Every Job Is a Customer Service Job

Every company hopes for customer service excellence. Only a portion of them, however, strategically aim for this excellence through their day-to-day business practices. And of those, an even smaller segment actually achieve (and maintain) the goal.

Of the tiny business population who can truly claim customer service superiority, one thing is certain: Every employee owns a piece of that prize. Simply put, a company cannot achieve customer service excellence without first attaining high levels of efficiency, quality, and productivity among its internal service providers.

Emphasize Internal Customer Service

All too often, companies place a strong emphasis on external customer care while losing sight of the fact that internal customers matter just as much. Why does it matter? Because somewhere down the line, the service provided to an internal customer will show up in an external customer transaction.

Tip of the Month

Believe it or not, some stress is “good stress.” Often referred to as “eustress” (in contrast to its not-so-healthy counterpart, “distress”), good stress has an invigorating, motivating effect on people. It’s what helps us meet our deadlines, inspires quick or creative thinking, and pushes us to try a little harder. So, to some extent, we all need a little stress in our lives!

Total Service Through Cross-Selling: A Brief History

Approximately 65,000,000 years ago, as pterodactyls were on their way out and USB devices were on their way in, printer cables were sold separately from home printers. That was standard practice. Here’s how it worked:

You bought a printer from an electronics retailer or your local computer store, you took it home and eagerly removed it from the Styrofoam packaging, dreaming about the convenience of having a home printer. Just as you were ready to connect it to your PC…what the? Where’s the printer cable? You searched the contents of the box, astonished to find that the most crucial component of the entire printing process was missing. You knew at that moment that another trip to the computer store would be required.

Here’s what was absolutely criminal about the whole situation: the person who rang up your purchase, the person who let you leave the store without a printer cable to accompany your printer, knew that printer cables were sold separately! Why didn’t that person say something to you?