SMB-400 Case Study

SMB-400 Case Study
Kelly Shelton
SMB-400
12/8/12
SMB-400 Case Study
Trilogy Health Services, LLC: Building a Great Service Company
Case Discussion Questions
What is Trilogy’s differentiating customer value proposition?
The differentiating customer value proposition is Trilogy’s commitment to provide exceptional customer service, since the company is in a business that is all about service and taking great care of people as stated by its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Randal Bufford. The organization’s customer value proposition is based on its culture of offering compassionate services that emphasize on people and service before income. The company’s founder and CEO, Randal Bufford points out that the company’s philosophy is taking great care of its human resources who in turn take excellent care of customers. However, Bufford states that the company faces the challenge of ensuring that they keep the culture high (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012).
What is necessary in order for Trilogy to execute and defend this customer value proposition?
The company’s CEO and President, Bufford states that it is necessary to create the best place to work in order to create and defend Trilogy’s customer value proposition, and the company does this by creating a supportive environment for its employees to work (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012). As Bufford asserts, the best way for ensuring customer satisfaction at Trilogy is to create a nurturing environment for the company’s workers, including nurses, caregivers, and nursing assistants, who are the company’s front-line employees. Trilogy has for instance, created a kind of culture whereby all the employees feel supported and everyone is considered equally important (Blake, 2012). To unlock the full potential of Trilogy’s front-line employees, there has to be the right attitude at the top management level, whereby the managers do not see themselves as more important than other employees, but instead see themselves and other employees as equally important towards the attainment of the company’s goals and objectives. The company has a management culture whereby managers lead rather than direct the employees. In emphasizing the importance of leading employees instead of directing them, the company’s executives including Bufford encourage the midlevel managers to pursue further education, for instance, reading books on management, in order to become better managers. Bufford even offers coaching on leadership to those managers (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012).
As Bufford pointed out, the company’s managers need to read and understand how to lead the employees into wanting to have the right job performance, and creating an environment whereby they will do what is right even without thinking about it (Blake, 2012). Humility is the foundation of leadership at Trilogy as CEO Bufford states, and this helps the company to fight arrogance within the employees. This humility enables employees to enjoy working and get committed to what they do at Trilogy and this way, the company will be executing and defending its customer value proposition (Trilogy Health Services, LLC. 2012).
Moreover, to execute and defend this customer value proposition, the company ensures there are high standards in each of its health facilities. This great service offering has in turn led to growth in earnings at Trilogy since it convinced very many seniors to stay at its facilities (Blake, 2012).
Why does Trilogy support the proposition that “growth is much more than just a strategy”?
The company supports that proposition because it believes that customer satisfaction is a key factor in facilitating growth and success of any company (Dominic, 2007). Excellent and compassionate customer services offered to the elderly adults by the company’s skilled employees have been very important towards the company’s growth, and Trilogy has opened many other health campuses in different locations. In all these other new locations, the organization’s culture of compassionate service, which emphasizes on people and service before focusing on revenue, has been strictly observed (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012). The company’s President and CEO believe that growth in earnings was as a result of great customer service and there was a focus on service before earnings, and this is what steered Trilogy’s growth both in earnings and in the number of new health campuses that were opened (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012).
Moreover, as Dominic (2007) states, Trilogy supports that proposition because it believes in disciplined expansion strategy, and this was effective towards the company’s success in staying focused on how it grew the tight markets that it was in, where the company’s health campuses were situated close to other markets. The company’s growth strategy focused on nonurban, underserved markets where it grew in clusters, and opened several facilities in that location. The growth strategy of clustering was because it was easier that way to grow and transfer Trilogy’s culture (Dominic, 2007). Therefore, to Trilogy, growth is much more than just a strategy.
How did Trilogy achieve high employee engagement and low turnover?
The company achieved high employee engagement and low turnover partly because of the time, care and expense that it invested in training and on-boarding processes (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012). The on-boarding leadership involved trained personnel who ensured that new employees felt as part of Trilogy family. The personnel conducted culture and leadership training for new workers at off-site retreats. Approximately 80 per cent of the company’s employee turnover took place during the first 6 months of employment, and to reduce this turnover, Trilogy took very good care of the new employees and extended extra love to them. Upon successful completion of six months after employment, celebration parties were offered to the new employees and they became eligible for extra benefits and base-wage increases. This helped to maintain employee turnover at low levels (Trilogy Health Services, LLC. 2012).
Moreover, Trilogy achieved low employee turnover level through reviewing its recruitment practices and attempting to improve them. This is because as Bufford states, the company had been hiring the wrong people by not doing a good job in screening individuals, before hiring them (Trilogy Health Services, LLC. 2012). The company reviewed its hiring practices, and tried to find people who knew the job applicant in employment and not just to relying on that applicant’s reference sheet. To improve employee retention, the company put in place an internal referral program, and awarded bonuses to its employees who referred candidates to the company for hiring, and worked at Trilogy at least for one year. This was an important approach that helped in reducing employee turnover (Trilogy Health Services, LLC, 2012).
The company also achieved high employee engagement and low turnover by establishing programs and policies that helped to retain and motivate employees, for instance, by offering a competitive benefits package for its workforce (Trilogy Health Services, LLC., 2012). At a time in the year 2008 when prices of gasoline were rising, the company offered a $30-a-month subsidy to all employees who had been at Trilogy for at least six months. The subsidy was to cover the increasing costs of commuting and this greatly helped to reduce employee turnover. Retention programs such as recognition parties...