In the service industry, awareness is a must. You have to be fully aware and fully present to give the level of service that makes people take notice and want more.  Walt Disney ~ "Do what you do SO WELL that they will want to see it again and BRING THEIR FRIENDS." Chances are your customers are doing business with some of the world's finest service organizations, and because of that, your company's service experiences will be compared. So you need to ask yourself, how do we measure up in comparison?

We have such an opportunity to make a great impression just by the attention we provide. Customers want to be noticed and heard, and if you fall short, your ongoing success, customer loyalty, and referrals to others will be at risk.

We are in the business of taking care of people.  It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, a nurse, or a janitor or if you carry a leadership title, we all must champion and execute on the common goal of coming in every day to make sure we take care of our next patient.

-Dr. David Feinberg, former CEO of the UCLA Hospital System, quoted in Prescription for Excellence

Don't assume anything.  Just because something worked before doesn't mean it's working now.  You can't rely on what once was.  You have to deal with the here and now.

- Tabatha Coffey, Own It!

We all know what everyone says about assumptions (or, at least, I assume we do). And yet we still find ourselves in disbelief when a common procedure suddenly fails on us.  Even worse, we often don't realize it has failed because we are assuming that something that has worked that long will surely follow its own inertia and work forever.  How very wrong we are.

Noticing body language:

Your mission is to norm at least three completely different "types" of people.  Look for at least one of each of the following types: shy, powerful/confident, and arrogant/aggressive.  

In a notebook, draw a stick figure of each of the people you are norming.  Now use a Head/Shoulders/Knees/Toes model to scan each.  Write a one- or two-word observation next to the corresponding areas of the body (such as, "head back, nose slightly up, shoulders slumped forward, hip tilted to the left side, hands on hips, feet two feet apart").  Allow yourself to write with plenty of detail, but limit yourself to two to ten minute of observation for each person.  

Once you've done this exercise on paper today, continue throughout the week without writing it down.  Practice this exercise often enough and you'll start doing it automatically-which is the goal.

- Janine Driver, You Say More Than You Think

Never assume you know what your customers want. 

-Renee Evenson, Customer Service Training 101

While this tip seems so obvious, it's a lesson we can all keep refreshing ourselves on.  It's still so easy to get it wrong, plus it pertains to so many areas: customer service, sales, marketing, problem resolution, and on and on.

Let's looks at a couple of specific sample scenarios to see how it applies.

As we continue to evolve in the ever changing world of technology, my hope is that businesses keep their eye on the customer. There is no question that technology has improved, enhanced, and simplified many processes. But, what I am talking about is customer processes that should always stay manual and personal. 

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it."  - Peter Drucker