By Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt · A vision story: how service feels when points rule · First published on scwt.de, edited for GoodPoints.
... it is not. It is dinner in a small, elegant restaurant in an unassuming alley of Zurich's old town. This is not a true account - it is a look ahead: this is what service could become when tasks flow through an exchange with points.
Honestly: This story is a vision, not a case report. It shows what the task exchange can lead to - not what it guarantees. What GoodPoints can do today is listed at the end of this article.
Fascinating - candlelight, served by attentive, polite, well-trained waiters. There they sit, Hans and his girlfriend Marianne, at the fourth course of their nine-course menu.
She is enjoying it; he notices and is delighted. Small, beautifully presented portions on large elegant plates, exquisitely prepared and served with style. Four more tables in the place - a small, fine restaurant, an insider's tip. And all of this - Hans enjoyed that too - free. A gift from his company. Including flights to and from Zurich and a night in a good hotel. Wonderful. A gift because Hans, this time, had luck - combined with experience and skill in choosing his assignments.
Hans works as a service specialist. In the two years since the project began, almost everything in service has changed - for the better. Among other things, you can now enjoy great extras like this one.
Hans used to feel his supervisor wanted to drive him to work, that his dispatcher gave him stupid assignments now and then - and he felt that way more than once. Today it is different. The stress and the unpleasant discussions with his dispatcher are history, since the project that introduced the task exchange.
There are no more dispatchers. Today the technicians dispatch themselves. Like Hans, they pick their tasks from the exchange. All pending tasks are listed there until the technicians assign them to themselves. Each task carries a point value. You have to time your pick well - wait too long, and the task is gone to a colleague.
However, you only receive the full point value if the work is completed to the customer's complete satisfaction. It does not matter how much time the work takes - the points attached to the task do not change. So Hans and his colleagues work briskly - purely out of self-interest, since a few more completed tasks in the same time means a few more points earned. Experience and a bit of skill also help him with scheduling and choosing the order of his tasks.
When Hans thinks about it: overall it is better than before, when quite a lot of internal, often unnecessary and ultimately unproductive effort was spent.
Hans's supervisor has become his best friend. He supports Hans and his colleagues as best he can - the way good coaches in sports clubs do. He even brakes Hans and his colleagues in their drive now and then.
He is right about that; in the heat of the moment you don't always see it yourself. You must not overdo the work. You have to manage your strength - even when you have the chance to be especially good and successful. But such opportunities keep coming.
Strictly speaking, Hans and Marianne are in this Zurich restaurant because of his earned task values. Hans was one of the best service technicians of his company in the past quarter - nationwide, which says something. The company grants the five best of each quarter something special of their choice. Hans asked his girlfriend, and she had the idea of a fine dinner. And fine it is - the company clearly made an effort.
His girlfriend enjoys the evening and - for the first time, as far as Hans remembers - is interested in how it came about that the company gives them this magnificent gift. Hans tries to explain it to her briefly.
It all began with that project. The service department was once again under pressure to improve efficiency. Nothing unusual - that came every few years. A lot had been done in previous years, and it had helped - especially in spare parts supply and in pre-clarifying service calls.
But a lot of unnecessary things were pushed through in those so-called improvement projects - often suggested by management consultants who had great slogans and slides - and access to decision makers - but little knowledge of service. His colleagues and he often wondered about the measures being tried. But they had no say. Sometimes lists existed in which the names of colleagues were entered, to be cut as a cost-saving measure. Anyone who stood out had a good chance of finding their name on such a list. So: keep quiet, don't stand out, get through.
Well, the times have thoroughly changed. Today it is no problem to speak your mind and introduce improvements. It can even lead - as in his case - all the way to Zurich, to this charming restaurant.
To go back once more: they had an open-minded, far-sighted regional manager with a certain appetite for experimentation. One fine day he read the book "Service Management" by Walter Tritt - later, by the way, every employee received this book. Reading it, you gather many impressions and ideas and sense the potential still hidden in service.
