Filed under: Customer Service | Tags: "corporate culture", "customer service training", "Customer Service", employees, Human Resources, Working a Better Way
August 19, 2011
Customer Service: Delivered with a True Servant Mentality
by Katie Garrett
Exceptional customer service is a crucial component to growing your business. If you already have a product or service people need, you have to find a way to make them want to do business with you. Continuing to hold a level of service in a high regard will contribute to your company’s growth even further. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, once quoted, “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” This is a great concept to practice in order to improve not only your company, but our own personal mindset during the work day. After all, we are at our happiest when those around us are happy.
Every single day, potential customers contact your business, whether it is by phone or coming into the office. During these hard economic times, some of those people may be extremely stressed and very frustrated with their personal situation and can come across as rude individuals. Even though, at times, those within the customer service department would rather tell that individual the company refuses to work with such impolite people, that type of attitude does not fall in line with the standards of excellence a company must maintain for success.
Most people in a business environment understand that great customer service is a vital key to the success of a business. Without it, a company will not stand apart from the rest of their competitors in town. Every department within a company should understand the value of customer service, but the customer service department must know how to portray it every moment of every day no matter the circumstance.
If you receive a call from a disgruntled customer, it is always best to wait and listen to what the customer needs from you. Often, the customer simply does not understand the company’s process and just needs someone to listen to them and explain how it works. It is also important to pay attention to how you speak to a customer; be sure to control your tone as to not sound as though you are belittling the customer’s intelligence. Even though it can be frustrating when you have answered the same question fifteen times already that day, that question is extremely pertinent to the customer.
In addition, it is imperative to maintain a good reputation throughout your business’ community so that your customers keep coming back. The customers inquiring about your company’s services are the people who keep your company in business; they are vital to your success. Every single person should be treated as though they are the only person calling or in the office at that time, even if there are five calls waiting to be answered or others in the office waiting to be served. With that being said, it is important that every department within a business treat their clients and customers with the same sort of willingness to assist. Every department in a company can make or break its success by the way they treat their customers.
As a member of a customer service department, one must wear many different hats. Customer Service representatives usually interact with all walks of life, including people interested in using your company’s services or products to someone coming in to meet with your company’s president. One of the most important aspects of a customer service representative is to embody their company’s reputation to the highest degree every time someone walks into the office. Treating every individual with the same amount of respect is something that can set your company apart from competitors. Helping all types of people feel welcomed into your office is something everyone should take pride in doing on a daily basis. By treating everyone as if they are the first person to walk into the office that day they in turn feel significant to your company, as they should.
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Katie Garrett is a member of the Landrum First Impression Team (FIT). Our FIT team members practice true, front-line customer service everyday- averaging 600-700 incoming phone calls per day and serving more than 100 job applicants and office visitors daily.
Filed under: Customer Service | Tags: "customer service training", "Customer Service", Communication
October 26, 2010
True Life Customer Service – “I just called to say…”
“Well, I don’t have a final answer for you yet but here’s where we are in the process…”
written by:
Bill Cleary, Vice President of Business Development and Client Relations
Okay, so, the title of this week’s Customer Service blog post would not make a good Stevie Wonder song, but it does reflect another valuable lesson in customer service. If you are involved in customer service, I’m sure you have experienced that awkward feeling when you’ve submitted a request on behalf of your client and you are waiting for an answer from “on high.” You are almost as anxious as the client is, but you know how the internal process works and you know that the final decision depends on a variety of factors. You’ve done a lot of things to help the internal process go faster, but you (and your client) are now forced to wait for an answer.
Consequently, you are thinking about the client a great deal and you really want to call them, but you are reluctant because you don’t have the final answer yet. It is an uncomfortable feeling isn’t it?
Make the call. Tell the client you are calling because you are thinking about them, and you wanted to know if they’d like an update on the process. Most clients will really appreciate knowing that you are thinking about them and that you cared enough to make the call.
