BOOK REVIEW
Service Habits
Jaquie Scammell is a leader in the provision of service, and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this book. She has worked across a range of industries across the world, as well as working with both small and large workforces on service improvement. This is her second book relating to service. BY SUSANNAH TINDALL
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cammell divides her book into six sections, each covering a series of ‘habits’ relating to a topic. This article provides a brief overview of these habits, concluding with a personal reflection.
Getting Started - “How to learn and leverage new habits” and “Breaking bad service habits” In this first section, Scammell discusses both how to break down existing bad habits, and how to incorporate new habits into your day-to-day life. She acknowledges that both of these are not easy. In fact, learning a new habit can take around 66 days, divided into three phases destruction, confusion and integration (pg. 11-12). In order to remove your bad habits, you must first identity them. Scammell acknowledges five key habits people can start with - trying to control the outcome, blaming others, gossiping, avoiding asking for help, and complaining (pg. 16).
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Habits 1 and 2: Service fundamentals
Habits 3 to 11: Know how you serve best
Scammell starts this section by letting us know these two habits will be the hardest identified in this book - everything from this point will be relatively easy (pg. 22). These habits are mostly based around behaviour and mindset.
These habits cover your personal approach to serving others. Scammell starts by saying “Service is all about you: it always has been, and always will be” (pg. 48). These nine habits discuss a range of ways to improve your service, from imagining others can read your thoughts, to maintaining long-term positive service in intense environments, to managing not only yourself and your wellbeing, but also others around you.
Habit 1, “Adopt a service mindset” encourages readers to consider the interactions you have with others, and how your actions might be perceived. Habit 2, “Make it an inside job” focusses heavily on the role of service internally to an organisation. Scammell states, “You can tell a lot about an organisation by the way its employees treat each other” (pg. 36).
Scammell encourages you to think about ways to “get out of your head” (pg. 48), as this will be the best way to ultimately help you to help others.
