Everyone Has Customers

I started reflecting on my views about customer service after attending a Customer Service Symposium a few weeks ago that brought together Government employees from different organizations to discuss best practices in customer service and how can it improve.  Right after I participated in the symposium, I experienced a real-life example of excellent customer service.  My family and I were eating breakfast at a local restaurant.  As my son was getting ready to take a fork full of hash browns, he saw a fly, yes a dead fly, in his food!  We immediately got our server's attention, and she immediately got the manager.  Both the server and the manager were very apologetic and did everything in their power to show us how sorry they were about our dining experience.  Needless to say, my son ate for free that morning.  We left the restaurant feeling whole, respected, and appreciated.

When I saw a Twitter post from Wendi Pomerance Brick about Customer Service Week, which runs from October 3rd - 7th, I remembered the experience with my family and felt that it was a good time to share my thoughts about customer service with you.

My first thought is Everyone Has Customers!  No matter what your profession, you have customers.  Sports coaches have customers...the players.  Public servants have internal customers (colleagues, subordinates, and those people who we report to) and external customers (those people who use our products and services).  We have to remember that customers are the reasons why we work or have our jobs.

My second thought is there's no excuse for poor customer service!  We owe it to our customers to be courteous, knowledgable, and prompt in all aspects of our jobs.  According to Wendi Pomerance Brick's book, The Science of Service, no matter what job we have, our customers all want the same four basic things:

• To be treated with dignity and respect
• To have some control
• To be understood
• Resolution of the issue 

My third thought is we should always seek ways to continuously improve how we serve our customers!  There's always ways to improve.  A good place to start is to collect some data on our current level of customer service.  Ask your customers how you're doing?  The Science of Service is an excellent way to get some ideas on how to improve how you serve your customers.

Here are other resources that can help you create a culture of service.

Ten Ways to Improve Your Customer Service
101 Ways to Improve Customer Service
GovLoop's Customer Service Hub

I challenge you to find three ways to improve customer service during Customer Service Week.