Customer Service

To date in my career, I have worked mostly in the customer-service field, primarily as a frontline worker and manager. I've worked for organizations that are great at trying to build a more personal relationship with their customers, and I've worked for organizations that focus on getting as many people in and out as possible.

In my personal experience, I strongly prefer the former. I like being able to talk to people and form a bit of a rapport with them. I enjoy finding out exactly what my customer's needs are and formulating a solution that will serve them best, and I have very high rates of customer satisfaction as a result. It means a lot to me and it means a lot to my organization to have customers come back just to tell me how happy they are with my service. It doesn't happen every day, but it does happen.

My current employer is very focused on the customer experience. We are a high-end retailer, dealing with custom product, and this is the only approach that really makes sense. If you don't make any attempt to stand out from the crowd, people will likely make their decision on where to buy based on price. Well, competing on price alone is pretty tough. Sooner or later, some other retailer comes along with prices you can't beat. In our case, it's pretty common; it isn't that our product is more expensive than anyone else selling the comparable thing, it's just that we don't sell generic or lower-quality versions of our products, and other places do. We focus on the top-quality end of the market, and once you're doing that anyway, you had better provide good service to back it up! And if you want to build your business, you had better provide great service to back it up.

This article talks about creating a customer-centered organization. I think particularly in a market that has abundant competition, choosing to stand out on the basis of your customer service is a tremendous idea, and, if done right, is a great strategy. If you go into your day thinking of ways to serve your customer better, that will show.

This does not mean that the customer is always right. There are many cases
where the customer is definitely wrong, but the approach you take makes all the difference. How you resolve the issue can have a tremendous impact on the customer; I've made customers for life on the basis of how I handled an issue, and not necessarily because I gave them everything they wanted, but because I showed them I was willing to go to bat for them, and give them everything I could do.

I personally try to approach HR with the same spirit in mind. My job is not to quote policy at people and tell them why they can't; my job is to try and serve them better. Good HR comes from the realization that my job isn't to support the company. My job is to support the employee, because supporting the employee is in the best interests of the company. Happy employees work harder. Happy employees stay longer, and recommend their company to others. Happy employees don't start lawsuits. And so on. Granted, I can't always give employees what they want, just like the customer is not always right. But if I go into my day trying to understand my employees' needs and give them the best solution I can, then I've done my job right.