I learned this lesson the hard way. I was just starting my career as a commercial banker about 20 years ago, and I had a loan request from one of our directors. John was a dynamic real estate developer with a somewhat intimidating presence. The request was one you could get excited about – he was going to rehab an older industrial building for a local non-profit to use. It was a good project and I was pleased to distill his request into a loan package which I submitted to our loan committee (back in the days when banks had loan committees). I had spoken to committee members about the request, and made sure to address their concerns up-front. I had every reason to believe the request would be approved, but I wouldn’t know until after the committee met, about a week later.
One day that week, I was sitting at my desk and literally thinking about my borrower and his request when he called me. He was impatient and wanted to know if the loan was approved yet. I told him where we were in the process and when he could expect the answer. He was upset that I didn’t let him know that sooner. When I told him I hesitated to call since I didn’t have the final answer, he gave me a lesson in customer service that I have never forgotten.
He said; “If you are thinking about me, call me!” I trust you will find that to be some good advice that applies to many situations in life!
Bill Cleary, Landrum Human Resources
As the vice president in charge of client relations, Bill is responsible for assuring that the needs of all clients, new and existing, are communicated fully within Landrum to ensure the highest quality service.
Prior to joining Landrum, Bill had a successful career in banking. As Vice President in commercial banking, he served for several years as relationship manager to all Landrum entities before being promoted to Area Credit Officer for northern Florida.
Before his banking career, Bill served as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor. He attended the University of West Florida where he earned his MBA degree.
Filed under: Customer Service | Tags: "customer service training", "Customer Service", "human resources consulting"
October 20, 2010
Customer Service – “Norm!”
written by Bill Cleary
Vice President, Business Development and Client Relations
Landrum Professional Employer Services
Where’s the place where everybody knows your name? Cheers, right? Who can forget the chorus of voices shouting “Norm” every time he walked through the door? What’s the one word folks never get tired of hearing? Their own name of course!
OK, but what has that got to do with customer service? Bill, you are not going to write a whole blog post about some gimmicky way to keep calling people by their first name are you? No, don’t worry – I just wanted you to think about how special it makes you feel when people remember your name and use it in a genuine caring manner.
Can you think of a co-worker who had a knack for making people feel special? When I was in college, I worked at a locally owned restaurant called Tommy’s. 
The food was great, the prices were reasonable and the atmosphere was unparalleled because of the owner, Tommy Fello and his family cared so much for the employees and the customers. Naturally, it was a very busy place so we needed lots of help in taking care of the customers. I was one of the “hosts” but I was more of a glorified bus-boy. We usually worked in pairs, one of us would clear a table of dirty dishes and wipe it down while the other host would go to the front of the restaurant and get the customers who were waiting to be seated. I’m sure I put a lot of miles on my sneakers each night, and when it was closing time, we’d scrub the beautiful woodwork and floor with Murphy’s Oil Soap. We took a lot of pride in our work.
One of my favorite co-workers was another college student named Chris. Chris and his girlfriend both worked at Tommy’s and both were studying to become elementary school teachers. Chris and I worked together so much that I can still remember his favorite t-shirt – it said “See ‘ya on the Yough!” and had a drawing of some folks canoeing down the Youghiogheny River, which is a tributary of the Monongahela River. Chris was from the Pittsburgh area and loved to let everyone know that fact.
Chris was one of those unique people who made a special point to learn people’s names and also to learn a little bit more about them. He was so good at it that he knew all of our regular customers by their first (and sometimes last) name. If they dined as a group, he knew all the names of the rest of the party, and often where they worked or went to school or if they had a special interest. By working closely with Chris, I began to understand how taking the time to get to know people made them feel special (and they came back often), but it was also fun for us as it helped make each night’s work more interesting. Time just flew by on a busy night.
I learned another lesson from working with Chris. I learned to be delighted by the opportunity to make a new friend. As much as he enjoyed seeing our “regulars,” Chris could hardly contain his enthusiasm when a new customer would come in and strike up a conversation with him. I could always tell when we had a new customer as Chris would run over to me with a huge, child like smile on his face and say, “Bill, man – I just met the coolest person!” Then he’d tell me everything about his new friend and repeat their name over and over again so it would become engrained in both our memories. He’d point them out to me while they were eating and it really wasn’t unusual for both of us (or at least Chris) to say “Take it easy, Pat (or whatever the customer’s first name was)!” to our new customers as they were leaving. You should have seen the puzzled and delighted looks on their faces!
