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Great Perfo rme r’s Aw ard

Robbed of her traveller’s cheques, receipts,passport, plane tickets, driving licence andcar-rental contract, a distraught non-Englishspeaking Dutch tourist in Salt Lake City,USA, contacted American Express.

An employee, speaking in German, imme-diately arranged for a refund for the traveller’scheques. He then got her a new rental con-tract, had new travel papers and passportissued, arranged for replacement airline ticketsand got the tourist home.

Not surprisingly, the employee won anAmerican Express Great Performer’s Award.He was flown to New York, wined, dined andgiven a cheque at a banquet attended by topAmerican Express executives. All of this waspublicized in the company’s corporate litera-

ture worldwide. The Great Performer’s Award is one of 

more than 100 reward, recognition, suggestionand communication programmes run byAmerican Express. There is nothing unusualabout the programmes themselves, except thatthere are so many of them. Taken together,they help the company to create a vital culturewhich focusses on the customer.

Unifying factor at Amer ican Express

Every successful corporate culture has to havea unifying factor – something that makes thecompany distinctive. American Express haschosen the quality of service to customers.While many other firms have attempted to dothe same, what makes American Expressunique is the intricate system set up to makesure everyone buys into the cultural focus.

A quality assurance department is locatedin each American Express operations centre,and reports directly to the center’s chief execu-tive. American Express employees therefore

know that customer service is important to thechief executive and the corporation in general.

 The company co-ordinates quality assur-ance efforts to help employees to see how oneaspect of the business affects another. In-house training sessions emphasize the need foremployees to look at the total business opera-tion, rather than one part of it. This developsunderstanding of one’s impact on others, andprepares employees for advancement.

Tracking em ployees’ perfor ma nce

American Express uses hundreds of qualitystandards to track employees’ performance.Monthly measurements include the time ittakes to process new applications, to bill card

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Case st udyAmer ican Expre ssachieves pride,

perform ance and asense of purpose

AbstractThere is nothin g particularly original about a company

making customer satisfaction t he centre of its culture. But

American Express differs from most o thers in having an

effective system to m ake sure that everyone buys into t he

cultural focus.

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members and to respond to enquiries. T heAmerican Express chief executive, and othertop managers, regularly review key perfor-mance standards. The results of these reviewsare shared with all employees. Soon after themeasurement system was in place, employees

began to offer new ideas to improve customerservice.

American Express tries to measure theresults of individual transactions betweenspecific employees and customers. A customeris asked if he or she feels the service represen-tative was courteous, competent and knowl-edgeable. T he customer is also asked whetherhe or she is satisfied with the results of thetransaction. Employees can read questionnaireresponses directly from the specific customersthey serve. Employees can therefore see their

individual contribution directly.

M anagement by w alking around

American Express also uses on-site perfor-mance reviews. At the heart of this is themethod that Hewlett-Packard made famous –management by walking around. AmericanExpress managers spend time asking theiremployees about what customers are saying tothem and, just as importantly, what should bedone to improve the operation.

 The interviews are combined with on-sitemanagement reviews, where teams of corpo-rate staff visit employees at their various opera-tions centers. Discussions focus on whatemployees need in order to be able to performtheir job better. Such interviews can help toconvince employees that their ideas are criticalto the company’s success.

American Express spends much time andmoney on training and development. Thetraining focusses on helping employees tounderstand the company better, as well as the

traditional training which entails showingthem how to do their job better.

“Putt ing People First” sem inar

Managers strive to build a network of employ-ees who have the same attitudes and philoso-phy about their corporate objectives. L ocal,regional and company-wide programmes havebeen built to this end.

“Putting People First” is one example. I t isa two-day seminar, designed to improve

employees’ sensitivity to their customers. Typically, these meetings include about 100people in each session. Everyone, from entry-level employees to vice-presidents, attends atthe same time.

 The emphasis is on feeling better aboutyourself, knowing how you want to be treated,and then treating your internal and externalcustomers in the same way. T he point is madethat if employees do not like their work and donot feel good about themselves, customers will

not feel good about the company.

Good comm unicat ions

Much of American Express’s ability to moti-vate and maintain good employee relationsrests on the ability to communicate. T hisincludes keeping employees up to date on newactivities, products, advertising and strategies.

 The annual report informs employeesabout accomplishments of the previous yearand goals for the year ahead. In addition to

traditional newsletters, management makesextensive use of videotapes and, wheneverpossible, teleconferences.

MaryAnne Rasmussen, former vice-presi-dent of worldwide quality assurance for theAmerican Express credit-card business, said:“Employees can only be motivated when theyclearly understand the impact of what they do,and when they value their part in the service orproduct they deliver.”

Pride in perf orm anceFocusing on customer service worked well forAmerican Express because employees couldeasily put themselves in the customer’s shoesand take pride in a job well done. She contin-ued: “Pride in one’s own performance giveseveryone a sense of purpose. People want togive their best. I t is management’s job toencourage employees and empower them sothat they can do this.”

Putting the customer at the center of one’sculture is not the only way to unify and

enhance performance and employee relations,but it helps. Some companies use the budget,some employ a participatory goal-settingprocess, and some even use the inherent valueof the service itself as a unifying factor.Regardless of the focus, it is essential for man-agement to identify what is important, beforetrying to improve relations with, and the per-formance of, employees.

 This is a précis of an article entitled “Reengineer-ing: using the customer as a unifying factor”, which

was originally published inTraining for Quality , Vol.4 No. 3, 1996, pp. 11-15. The author was D. K eith

Denton, of the Department of M anagement,South-West M issouri State University, Springfield,

M issouri, U SA.

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American Express achieves pride, performan ce and a sense of purp ose

Author/s  

M anagement Development Review

Volume 10 · Number 4/5 · 1997 · 191–192