Where Legendary Customer Service Starts | Hint: It's Not Where Most Start
Picture yourself in a real-life situation in our events & hospitality industry: you are on your way out the door for a much-deserved long weekend off and you pass by a co-worker struggling to find some critical items for an event that they are working that evening. Or perhaps an entirely different department from your own -housekeeping or maintenance - is missing something that they need to complete their job under a tight deadline and is quite frantic. How many will stop to ask their fellow employee if they can help? All? Some? None? If you answered "all" or "some", you are on the right track to where legendary customer service begins. If you answered "none", this is still good - it's an opportunity to begin the journey.
The mindset on those who answered "some" or "none" above yields customer service that is typically focused on customers who actually bring in sales and buy your company's services and the departments who service these sales and interact with outside sales/customers. In order to evolve your business from "None" to "Some" or "All" in the answers above, the entire approach to customer service needs to shift to how employees service each other. It is not unrelated to external customer service, and in fact, affects external customer service. They are not unrelated. The Disney Institute refers to this as a "virtuous cycle" and cites these two factors:
Reverence/Admiration: Everyone wants to work where they feel appreciated and treated with respect. Feeling appreciated means employees will treat each other with more respect and this in turn supports external customer service. When one feels respected, it is easier to cross job description boundaries ( even different departments) and look at the bigger picture: being of service to each other, and not tied down with limitations.
Authenticity: Being Able to Give What You Actually Have, Not What You Pretend To: It is said that you can't give what you don't have. This boils down to your core values as a company. If your core values include how employees treat each other, see each other, and support each other, this means one genuinely cares about other human beings and applies directly to external customer service quality.
But perhaps the most important element of all before one can even tackle internal customer service is hiring the right employee to begin with. You can always teach the technical aspects and duties of a job, but you cannot teach someone character, authenticity, a desire to please, and being a team player. When you hire the right individuals at the start, the rest is easier. Your external customers will genuinely feel that they are cared about as an individual, and your business will soar.
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Engaging Inspiration offers sparkling marketing, customer service training, social media and PR solutions to the events and hospitality industry, designed to engage and inspire.
The mindset on those who answered "some" or "none" above yields customer service that is typically focused on customers who actually bring in sales and buy your company's services and the departments who service these sales and interact with outside sales/customers. In order to evolve your business from "None" to "Some" or "All" in the answers above, the entire approach to customer service needs to shift to how employees service each other. It is not unrelated to external customer service, and in fact, affects external customer service. They are not unrelated. The Disney Institute refers to this as a "virtuous cycle" and cites these two factors:
Reverence/Admiration: Everyone wants to work where they feel appreciated and treated with respect. Feeling appreciated means employees will treat each other with more respect and this in turn supports external customer service. When one feels respected, it is easier to cross job description boundaries ( even different departments) and look at the bigger picture: being of service to each other, and not tied down with limitations.
Authenticity: Being Able to Give What You Actually Have, Not What You Pretend To: It is said that you can't give what you don't have. This boils down to your core values as a company. If your core values include how employees treat each other, see each other, and support each other, this means one genuinely cares about other human beings and applies directly to external customer service quality.
But perhaps the most important element of all before one can even tackle internal customer service is hiring the right employee to begin with. You can always teach the technical aspects and duties of a job, but you cannot teach someone character, authenticity, a desire to please, and being a team player. When you hire the right individuals at the start, the rest is easier. Your external customers will genuinely feel that they are cared about as an individual, and your business will soar.
___________________________________________________
Engaging Inspiration offers sparkling marketing, customer service training, social media and PR solutions to the events and hospitality industry, designed to engage and inspire.
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