Bill Cleary, Landrum Human Resources
As the vice president in charge of client relations, Bill is responsible for assuring that the needs of all clients, new and existing, are communicated fully within Landrum to ensure the highest quality service.
Prior to joining Landrum, Bill had a successful career in banking. As Vice President in commercial banking, he served for several years as relationship manager to all Landrum entities before being promoted to Area Credit Officer for northern Florida.
Before his banking career, Bill served as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor. He attended the University of West Florida where he earned his MBA degree.
Filed under: Customer Service, Uncategorized | Tags: "customer service training", "Customer Service", employees, Human Resources
October 13, 2010
“Little Things Mean A Lot”
Bill Cleary, Vice President, Business Development and Client Relations
Landrum Professional Employer Services
This is a story about a customer service lesson I learned early – in fact – when I was in high school. I worked at Roy Rogers Family Restaurant (a popular chain in the Mid-Atlantic States) and was puzzled that we would throw-out food that sat too long under the heat lamps. It seemed so wasteful to me!
At the time, the chain of restaurants was owned by Marriott, and they were very deliberate in their employee training and education. They provided us with a printed four page, weekly bulletin containing financial information, company news and customer feedback. As I recall, the bulletin had actual letters written by customers. Sometimes they were praising us about the good job we did, but sometimes they were complaints.
The one that made a big impression on me was a letter written by a young father. He told how he didn’t make much money but every week, he tried to treat his wife and their young children to a meal “out.” This was the 1970’s, and families really didn’t eat many meals outside the home. Most meals out were just a Saturday trip to a “quick service restaurant” or a Sunday dinner after church.
This young father explained that his family loved to go to Roy Rogers since the food was usually good and they could all get what they wanted (we served fried chicken, roast beef sandwiches, and hamburgers). However, his last trip to the local Roy Rogers was unsatisfactory because his food was cold and his fries were too salty.
As a high-school kid reading this letter, my first thought was something like “good grief, what does he expect?” But as I looked around our dining room, I saw other families similar to the one I imagined had sent us the letter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn’t take these customers for granted; if they were not here I wouldn’t have a job! I also realized that for some of them, this trip to our store may be the big treat that the family looks forward to all week!
From that moment on, I made sure to treat all of our customers as if they were the folks in the letter. I imagined that they were my family or friends, and I made sure they were not disappointed.
I guess that this lesson has stayed with me for over 30 years now, because I found myself telling the story to my oldest daughter this summer as she went off to her first day working at a similar “quick service restaurant.” I was excited to talk to her that night and find out that this same lesson about customer service is still as relevant today as it was so long ago!
Bill Cleary, Landrum Human Resources
As the vice president in charge of client relations, Bill is responsible for assuring that the needs of all clients, new and existing, are communicated fully within Landrum to ensure the highest quality service.
Prior to joining Landrum, Bill had a successful career in banking. As Vice President in commercial banking, he served for several years as relationship manager to all Landrum entities before being promoted to Area Credit Officer for northern Florida.
Before his banking career, Bill served as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor. He attended the University of West Florida where he earned his MBA degree.
Filed under: Corporate Culture, Customer Service, Human Resources | Tags: "customer service training", "Customer Service", Communication, employees, Human Resources, relationships
October 5, 2010
Celebrating Customer Service
In 1992 the U.S. Congress proclaimed Customer Service Week a nationally recognized event, celebrated annually during the first full week in October. Customer Service Week is devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and to honoring the people who serve and support customers with the highest degree of care and professionalism.
At Landrum Human Resources, we pride ourselves in exceptional customer service. We hope you enjoy this month’s blog posts as we share some of our favorite customer service stories. We begin with a true story titled “Wrong Number? - No such thing in customer service”. We hope you find our series of short, customer service parables informative and entertaining. Enjoy.
