UNSCRIPTED - Episode 377 | Solo Episode | Event recap
The Service Council Symposium ran Monday through Wednesday in Chicago. Three days, a new venue, and a lot of familiar faces alongside some new ones. Sarah didn't attend every session, this isn't a full recap. These are the five things that stood out to her personally.
1. Employee Experience Is Getting More Attention: and the Conversation Is Finally Going Deeper
The link between employee experience and customer experience isn't new. Most people in service will tell you they already know it's true. What was different at this year's Symposium was that the conversation didn't stop at the acknowledgement.
On a panel Monday with leaders from Hitachi, Otis, Staris, and Microsoft, Laura Mather of Staris made the point directly: if you take care of your people, they will take care of your customers. That's a principle that sounds straightforward, but in practice requires a very different set of priorities than most organizations operate with. The discussion at the event reflected that more leaders are starting to make those decisions differently.
The same panel raised something worth sitting with: leaders now need to manage both humans and agents. That sounds like a technology question, but it's really a leadership question. Strong people leaders need new skills to work effectively with AI systems. Technically skilled leaders need to make sure they're not losing the human connection with their teams. Neither of those transitions is easy, and the panel suggested we're not talking about them enough yet.
One practical note that stood out: nobody on the panel felt that AI has yet improved or shortened onboarding for their organizations. Eight panelists. Zero. That gap between what's possible and where organizations actually are is significant, and closing it will require work that's less glamorous than the vision.
"Focus on the digital rocks, not the digital popcorn.", Marina Guimaraes, Microsoft
2. The Benefits of Digital Transformation Need to Land on Both Sides
Sarah moderated a session on Monday with Dave Mencarini of Ecolab on the company's AI journey. One of the threads that came through most clearly: when we measure the gains of digital transformation, we tend to measure them in terms of efficiency and cost. Seven hours saved per technician per week. Headcount held flat. Those numbers matter. But they tell a one-sided story.
If employee experience and customer experience are genuinely linked, that has to show up in how we think about the benefits of AI. The tools being deployed to increase efficiency can also meaningfully improve the day-to-day experience of the people using them, if that's part of the design intention.
Corey Aulet from IFS Nexus Black shared an example from a recent meeting with a technician team. Several members raised concerns about a new AI-powered mobile app because a number of people on the team have dyslexia. His response was to see it as an opportunity to incorporate voice and photo-based elements. That's the same technology, evaluated through a completely different lens. The outcome is better for everyone.
3. Outcomes-Based Service: Dating vs. Getting Married
Sarah moderated a panel on Tuesday with Sasha Ilyukhin of Tetra Pak and Emrah Ercan of Hitachi Energy on outcomes-based service. Emrah opened with an analogy that reframed the whole conversation: traditional service is like dating; outcomes-based service is like getting married. The commitment level is categorically different.
The panel covered pricing, commercial strategy, risk appetite, and the mindset shift the model requires. At the end, during audience Q&A, someone asked who actually benefits more in an outcomes-based agreement: the provider or the customer. Emrah's response brought the analogy back around: in a marriage, who benefits more, the husband or the wife? Long-term success requires mutually beneficial gain, or it doesn't hold.
4. What Frontline Workers Actually Want
The Service Council runs a Voice of the Frontline panel each year. Four frontline representatives were asked one question: what's one thing that would make your life better?
The answers were simple. Less silos and more collaboration across departments. Better route planning to cut wasted time. Clearer communication. And the one that stayed with Sarah: removing friction so we can do more of what we love.
These aren't complicated asks. They're not requests for new technology or higher pay. They're requests for organizations to remove the things that get in the way of people doing good work. The gap between what frontline workers need and what gets prioritized in service leadership conversations is real, and it keeps showing up.
5. Culture Allows People to Do What They Already Know Is Right
Wednesday morning's panel on co-elevating humanity and technology was Sarah's favourite session of the week. Rob Orager of EchoStar made the point that KPIs only tell part of the story. If they're used in isolation, they can incentivize the wrong behavior. Efficiency matters. Lead with efficiency above everything else, the unspoken message to your team is that efficiency is everything. That's rarely what you actually want.
The point that landed hardest came from Melissa Perkle Bailey, also of EchoStar, who leads training. She was asked how to increase empathy in a team. Her answer: it's far less important to teach someone how to display empathy than to create a culture that allows them the opportunity to display it.
"It's far less important to try to teach someone how to display empathy than it is to create a culture that allows them the opportunity to display it.", Melissa Perkle Bailey, EchoStar
The principle applies beyond empathy. Most people already know what the right thing to do is in a given situation. What gets in the way is whether they feel allowed to do it. That's a culture question, not a training question. Sarah says she'll come back to this one.
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