ABSTRACT
The ultimate ‘other’ In this chapter, we will try to follow the process of service delivery from the clients’ point of view. Many services may try to view it differently, of course, but you can basically describe the client’s role as that of the ultimate ‘other’ in the organization. It is usually assumed that this specific category of otherness is only relevant with migrant clients, but, as a number of experts in the field now suggest, any service professional dealing with any individual client on a face-to-face basis can expect some unusual surprises (Nykamp 2001: 58). What do the services’ representatives really know about the impact of the first meeting on their clients? Or about the effects of their clients’ informal social networks on their own services, or of the specific social capital that an individual client may have amassed? From a client’s viewpoint, questions like ‘How can I deal with this issue?’ and ‘What can I resolve myself, and what is better solved by others?’ are mostly framed by this context.