Wrong Number?
No such thing in Customer Service
One of my favorite customer service stories comes from a “Wrong Number” phone call. I used to work for a bank that insisted every phone call should be answered by a live person. Our policy was to try to provide immediate help to the person who called, even if they called the wrong department. In short, there was no such thing as “that’s not my job” or “you need to call a different number and ask for so and so.” You can imagine our clients expected a lot from us, but they were very happy with the service they received!
To make things even more interesting, my direct line was only one digit different from the bank’s main phone line. Naturally, I got an excessive number of calls at the first of each month, when folks called to make sure their direct deposits had “hit the bank.” Since I was in commercial banking, these calls gave me a good reason to stay sharp at looking things up on the bank’s depository system. Usually the calls lasted only a few seconds and the customers were happy to have a quick answer.
Sometimes, however, I got an angry customer on the phone. One Friday afternoon, I got a customer who was stuck in a very long line in the drive through. She had a very deep, gravelly voice and she was quick to let me know how angry she was that the line was not moving at all. She pointed out that there were several open lanes, but we 
were not smart enough to see that they needed to be staffed with tellers! She told me I needed to look outside the window and see for myself. I asked her at which branch she was waiting. She told me she was at a very busy branch across town. I immediately apologized for her wait and I told her I was grateful she took the time to call and let me know. Since it would not have made her any happier, I didn’t waste time trying to explain that I was at the main office several miles away.
I told her that I personally knew the branch manager, and told her I’d ask them to open some more lanes. As soon as my caller realized that I was genuinely concerned about her complaint, and was going to take action, she calmed down a little bit. I wanted to make sure we got the problem resolved, so I asked for her phone number so I could call her back. She was delighted to give it to me.
I called the branch manager, who confirmed that it was “a mad house” and she was short-staffed. She did promise to open another lane in the drive thru. I waited a couple of minutes and called my new friend back. She confirmed that traffic was moving so much better now that they had opened the other lane. She was delighted that she was now next in line to make her deposit and she told me that this kind of concern for customers was why she kept banking with us. I thanked her again and we both got back to what we were doing before.
I thought that was the end of it, but my new friend called me back the very next Friday afternoon. I admit I cringed a little bit when I heard that distinctive voice, but she quickly let me know that she just wanted to call me and say things were going well and the drive thru lanes were functioning very smoothly! She also told me a little “secret.” She said she knew I was not the customer service hot-line operator. One of the tellers had told her I was a Vice President in Commercial Banking. She said she was so impressed that we cared so much for our customers that she had been re-telling the “wrong number” story to all her friends. It turns out that she owned a little shop and her friends were also business owners. As a result of a few minutes on the phone, the bank picked up several new accounts!
From that day on, I always looked forward to those “wrong number” calls! At the very least, I would make a new friend, and sometimes we even got new business from them!
Bill Cleary, Landrum Human Resources
Bill Cleary, Vice President of Business Development and Client Relations
Landrum Professional Employer Services
As the vice president in charge of client relations, Bill is responsible for assuring that the needs of all clients, new and existing, are communicated fully within Landrum to ensure the highest quality service.
Prior to joining Landrum, Bill had a successful career in banking. As Vice President in commercial banking, he served for several years as relationship manager to all Landrum entities before being promoted to Area Credit Officer for northern Florida.
Before his banking career, Bill served as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor. He attended the University of West Florida where he earned his MBA degree.
Filed under: Customer Service, Human Resources, Mayberry | Tags: Communication, employees, Human Resources, Mayberry, relationships
October 4, 2010
Mayberry Monday – Dinner at Eight
By Holly McLeod, PHR
One of the most important aspects of being in business is building good relationships. Without them, it would be difficult for an organization to remain viable in today’s society. Think about it… every encounter we have with others has the potential to build or destroy a relationship. Does the bank teller smile and talk pleasantly to you as you hurriedly make a deposit right before closing time? Is the waiter cordial as he takes your order? Do people generally meet your expectations in your interactions with them? Sometimes we need to do things solely in the name of good relationships. The things we’re called to do aren’t always pleasant, but in the name of maintaining relationships we do what is necessary.
