs to be simple anduncomplicated, not a statistical exercise. It’s just lis-tening to real people give real feedback.’
Stephen Jones, customer satisfaction manager atMetronet claims that the value of this analysis andreview process is that ‘any satisfaction score below acertain threshold will result in an automatic follow-up meeting with the customer to determine first-hand what the issues are and avoid any misunder-standings’. So far, so good, but listening to the cus-tomer will be in vain unless relationship quality isactively managed. A simple but effective cycle is fol-lowed by both organisations, as illustrated in figure 3.
From a customer perspective, the approach out-lined in figure 3 provides visibility and enablesaction to be taken as a result of their issues imme-diately. Over time, the number of unsolicited com-ments such as: ‘I look forward to seeing someaction’ have been diminishing as both Metronet andTube Lines focus on making the partnership workmore effectively.
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Figure 3.An active management cycle.From a customer perspective,this provides visibility andenables action to be taken as aresult of their issues immediately
Taking actionDecision criteria are set so that when the customersatisfaction level is below a certain level, an auto-matic follow-up meeting takes place with the cus-tomer to review the situation. Metronet utilises a‘flash bulletin’ that immediately communicates toLU the status of faults which can directly impact LUand the public. System as well as local issues areidentified and Tube Lines utilises a change councilto review the feedback.
This change council consists of a cross-section ofthe business from management to on-site level, andlooks after the partnership exclusively. Executivesare briefed on the results of the change councilmeetings. Graphs showing performance across 13periods are then integrated into the LU board’smonthly performance review. In addition, the cus-tomer information is also shared throughout bothorganisations at team and individual level.
Listen to the customer
Feedback to thecustomer onactions taken
Act on the information
Work on London Underground’stube lines is designed to minimisethe disruption to services.
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A Jubilee line LU train.The Jubilee line is London’s
newest underground line, butserves stations that opened 100years ago.Work started on the
£3.5bn project to extend theline in 1993 and it was fully
operational by December 1999.Approximately 406,000 people
use the line every day.
From the perspective of Metronet and Tube Lines, this customer-driven improvement process has had many advantages.Theseinclude:• knowing where the organisation stands in the customer’s
opinion and whether progress is being made• helping drive positive customer-focused change is a particular-
ly useful benefit for a heavily engineering or technically-basedorganisation where softer elements such as ‘the customer’ canoften take a back seat to engineering expertise
• providing a structured, disciplined approach for gaining cus-tomer feedback
• providing better focus in terms of identifying where the issuesare, as many organisations do not effectively set priorities, butinstead attempt to attack everything - diluting their limitedresources and making little forward progress
• helping to identify trends and patterns much faster, enablingboth organisations to improve their responsiveness
• helping avoid ‘filtering’ of information, allowing the true voiceof the customer to come through
Is it perfect? Neither organisation would admitto that, but they understand that ‘active listening’ isan excellent step in the right direction and shouldcontinue to strengthen the partnership. In the inter-ests of continuous improvement and feedback fromtheir customers, Metronet and Tube Lines have iden-tified a number of ways to enhance the currentapproach to make it more effective.
The ultimate aim, according to Furmston, is to‘change the culture - to just keep plugging away atit and keep people responsible and accountable forpartnership at all levels.They must think about howtheir service influences the partnership.’ More willalso be done in terms of what is communicated andhow it is communicated - getting the right infor-mation to the right people within Metronet andTube Lines as well as within LU, the customerorganisation, is paramount.
Many organisations claim to listen carefully totheir customers but few do it well. Metronet andTube Lines have gone further than most. In doing sothey have learned some important lessons:• keep strategies for customer feedback simple,
practical, relevant and uncomplicated• utilise the information to identify opportunities
Tracking the benefits
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for improvement, monitor progress in buildingrelationships and stimulate meaningful dialoguewith your customer at all levels and across all thekey interfaces
• ensure that some rational approach is utilised toset priorities for improvement so that limitedresources are not diluted and efforts remainfocused on what is most important and whataligns with the customer’s objectives
• hold regular reviews at all levels• gain management buy-in/ownership by agree-
ing to make the survey and information from itan integral part of board-level reporting, and byholding staff accountable for managing the rela-tionship with their customer counterpart
• don’t confuse this qualitative approach with astatistical exercise. The trends and data providedare useful indicators which must be used in con-junction with information on how well the con-
tract is being delivered to paint the full picture Jones adds that the listening approach has to becomprehensively adopted by the business andviewed by the business as being important:‘Ownership for the approach has to be built.Getting buy-in at all levels will ensure it worksproperly. In addition, the approach also helps theorganisation to catch issues earlier - to be proactiveinstead of just reactive,’ he said.The focus here is on finding better ways for manag-ing and enhancing the customer relationship,which is a critical element of the excellence model.Management must lead by example and embody thevalues of the organisation. Given that both Metronetand Tube Lines have ‘partnership’ as a value, a clearand sustained message as well as a set of practicesand behaviours must flow. At Metronet and TubeLines this is beginning to happen. Can you say thesame for your organisation?
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