A Customer-oriented Manager for B2B Services. Valerie Mathieu
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added the reality of economic fluctuations specific to the activity of particular sectors of activity. Service providers working directly with the oil sector, particularly on research and development, engineering and even works and maintenance assignments, were quickly and strongly affected by the drop in the price of a barrel of oil in the second half of 2014 and the spring of 2020. Political, economic, regulatory and health factors can quickly affect the manager’s unit activity in a positive or negative way. A diversified client portfolio in terms of industry sectors is an excellent hedge against these types of contingencies.
But there is a situation in B2B that is just as delicate for managers, when a loyal customer asks for new services when their unit is at maximum capacity. The risk of disappointment, misunderstanding or even loss of customer loyalty is high. Outsourcing may appear to be an option, but it also has its risks. If managers have no real room for maneuver to respond to the client, they can only count on the strength of their relationship and their proximity to the client to limit the latter’s disappointment.
Box 2.3. Testimony of Bernard Greder (Managing Director of the Ortec Group)
The Ortec Group is a French company providing services to the industrial, public and tertiary sectors. It is present in 24 countries and employs 11,000 people. It provides its clients with innovative and responsible solutions to support them in their various design, implementation and development projects
A service environment is essentially different from a production environment by the immaterial nature of the offer. In this respect, service is a perception, an appreciation specific to a particular sensitivity. Many variables will interfere in the perception of the quality of a service. This immateriality makes the client particularly sensitive to the various tangible proofs associated with the service. A poorly maintained and untidy construction site induces negative perceptions in the client, whereas new, modern work clothes, worn with pride by the field staff, will reinforce the provider’s brand image. Moreover, in services, because of their intangible nature, there are many opportunities for development and innovation.
The human element is also an essential characteristic of service activities. People are at the heart of service. The service is provided by men and women who arrive at work each morning in varying degrees of fitness, perhaps worried about a child who has been ill during the night, or tense on certain days due to difficult transport conditions. The service rendered to the client will necessarily be impacted by these personal conditions. The service will be different every day, since every morning it is a new construction site that has to be started, with a different customer, in a particular environment, with organizational, technical and human constraints that are always specific. While the world of production is one of series, duplication and repetition, the world of service is one of variability, where adaptability and responsiveness are essential. The human factor cannot be reproduced identically. For a product as for a service, high standards, rigor and organization are essential skills, and the human qualities of the collaborators are precious resources for any company. Nevertheless, this human dimension is prevalent in services because it contributes to the realization of the service.
It is then up to managers to take the full measure of the human dimension of the service by making it resonate both within their team and in their relationship with customers. On the one hand, the human dimension of service makes managers dependent on their team. If they are not supported by their team in responding to market requirements and competitive issues, then they will not be able to do anything on their own. They have no other choice but to unite all the components of their team around them, in order to release the value of the service. By becoming the leader of their team and developing one’s communication skills, they will be able to exercise a natural authority and inspire the necessary confidence so that their colleagues follow them on the path of customer and service requirements. On the other hand, managers will have to build and maintain a quality human relationship with their client, which will be the cement of trust. Beyond the service rendered, the client becomes attached to his or her service provider because he or she feels listened to and understood, that an interpersonal chemistry has been created and that a feeling of sympathy has been experienced. It is this relationship of trust that will make the client want to collaborate with a manager and his or her team in particular. The client trusts not only the professionalism of the manager and his or her team but also the quality of the relationship, solidified by transparent communication and the willingness to maintain a dialogue.
Customer orientation, in the service industry, is fully realized in this attention to the human being. Operational efficiency and economic performance are obviously the sine qua non conditions for a manager’s success, but nothing is possible in service, and especially in B2B, without this customer orientation. And yet, the manager is not really prepared for this requirement and this service culture. The company’s mission is to accompany the employee in his or her assumption of responsibility, in order to bring him or her to be a true customer-oriented manager in the service industry, beyond the mere mastery of a trade. Human investment must complement material investment. Investing in people means recognizing the contribution of each individual to the creation of value and competitive differentiation, sending clear signals of recognition and sharing the fruits and results of the group. The Ortec Group supports all its employees through career paths built in the spirit of the group, which reinforce the feeling of belonging and attachment to the company. Field personnel are motivated and valued by internal training courses that reinforce technical skills and structure a level of professionalism. In addition, management training courses accompany employees throughout their career development. However, the manager must develop his or her own curiosity, in order to trigger the customer relationship, and be willing to question himself or herself, in order to maintain this relationship at the highest level. By being able to intervene at different stages in the life cycle of a project, the Ortec Group encourages its employees to broaden their vision, in order to be able to make proposals to the customer.
Above all, a sense of service must be a state of mind shared by all employees. This state of mind will be all the more widespread in the group if a service culture, supported by clear values, is strong.
1 1 The primary sector includes activities that exploit natural resources, mainly agriculture and fisheries, but mining activities are also often included in this sector. The secondary sector includes companies that process raw materials, mainly industry and construction. The tertiary sector is often defined by default in relation to the first two sectors and includes activities that do not belong to the first two sectors; it mainly includes services, distinguished into market and non-market services.
2 2 www.insee.fr [Accessed September 4, 2019].
3 3 These two theses are set out by the economist Jean Gadrey (1992, p. 21).
4 4 Although new technologies, such as digital technologies and AI, are now challenging the lower productivity in services.
5 5 Statement by Bruno, the mayor: Vie publique (2019). Déclaration de M. Bruno Le Maire, ministre de l’économie et des finances, sur une politique économique en faveur du plein emploi, à Paris le 15 octobre 2019 [Online]. Available at: http://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/271205-bruno-le-maire-15102019-politique-economique [Accessed on October 21, 2019].
6 6 This is precisely the path defended by Jean Gadrey (1992).
7 7 Gadrey then proposed the following definition: “a service activity is an operation, aimed at a transformation of state of a reality C, owned or used by a consumer (or client, or user) B, carried out by a service provider A at B’s request, and often in relation to it, but not resulting in the production of a good that can circulate economically independently of the medium C” (Gadrey 2003, p. 18). This definition implies the impossibility of attributing a property right to a service, which fundamentally differentiates it from a good.
8 8 The concept of servuction was developed by Pierre Eiglier and Eric Langeard and presented in their first book in 1987 (Eiglier and Langeard 1987).
9 9 The purchasing phase is presented in