Life in Mayberry was no different, and Sheriff Andy Taylor usually did whatever was necessary to maintain good relationships with those around him. He was known to occasionally babysit at the jail when a mother needed to do some shopping; he allowed Otis the “town drunk” to help himself to a cell whenever he needed to sleep off the previous night’s revelry; and more than once he intervened in order to keep Deputy Barney Fife in good graces with girlfriend Thelma Lou. Andy knew the value of relationships.
One time Aunt Bee was heading out of town to visit her sister, and Andy’s son Opie was going on a camping trip. As the family sat down to breakfast before everyone left, Opie was so excited about his trip that he didn’t want to eat his cereal. Andy told Opie, “We don’t waste food around here. When something’s served to you, you eat it.” Opie started inhaling his cereal to get it over with, and then he and Aunt Bee set off on their respective trips.
Andy was looking forward to having the house to himself, but alas, it wasn’t to be. On her way out of town Aunt Bee stopped to get gasoline in the car and asked Goober to check in on Andy to make sure he didn’t get lonesome. When Andy got back from the store to stock up on bachelor food for the weekend, Goober unexpectedly came in with a suitcase. Andy quickly realized that Goober intended to stay with him during Aunt Bee’s and Opie’s absence. With visions of eating smoked oysters and walking around the house in stocking feet quickly fading, Andy did the only thing he could do not to show his disappointment to Goober – he left.
While Andy was gone, Opie came running in the office frantically looking for his scout axe that he had forgotten to pack for his camping trip. Goober was helping Opie look for the axe as the scout master was honking the car horn in frustration. During the confusion, the telephone rang. Goober answered it and impatiently waited for the caller to finish speaking. Goober responded, “I’ll tell him.” The phone immediately rang again, and after the caller had finished speaking Goober replied, “I’ll be glad to.”
That evening after Andy had arrived back at the house, he sat down to a spaghetti supper that Goober had prepared. He enjoyed Goober’s spaghetti so much that he had three helpings. After dinner Goober told Andy he thought there was something he was supposed to tell Andy, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Andy was preparing for a nice and relaxing evening when Goober suddenly remembered the phone calls. He told Andy that Howard Sprague had called and invited him to dinner, and that Andy’s girlfriend Helen had called and “said something about the young people’s meeting.” Realizing that Howard and his mother had probably gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a meal for him, Andy trudged to the Spragues with a stomach already filled with spaghetti.
When Howard answered the door to find Andy standing there, it became obvious that Andy expected to be served dinner. Howard ran into the kitchen to tell his mother, who had already put up the leftovers from dinner and was cleaning the kitchen. She instructed Howard to set the table, and she quickly warmed up their leftovers; spaghetti. Andy sat down to eat, not wanting to offend Mrs. Sprague. He forced down one plate of spaghetti, and Mrs. Sprague then emptied the remaining spaghetti into his place. Andy was visibly miserable from overeating, but he continued to punish his stomach in the name of good relationships.
After Andy got back home, he was moaning from having eaten too much. He was heading upstairs to bed, and the phone rang. It was Helen. Helen wanted to know where Andy was, because he was already an hour late for dinner. As Andy is talking to Helen, Goober realized his mistake; it had been Helen who had invited him to dinner, and Howard had called about the young people’s meeting. Helen was clearly annoyed with Andy, so he immediately headed over to Helen’s where he sat down to his third meal of the evening; that’s right… spaghetti.
By this time Andy is so miserable he can’t force himself to eat, so he told Helen he was on a diet. Also at this time Opie arrived home after his camping trip got rained out. He was hungry, so he went over to Helen’s to eat with them. When Opie got to Helen’s he graciously starting eating a plateful of spaghetti. Helen, clearly annoyed that Andy wasn’t eating, said she was glad that someone liked her spaghetti.