In this book, the manager discovered the "task exchange" as an innovative model for dispatching service technicians. He found the idea quite interesting but apparently had considerable concerns about feasibility. It was something completely new - the opposite of the usual dirigiste and supposedly safe dispatching by controllers.
But this regional manager simply invited the author and talked with him. And then he was convinced that the exchange could truly be a realistic and especially effective way to make service more efficient. He did it right from the start: he aligned the project early with other important managers and functionaries and got their approval. With experienced supporters and good will, it worked.
After the project started, it took a while until things ran smoothly - but afterwards, the old world was almost unimaginable. So complicated and cumbersome it seemed compared to the new dispatching. Suddenly the customer really was at the center. Maximum point values could only be reached if the customer was satisfied. Unnecessary administrative ballast was quickly, almost automatically, eliminated. Only what served reaching maximum point values survived.
Everyone felt better, for now they shared the main goal: satisfying the customer as well as possible. With this common goal - in which everyone profits - they no longer worked against each other but with each other. Of course everyone watches to achieve a good point value, but they also make sure their own team and region compare well with others. A constant - thanks to skillfully chosen control parameters - social competition for efficient service and satisfied customers emerged.
When the exchange was introduced, everyone quickly realized as the system took hold: they were actually too many colleagues - almost a third too many. Work became scarce because the existing faults were worked off damn fast.
Honestly: This is where the story shows its hard edge - and GoodPoints is frank about it. A points system does not create work. It makes visible how much work there really is and who carries it. Idle time, once invisibly hidden in wages, comes to light. The story resolves it the way it can end well: finding new work instead of cutting people. That takes a leadership that communicates honestly - the system does not do it by itself. More on this in the article The Specialist Dilemma.
In the story, the regional manager - who recognized the overcapacity problem early - worked on sensible solutions. And some were found: the specialists kept an eye out for additional work at the customer's site. Again and again, things are discovered that can be done right away in the customer's interest. Customers like it. It brings the company more revenue and profit. And Hans and his colleagues are honored with additional points.
When the exchange idea was first presented, everyone had a strange feeling about their personal income. The truth: income barely changed. Points are not a second paycheck - they are recognition and measure. If you want to discuss an individual raise, however, it does not hurt to be among the colleagues with somewhat better point values.
Training has turned around too: discussions with the boss about approvals, as they used to happen, are no longer a topic. Only one question counts: does the training pay off - will the new knowledge allow me to take on higher-value tasks in the future, or not? Even older technologies become interesting again: once avoided for image reasons, now in demand where older colleagues retire and leave a technological gap.
For the day after tomorrow, when he works again, Hans has reserved a few good tasks. He picked them from the exchange in good time - before the Zurich trip. They are maintenance jobs: easy for him, and they can wait until the day after tomorrow.
Hans and Marianne are curious what the sixth course, the surprise course of the menu, will bring. Hans is, after all, a little proud to have been part of this project - the one that opened a new era in service.
The story is a vision - but much of it is software today. Honestly broken down:
Already in GoodPoints today: Tasks sit openly in the exchange with point values. Everyone takes what they want - with one click. Full points only come when the work is done to satisfaction (quality check by colleagues). Personal points stay private - not even the leadership can see individual values; only the anonymous comparison is visible. Why this safeguard matters is told in Fear or Recognition. And the coach role: the leadership view shows team results instead of individual values - leadership sees whether the team is doing well, not who is ahead and who is behind.
Not yet active - but intended: In the story, point values of unclaimed tasks rise over time. This "exchange pressure" concept comes from the 2000 book and exists as a field in the GoodPoints database - the software does not use it yet. A later step could go further: an AI that watches how the market in the exchange develops and adjusts points accordingly - important tasks that sit too long get raised; when enough specialists are available, the value calms down. Until then, fixed point values apply, set by the company itself.
Would you like to feel how the exchange works?
In the demo you take on a task yourself - no registration, two minutes.
Try it nowVision story by Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt, first published on scwt.de (in German) · Edited for GoodPoints: labeled as vision, honest framing and new ending · Built as software: goodpoints.de
© 2026 · Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt