This week, October 5-9 has been National Customer Service Week,  established in 1984 and proclaimed a national event in 1992. This week was created to recognize customer service professionals and to emphasize that exceptional customer service is critical to running a successful business. You don’t always hear a lot about Customer Service Week so I wanted to devote the blog this week to the heroes of Customer Service.

I think the role of customer service was illustrated best by a CEO I worked for a few years ago. We were crammed into the conference room for a meeting about the state of our business. Everyone was invited to these meetings from the top on down and it took several rounds of this presentation to speak to everyone. I really respected this leader for his open communication style, but I grew even fonder of him following this particular presentation. He pulled up a pyramid version of an organization chart for the company, but it was upside down. He had the customer service team at the top end, the leadership at the top and everyone else in the middle. He went on to explain that he did this based on who was the most critical to the success of the organization and the health of our customers on a day to day basis. Customer Service was at the top of the heap! I don’t know how everyone felt about this, but in my HR heart I believed it!! I still stand by it, and I’ll tell you why.

Customer Service is so much more than transferring calls. Like HR, usually when you get a phone call, people aren’t happy. Unhappy is a good day, a lot of times you get emotionally upset people – angry, crying, swearing, threatening – you name it. People, there is an artistry to handling these calls that not everyone has the stuff for. The ability to take an upset person through a situation and ending that call with a grateful thank-you is not a journey a lot of us are willing to take or a challenge we’re up for.

Customer Service professionals – yes professionals, go through a tremendous amount of training in many cases. They aren’t just transferring calls, they are actively listening and solving issues. They don’t know what they’re going to face when they pick up that line and they have to be ready to make decisions. Yes, some of those calls may be very similar in nature, but the people on the other end are not necessarily similar. Customer Service pros are trained to listen and that is likely the most critical skillset they use. Those listening and communication skills can calm the nerves of a stressed-out customer and help them communicate the real issue that needs to be addressed. 

At my last corporate job, we had a large Customer Service team. By far the biggest department in the organization. Not only did they have extensive training, it was very complex in nature. Additionally, they were trained to handle sensitive and potentially life-threatening situations in the sense that they had to keep their ears open and ask questions and then be prepared to connect the call to someone who could assist. Life-threatening situations.

Unfortunately, the job doesn’t pay very much in a lot of cases. I think that Customer Service is considered an entry-level job that people don’t stick with for too long. I think that’s a little short-sighted. I met people working in Customer Service that did their jobs like it was a calling. Rock Stars in the field that loved what they did. There is nothing better than that and believe me, you can hear that over the phone. These are the professionals and the motivators of the Customer Service world and it’s a specialty folks. It’s not an easy job if done right.

I can’t tell you how many Google Fiber calls have come out of my house that have been patiently and good-naturedly handled. Trust me when I tell you that even though we speak English in this house, we don’t speak tech so these pros are interpreters and mind-readers as well! Not to mention soothing the angry savage beast who can’t live without internet for an hour-that is talent my friends!!

If I ran the world, I’d establish a much higher wage for these folks – the ones who do it right. Yes, there are some bad apples, but what job doesn’t have them? You can get a nice HR person on the phone or you can end up with a nasty one who forgot why they went into HR to begin with – it can happen in any facet of a business. I just think that like HR, Customer Service is one of those “ok to bash” areas. It’s not ok, but that’s why Customer Service Reps and HR employees have to have a good sense of humor – it’s imperative to survival and it helps manage stress!

Customer experience is something we all need to be aware of because after all, we all serve someone. You may not interact directly with customers, but you interact with others that do and those interactions have an impact. You always hear that saying that “bad news travels fast” and indeed it does. Be mindful of how you treat your customers, internal or external. Your being short with someone can cause a chain reaction in how they treat the next person they encounter and so on. No one’s perfect. We all have better days than others, so if you’re in a bad mood and are not so nice to someone, when you wake up and realize it, say you’re sorry. It matters and can make a huge difference.

Customer Service is everything – the frontline of your business, whether you have a dedicated department, or one person or you’re handling it yourself. Take some time to appreciate the role and the people who not only answer the phone, but who also inform, reassure, educate, impact sales, retain customers and embody your business. They matter!!  

J