Opie asked Andy if he was going to leave all that food on his plate. Opie reminded Andy of what he had said that morning when Opie didn’t want to eat his cereal for breakfast, and said that they should eat the spaghetti and not let it go to waste. Helen agreed, saying “EAT!” Andy ate. I love spaghetti, but I don’t believe I could ever force myself to eat six helpings of it in the same evening. Andy didn’t think he could either, but he did it in the name of good relationships.
If you think about it, every single encounter we have with others has the potential to build positive relationships. In their book How Full is Your Bucket?, Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton explore the theory of the dipper and the bucket. The concept is this: With every interaction you are either filling (having a positive encounter) or dipping (having a negative encounter) with everyone you encounter. If your encounter is positive, the other person’s invisible emotional bucket is being filled – and so is your own. If your encounter is less than positive, not only is the other person’s emotional bucket being emptied – but so is your own. Therefore, we can conclude that it is in our own best interest to strive for positive interactions with everyone we encounter. Not only will this have a positive personal effect on you, but in building those relationships it will also have a positive effect on your organization.
Poor Andy had his fill of spaghetti, but relationships were more important to him than his stomach. Unfortunately he wasn’t through with his spaghetti feast. When Aunt Bee returned home the next day, she saw that Andy looked pale so she interpreted that to mean he hadn’t gotten enough to eat while she was away. In typical Aunt Bee fashion she immediately went to the kitchen to fix something for him. You guessed it… spaghetti.
I hope you have a great week, and that you start noticing your interactions with others. Now go home and enjoy a spaghetti dinner – just not six servings!
See you next week in Mayberry. Stay tuned…
Holly McLeod is a Human Resources Manager for Landrum Professional Employer Services and Landrum Consulting. She is a certified professional in human resources (PHR) and has more than 15 years of human resources consulting in the corporate world, healthcare and manufacturing environments
Filed under: Consulting, Customer Service, Human Resources, Landrum Lagniappe, Notes from Tom, Risk Management | Tags: "small business owner", Communication, employees, Human Resources, PEO, safety, safety officer, Training, Trust
post written by: Tom Folkers, Business Development Manager, Landrum Professional Employer Services
Ask yourself, “How many safety officers do we have on the payroll?”
If you’re a small business owner you’re first response may be, “We’re too small to have a Safety Officer.” Or maybe you’re thinking it is just one of the many hats you wear.
As the owner of a specialty contracting firm for thirty years, I never figured people got paid enough to lose a finger or an eye, or that it made sense for anybody to spend the day in the emergency room. That’s why everybody, from their very first day, was empowered to take on at least some of the duties of a safety officer.
Part of everyone’s orientation at Folkers Window Company went something like this:
“Everybody that works here has the authority and the responsibility to stop an unsafe procedure. Nobody here gets paid enough to sacrifice safety for getting the job done. If you see something that doesn’t look right, stop and talk about it. Call the office for more equipment or more people, if that’s what it takes to get it done without someone getting hurt. Don’t resume that part of the job until it can be done safely.”
One day walking through the shop, I heard a radial arm saw screaming and screeching through a formed sheet of aluminum. A new employee, who I had just “empowered” with the safety orientation, was trying hard to make a good impression by getting a lot of work done. When asked what was making all the noise, he said the blade on the saw was wobbling because the bearings needed to be replaced. With visions of blade fragments crashing through his face shield, or a ragged edge of sheet metal piercing an artery, I unplugged the saw and told him to get with the production manager to replace the bearing (or the whole saw if necessary). With an incredulous look he said, “Wow, you really mean it.”
“Mean what?” I asked.
“You really mean all that stuff about safety.” He continued to explain that he had heard safety speeches everywhere he had ever worked, but he never really believed that if it came down to actually stopping production those safety speeches would really hold up.
Any number of our long-term employees would have done the same thing; it just happened that I was the first to hear something out of the ordinary. The lesson in that experience is that a culture of safety does not happen from one brief speech during an orientation. The culture grows by example and new employees learn from the people they work with, even the boss.
