It is clear today that superior customer service is possible only with the synergistic deployment of IT."

— Gabriele Piccoli, Editor

When I was on the faculty of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, my office was in Statler Hall, which is named after Ellsworth Milton Statler, ¹ the famed New York hotelier who built the Hotels Statler Company that was later sold to Hilton in the largest real estate transaction of its time. Prominent in the entrance of Statler Hall (and on the school's Web site) is E.M. Statler's most famous quote: "Life is service. The one who progresses is the one who gives his fellow human beings a little more, a little better service." This is a very powerful set of words that shaped, and continues to shape, the education of generations of "hotelies," as the students are called at Cornell. It is also, in my own personal analysis, one of the drivers of the success of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration as a whole. Recruiters from all sorts of businesses that cater to the hospitality industry and beyond — big consulting firms, large chains and independent operations, and investment banks — used to tell us that what set our students apart from other business school students was not their preparation but their attitude. Our students do know the strategy frameworks and analytical techniques just as well as their fellow graduates from traditional business schools. However, what they have as an edge is their professionalism, their ability to relate to the other people in the room, and their polished savoir faire that makes them ready to be in front of clients from day one. I think the DNA of the Cornell School, directly traceable to Statler's words, is the key driver of such development.

The idea that service and service orientation are key to any organization today should come as no surprise. Scholars increasingly talk about the use of value propositions, rather than products or services, in relation to the idea that to be successful today an organization needs to solve problems. Empathetic service is indeed about the willingness and interest (the devotion at times) toward solving problems. It is also clear today that superior customer service is possible only with the synergistic deployment of IT. I will resist the temptation to go off on a big tangent here, as this is one of my principal areas of research and personal interest. I will instead point you to the December 2008 issue of Cutter Benchmark Review (Vol. 8, No. 12) on IT services and service functionality for a discussion of the opportunities and role of IT as a resource in the firm's customer service strategy. As we wrote in December, our interest was pointed outward. Our driving question was: how should your organization think about deploying IT resources in order to deliver superior IT-enabled customer service? Complementary to this view is an internally focused one that calls for understanding how well the organization's own IT shop is serving the IT needs of the firm.

With this issue of CBR, we bring you experts from the academic and the practicing sides of this important issue of IT service. Our academic contributors are Geneviève Bassellier, Assistant Professor of IS at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University (Canada), and Ronald Cenfetelli, Assistant Professor of MIS at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (Canada). Geneviève and I met at a doctoral consortium, when she presented her dissertation work on the contribution of shared competence between IT professionals and businesspeople to the development and effectiveness of their partnerships. She is now a recognized expert on the subject. Faithful CBR readers have already met Ron, who was the academic contributor in the December 2008 issue, and know that he is rapidly becoming an authority on the topic of IT-enabled service. Geneviève and Ron's research expertise and interest coalesce on the topic of IT service, making them the perfect academics for this issue. Our contributor from the practicing side is Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Bob Furniss, a 27-year veteran of the industry and founder of Touchpoint Associates, Inc.

Geneviève and Ron begin their piece with an overview of the domain and the state of the art of the research in this area. They then comment on the survey findings, articulating their work through four important questions: (1) Are IT groups contributing to their business? (2) Is knowledge sharing between the IT organization and business clients improving service? (3) What role does trust play in the quality of the services? (4) Should management care about the emotional climate? On the basis of their findings, they then provide a roadmap for improving the internal relationship between the IT shop and the rest of the organization, with particular attention to the service function.

Bob's contribution departs from the notion that much of the relationship between the IT shop and the people that IT professionals support revolves around the service culture of the IT group. From this grounding realization, Bob articulates a number of very valuable perspectives and guidelines for improving the customer-service orientation and attitude of your IT shop. In his piece, Bob comments on the survey results and findings to highlight what is working and what is not for organizations that today seek to improve the relationship between the IT shop and IT users in the organization.

As IT professionals we are not generally famous for our polished savoir faire, some recurrent stereotypes in fact have us being just the opposite when it comes to social skills. Yet if it is true that "life is service," working on our customer orientation and service skills can be a great investment, not just individually but collectively as the IT professionals in our respective organizations. This issue of the CBR is full of tangible guidelines and actionable ideas to help you get started.

ENDNOTE

¹ Of course, E.M. Statler, along with William Waldorf Astor, lent his august name to much more than just hotels. If you are familiar with The Muppet Show, the beloved television program popular with audiences of all ages, you will remember Statler and Waldorf as the two old men -- seemingly always grumpy -- whose favorite pastime is that of hackling the rest of the Muppets.