Sweeping patron experience initiatives and customer service overhauls are remarkable, and frankly, they’re my bread and butter as a customer support representative.
However, it’s a mistake to overlook that superb customer service isn’t introduced inside the boardroom. It’s added at the frontlines, through human beings in direct touch with, or as a minimum appearing direct service to, the public, whether or no longer they’ve technically been delineated as consumer-dealing with personnel.
Today, I will give some examples of unexpected customer service heroes who have stepped forward in my lifestyles these days or whom I have even observed enhancing the lives of others. By doing so, they have additionally lifted the popularity of their groups in my eyes.
1. The many that made Comcast look top: Jerry Biggs
Comcast’s customer service popularity has taken its lumps in recent years, although the organization has considered responding, with some achievements, through manner enhancements. However, individually, I’ve had Comcast’s recognition converted for me via an unmarried human being: Jerry Biggs, Technical Operations Manager at Comcast in my location (Washington State, near Seattle). For me, Biggs has been the face and voice of Comcast. He helped me once I became confused by way of some newly arrived Xfinity generation. He listened to me and calmed me down once I became fuming about what I convinced turned into a service outage (it turned out to be a hundred pilot error, me being the clueless pilot), then flippantly and non-snarkily walked me via a way to get lower back on line notwithstanding my incompetence. In all of this, of the route, he had the assistance and even guidance of improved technology backstage at the newly remodeled Comcast. However, it nevertheless required a consumer-oriented (client-obsessed, even) grasp of carriers like Jerry Biggs to deliver to existence.
2. The housekeeper who stored my toothpaste situation at a five superstar inn.
I turned into mystery purchasing a grand (5-star) seaside hotel assets not long in the past as part of a customer service consulting and schooling engagement, and, as you may believe, there was much stuff there to affect me.
But the only detail that stood out for me? In my very own room, wherein, you could say, I turned into “mystery sound asleep” as “thriller showering” as part of my mystery purchasing responsibilities, one afternoon, I got back from lunch to find a brand new toothpaste tube left adjacent to my sprawled toiletries by a considerate and impeccably skilled housekeeper.
This won’t sound like a great deal till I explain: It wasn’t that she was distributing toothpaste to all the rooms. Rather, she noticed that I, her visitor, had squeezed nearly the closing drop out of the tube I’d added with me. And, in preference to just having me ultimately notice the toothpaste outage and want to name it down to the front desk, she had seamlessly taken care of it for me without an attempt required on my component.
This housekeeper no longer only made an effort. She made the proper effort, an attempt keyed to my want–a need I hadn’t recognized. (Note: that is an instance of my concept of anticipatory customer support, where you serve a patron earlier than they even voice their need, wish, or query to you. It’s one of the fastest ways to a consumer’s coronary heart and a surefire manner to raise your brand above its competition. You can read more in Forbes right here on anticipatory customer service in a further article of mine.)
3. Showing the proper heart of hospitality: the KFC Employees who assisted a wheelchair-sure girl in a torrential downpour
Driving westbound via Ohio with my own family, I observed a wheelchair-sure woman stranded on the sidewalk in a surprising, windblown, and sincerely torrential downpour, so torrential that it had rendered her chair immobile. As I pulled over to talk with her and see how I may want to assist, I noticed three personnel (two younger people and what appeared to be their manager) from a nearby KFC dashing through the rain to do the equal.
These three KFC employees had what I name the heart of hospitality. While the baseline of the coronary heart of hospitality is really to take care of your customers, it’s a wonderfully infectious manner of being. When it overtakes you, it quickly metastasizes, and you locate yourself caring for even non-clients, your own family, pals, and strangers better than you did inside and beyond.