Empower each member of your team to be a “Safety Officer.” If your company is large enough to actually have a designated safety officer, that’s all the better. As a credentialed professional, they will be able to strategically create a safe environment and implement systems to avoid costly OSHA penalties. However, no one person, or even several people, can watch everybody all the time. So make sure everyone “has the authority and the responsibility to stop an unsafe procedure.”
Landrum Human Resources offers Safety training classes and many other professional seminars; click here to learn more.
Tom Folkers, Business Development Manager
Filed under: Consulting, Customer Service, Human Resources, Landrum Lagniappe, Notes from Elizabeth, Training | Tags: "Business Etiquette", "customer service training", "Customer Service", "human resources consulting", "workplace etiquette", Communication, employees, Human Resources, Job Performance, PEO, relationships, Training, Trust
post written by: Elizabeth Oakes,SPHR
Human Resources Manager, Landrum Professional Employer Services
I recently went shopping and needed a little assistance finding an item on my list. The first thing that ran through my mind was to just keep looking for the item so I didn’t have to take the chance on interacting with another unfriendly employee. How many times have you avoided assistance offered to you by a store employee because of a bad experience you previously had? Maybe a more accurate question there would be: Can you remember getting good service?
When I perform customer service training, I always ask the same few questions. I ask attendees to remember a time when they received bad customer service and write down a few notes about it. Almost immediately the attendees start scribbling furiously. You can almost feel the temperature in the room rise with the anticipation of sharing a negative customer service story. Before I ask people to share their stories I ask them to see the other side of that coin and remember a time when they received great customer service. It takes almost 5 full minutes of thought before even one person starts writing. Some attendees aren’t even able to remember receiving an adequate level of customer service. It’s an interesting dynamic that happens every time.
What I find even more interesting is the discussion after sharing the stories. It’s funny how many people
always see bad customer service as always happening to them, and yet those same people indicate never giving bad service. What I hope you’re thinking right now is: “If everyone is getting bad service but no one is giving bad service, then just where does everyone think it’s coming from?” Once starting that conversation I start to see the light bulbs come on as everyone realizes they aren’t entirely blameless. Everyone has their bad days. Everyone has had sick children, family problems, money stresses, a tough boss, and maybe even a flat tire on top of that. Some individuals may have all that and more at any one time. It’s hard to tell someone to “check it at the door” and think they can realistically do just that.
Fear not, supervisors! There are things you can do in tough times to help your 
employees improve their customer service skills. A great option, that costs nothing, is to schedule a 5-10 minute meeting midway through the morning with your customer service employees. This is a great time to bring up any successes the group has had, and to update staff on changes or new items of interest. You can use this time to notify each other of opportunities to make the team look like a success. Sometimes this short “pow-wow” is effective for nothing more than a chance to touch base and talk to each other without the normal hectic ebb and flow of customer service. Another way to help your employees is to give them a short break to regroup whenever they’ve worked with a particularly difficult customer. Sometimes discussing the situation will help your employee see what they did well, as well as what areas they could improve upon.
The best thing you can do to create a customer service-oriented workplace is to lead by example. Be present as much as possible, showing your staff what type of service you expect of them by doing it yourself. Ensure that all supervisors in the organization are embodying the spirit of service that we all find 
so elusive. Showing your staff what actions and phrases are acceptable is going to be much more effective than doing any number of customer service programs throughout the year.
And during that shopping experience I recently had… I eventually succumbed and asked for assistance. I found an employee on an extremely high ladder restocking shelves. When I asked her where I could find the hidden item, I also told her she didn’t have to come all the way down to help me and that she could just tell me where to find the item. She declined my offer, came all the way down the ladder and walked me to exactly where the item was located. All that with a smile, and never once made me feel put out. She even offered to help me find the rest of the items on my list. You know, I left there smiling and wrote a blog about it for everyone to read. Make sure you remind your staff that they never know who they are helping out today; it just might be someone with access to a public venue!
Landrum Human Resources offers Customer Service training classes and many other professional seminars; click here to learn more.
Elizabeth Oakes, SPHR
Elizabeth is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) through the Human Resource Certification Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management.
