Center for Business, Industry & Labor

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Celebrating Customer Service

October is Customer Service Month, a national event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring the people on the front lines of the service revolution. Here are some terrific ideas that you can implement throughout the year to celebrate Customer Service:

• Call your favorite Customer Service representative to thank them for a job well done.

• To increase product knowledge play the popular game of “The Price is Right” after work and win prizes for demonstrating knowledge about the company’s products.

• What is a celebration without food? Plan a catered lunch for the entire Customer Service department (other departments can be invited). Give representatives awards in categories such as; most knowledgeable, funniest, most helpful, agent of the year and others. Top it off with an entertainment act such as a hypnotist, magician or clown.

• Managers can thank their reps with a luncheon dance party complete with a disco ball and 70’s theme. All managers dress in 70’s costumes and perform their favorite song on stage for all reps. Customer Service reps also receive a thank-you gift card from management. Each card includes a personal message from the department supervisors and manager.

• Incorporate peer to peer awards. Ask customers to recognize employees they feel provide exceptional customer service. This can be done on–line. The employees selected then get to meet the person who selected them at the awards ceremony.

• Don’t have the budget for big-ticket gifts? If your company restricts employees from accepting vendor gifts, why not collect them yourself for your own Customer Celebration raffle?

• Decorate Customer Service Representatives desks and chairs after hours and place a nice bag filled with stress relief goodies on their desks, followed by breakfast the following morning served by management.

• Throughout the day at one hour intervals announce a new team building activity with prizes such as 15 minute chair massages and a Salsa Dance Class Luncheon called “Dancing With the Reps.”

• Video record the ideas that you implement for future fun.

Tips for a Successful Customer Service Celebration

• Create the right atmosphere, Decorate the customer service department and entire company with posters, banners and balloons created for Customer Service Month or the name of your celebration.

• Coordinate all of your materials, using the official Customer Service Month colors for your decorations. Give gifts with the official logo in color coordinated bags.

• Host Festive Parties. Start off with a kick-off breakfast or pep rally hosted by management.

• Blow Your Own Horn. This is the perfect time to let everyone know about the excellent work the customer service department does. Share information on the number of calls handled in a typical week, the dollar value of cross-selling in the last year, positive survey results and more.

• Acknowledge Other Departments. Distribute Certificates of Appreciation, Service Awards and small gifts to the unsung heroes in other departments who make a great effort to meet customer needs.

• Build Activities around the Theme. This year’s official Customer Service Month theme is “One Team-One Goal.” The logo is shown at the top of this page.

We are sure that you can add to this list with ideas that you have already implemented or think of after reviewing this list. Please contact us and share your ideas and we will highlight you in our newsletter.

Innovate the Customer Experience to Ignite Sales

As sales and profits continue to evaporate across corporate America, employees in every business must find ways to attract and retain customers. Innovation plays an even more critical role than ever before. Innovation is the process of identifying, combining, evaluating and implementing opportunities to add more value to customers.

A Golden Medium for Innovation: The Customer Experience

Every customer interaction provides extraordinary opportunities for innovation. Here are five steps for adding value to customers and increasing sales.

Dissect the Customer Experience

Every customer goes through a cycle of inquiring, evaluating, purchasing, experiencing and, usually, requesting additional information. Sometimes that cycle lasts a few minutes and sometimes several years. Every stage in the process provides a myriad of opportunities for improvement. Innovative customer service searches for ways to add value at each stage.

Ask Key Questions at Each Stage

Innovation always begins with a question. The answers to key questions create the foundation for innovative products and services. Here are a couple key questions:

• At this stage in the sales cycle, what is the most important outcome for the customer?

• At this stage, what can we do to improve this outcome?

Just by asking those two questions, you have identified opportunities for innovation.

Identify Key Customer Issues at Every Interval

Of course knowing the outcome and getting there are two separate entities. Once you know the most important outcome at each stage, then clarify the issues that keep customers from achieving what they want. Identify if the issue is related to speed, access, clarity of information, friendliness, cleanliness, knowledge of front-line employees, quality of product and so on.

Develop Alternatives

For each stage, look at what currently happens, examine the key issues and the desired customer outcomes, and then ask yourself, "If we started from scratch, what could we do to deliver what the customer wants?" Sometimes out of habit organizations complicate matters for customers simply because they have always done things a certain way. Don't just try to make minor adjustments to your traditional methods.

Examine the desired outcome and ask yourself how else you could get there.

Innovate In Detail

No detail is too small if it matters to the customer. Sometimes we think innovation means something big, technological and expensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Keep searching for little ways to add more value to customers and increase their chances of achieving what they want. Take each stage in their experience and keep breaking it down into minute detail. Examine each detail as an investigator examines a crime. Constantly ask yourself, "How does this affect the customer and what could we do to make it better?"

Article used with permission from Dan Coughlin. Dan, author of the book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum, provides a Free Resource Center on Business Acceleration at www.thecoughlincompany.com