The blended definition of Merriam Webster for customer service is "the occupation or function of serving one who purchases." The one who purchases provides the life blood of your company that is the flow of cash that is necessary for survival. The service person or department is the heart that keeps the blood returning and builds more blood over time though positive publicity, spoken or written. If your heart stops, or slows that flow, you are in serious trouble. In the past we expected customer service always to be a smooth place of transition where a customer’s needs were put first and their problems were solved smoothly and quickly to assure their return in the future bringing more blood.
Today we are actually surprised when we get understanding, pleasant people that enjoy doing a little extra to please us. Recently a trip to a local warehouse store had me at the customer service counter where I stood to the side of a station while the customer service employee was doing something on the computer. The poor thing must have lost her peripheral vision. She never once looked up and said "I'll be right with you." Finally another person arrived and asked me what I need, but not until an obvious dirty look was thrown at the visually impaired clerk followed by an eye roll that said "See, I am the better customer service employee." No you're not, you just need improvement in a different way.
A couple of weeks ago my wife called our insurance company to renew our policy and dialed a wrong number. The young man that answered, when realizing she had dialed a wrong number, actually looked up the correct number for her on his computer. She was pleasantly surprised that there was a caring young man still roaming America. Why? She would have done the same thing when she was in customer service. This guy worked for a well known office supply store. Try to guess where I am going from now on for my reprographics? They say that a customer will tell several people about a good experience they had with a business. A customer service horror story will be told to dozens and even passed down like a family legend. Such is the one I tell 15 years later about the fax machine and the two dozen voice prompts followed by a disconnect, followed by two dozen more voice prompts, followed by a rude guy that hung up on me.
My wife was seriously thinking about opening a customer service school. Companies could send their customer service employees there to learn some basic skills. Don't eat in front of customers. Turn off your cell and don't text, especially in the middle of helping someone. Do not thrive on the fact that you have the power of no to make yourself self important. Go the extra distance and call back even if you don't have an answer yet and please do not replace "How can I help you?" with "Yeah?"
Maybe, just maybe, a little training and self examination would make bringing service jobs back to this country worth it to increase that blood flow.
