As a mother, I often tell my girls to always consider each side of a story and to be cautious about thinking that everyone understands things as they do. This lesson could certainly be used in the service industry. In all of our businesses, internally we "talk" a language that only "we" understand. It may be acronyms, certain words that have double meanings, numbers, etc. Several of my team members can speak an entire sentence using acronyms, and I would understand, but of course, our customers would not. An acronym that we use everyday is SPT, which we call "Spit" and is a very important database/program. Telling our customers that we "will check the 'Spit' to confirm their project status" would no doubt cause confusion. 

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool” ― C.G. Jung 

We have all heard the saying, “Customer Service isn't a department, it's an attitude." When you treat this concept as a business discipline, the customer experience will lead to profits. So if you believe in the business benefits of the customer experience leading to profits, then what are the best methods for achieving this? The mistake made by many is thinking that just because the company slogan says "we focus on the customer" or initiatives are in place that communicate to the staff to be warm and fuzzy with the customer, those methods will somehow be enough. Many companies "think" they know what the customers want, but the companies who "know" what they want are the companies that will lead the customer experience to a level that matters both in customer loyalty and profits.
(Image and concept adapted from Success Academy.)

Mistakes are to be expected, but knowing how to recover an angry or frustrated customer into a loyal customer is a learned art. A Customer Focused Attitude is critical for successful service recovery. Employees need to be trained to anticipate and identify potential problems, as well as have the experience to make decisions and to deliver skillful solutions to customer problems. 

All customer problems are opportunities to win over their loyalty. This weekend I was in a large home improvement store looking for a certain product. When I went to checkout, I asked the associate who was scanning my purchases if they carried this particular product. There were two additional associates standing around as I asked my question. Two of the associates told me what isle to look on to see "if" they had the product at all. I then asked if they could look in their system and verify whether or not the store carried this item. The same two associates quickly said no, they couldn't do that, and I would need to go look down the isle. The 3rd associate interrupted them both and said that she could check the system and let me know if they had the product. She left the register, took both of the associates with her, looked up the product and came back to me and told me they did not carry what I was looking for. She apologized and thanked me for waiting. I sure hope the two associates with her learned something about customer focused service. Attention and awareness can eliminate most issues. 

“Customer Service is not a department…it’s an attitude.”  How true is this phrase? As much as we try to complicate what great service is…it can be pretty simple. Customer Love, by Mac Anderson, is a great book that highlights unforgettable true stories about individuals and companies who have created extraordinary service experiences for their customers. WOW's! Companies like Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and others. What makes this little book so good is that the stories collectively inspire and remind us of what great service can look like and that it doesn't have to be complicated. 

Happiness in the workplace has a lot more to do with you than you may think, and less to do with the workplace itself. What makes you genuinely happy in your job surprisingly isn't about promotions or higher pay.  It's not the things that happen to us; instead, we all create our own personal experiences.  Srikumar Rao, the author of Happiness at Work states, "The knowledge that we are responsible for living the life we have is our most powerful tool."  

We have all experienced the frustration of ineffective communication. There are so many reasons why this happens, and I certainly could stand to challenge and improve my own communication skills. Limited vocabulary or the inability to convey what you are thinking plays into this. Think about a person in your life that you feel is a great communicator, what do they say or do that puts them in this category for you? Conversely, think of that person that is only interested in what they can get out of the conversation. Their self-serving intentions become manipulative and exhausting. Creating the form of communication called "win-win" you must take each other's goals into account and work towards mutual understanding. Everyone benefits in win-win communication.