“He profits most who serves best.”
Arthur F. Sheldon
I always try to make myself aware of great customer service, being in the business myself through my job as a college tour guide. Last night is a great example: some friends and I went to a local restaurant called Fuel & Fuddle at about 11:30 p.m. It was packed considering that many of the restaurant’s entrées are half-priced after 11:00 p.m. (which is why I usually go at that time, we’re poor college students remember). There was definitely a lot of activity and I could tell our waitress was dealing with a few tables too many, some of which were a little easier to deal with than others (it was a bar after all). However, whenever she greeted our party, it was like we were the only people in the room. A bright smile, warm but trite conversations, and prompt service which included the bringing of napkins without asking and multiple refills of our water glasses all told me that this was someone committed to the ideals of customer service. Now granted, in a service position, most of her behavior is expected, but it is incredibly refreshing to have a taste of truly remarkable customer service when I am constantly exposed to service that is completely opposite. She even thanked us individually as we left, something seldom seen in a restaurant environment and something I really appreciated.
Now I don’t consider myself an expert on customer service techniques and procedures but I have read enough to consider myself at least an amateur. I’ve read autobiographies ranging from Bill Marriott and Conrad Hilton to industry books like the Disney Institute’s Be Our Guest or the Cornell School of Hotel Administration’s On Hospitality (which I mentioned in my last blog). I still need more formal training, but what I have figured out from reading these books is that customer service is not something to just be practiced, but it must be integrated throughout one’s life so that it is constantly utilized and improved upon. More simply, customer service must be lived.
A stricter definition of customer service will reveal that I am wrong, that customer service is “the provision of service to the customer before, during, and after purchase.” In a sense though, “before, during, and after”, if exaggerated indefinitely, is in fact life, so utilizing customer service at all of those times is living by way of customer service. It’s not something that can be turned off and put away, regardless on one’s occupation or position in life. Let me give a really good positive example about living customer service. In Disney theme parks, “cast members” (employees) create a show every day when they show up for work. Cast members perform, whether they are costumed-characters or front line servers at the churro stand, and everyone needs to be committed to friendliness, courtesy, and happiness as long as they are “on-stage” (i.e. where park patrons can see them) at the theme parks. Moreover, when the cast members are “off-stage” or they leave the park to go home for the day, they are still representatives of Disney and whether they volunteer outside of work or use social media to promote company initiatives, these cast members are still living customer service and therefore helping to create a culture surrounding the sustainability of service. I think that living customer service both on and off stage is part of the reason that Disney has a 70% return rate on first time customers (taken from the Disney Institute’s Be Our Guest).
Part of the problem with living customer service is that many organizations don’t have a culture to support it. A customer-centric culture is absolutely essential to having employees develop their customer service skills and eventually transition to living and breathing a customer service life style. Maybe Fuel & Fuddle has the foundation for such a culture, considering the restaurant’s popularity and the spectacular service I received the other night. Culture is something I’ll talk a lot about in this series and how it relates to companies like Disney.
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