My Customer Service Experience

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The final part of my Customer Service series is finally here! We’ve covered the definition, the importance and how it must come from the top to have any effect on any lower level of business. Now comes the section where my personal experience can come into play.

I have worked in retail for over three years and have been tested during my undergrad about customer service. I have been forced to understand that the customer comes first, giving customers that “WOW” experience each time they come in, making sure I am having that happy face all the time, leaving anything I am dealing with at the door and being able to correlate that with the information that I learned in some of my business courses. So what I’m saying is that I get customer service on a certain level.

I think customer service is exceedingly important, even though it may be exceedingly difficult to give it. Being on the side of a sales associate I can admit that sometimes you get annoyed with customers and the behavior that they may treat you with, but that is where you can tell whether someone gets the idea of customer service. I can also say that you can tell whether a person gets customer service if their managers get it, you know, that whole funnel effect.

As easy as it would be for me to talk about the ways I have given customer service in different situations, I’m not going to do that. In fact, I’m going to more so discuss some of the times I have experienced excellent customer service.

One of the places that I go constantly is Starbucks. I go to the same Starbucks a couple times a week and I just love the work I get done, in fact I’m there writing this post.  The reason I go to this Starbucks is because of the service they provide. They recognize me and are just an overall good staff. They are very inviting and there are some of the employees who I chat with each time I’m in.

Another example of great customer service was in what I thought was an odd situation. I had a job interview a while back and the guy who interviewed me gave me some of the best customer service I have ever seen. I had arrived there a few minutes early, like I typically do, and was waiting in the designated area. The receptionist called him and she said to me that he was still in a meeting and was running behind. I honestly didn't mind since he was doing his job, but a minute later he was out of the meeting greeting me. He took me to their break area and got me a cup of coffee. He wanted me to be comfortable while I was waiting for him and gave me a rough estimate of how much longer the meeting will be. I thought that was a perfect example of customer service and just me such a positive image of him as a leader. I met a couple of the associates and they acted like that as well, talk about a perfect example of that Funnel Effect.

I have said it before in this series and I’ll say it again, customer service is key in retail or any business for that matter, but that’s not the only place for customer service. I have worked for the past seven months as an interim youth pastor with two others and talk about an important place to have good customer service. We have to not only provide something for our youth group kids to keep coming back, but also to be able to appeal to parents.

What I’m saying is that anything or any place where you deal with people, there is going to be a need of some type of customer service. People want to be treated well, respected and are valued. At the end of the day, that is what customer service is. It is making the customer feel valued and taken care of. The whole mantra of “the customer is always right” may be a pain to deal with, but they are the ones who purchase products/services and if they don’t like how you treat them, then they aren’t coming back.