Excerpts from Dazzle Me! By the editors at Dartnell. Writer: David Dee
“Providing great customer service is a triple win,” says Paul Timm, a professor at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. “Your customers feel good, your organization prospers, and you feel good.”
Q: In 50 Powerful ideas, you say “the best reason to give good service is that it makes you feel better.” What do you mean?
A: If customers expect that they’re going to be treated poorly, they become defensive and begin treating you, the employee, poorly. Very few people can put up with the day-to-day barrage of unhappy customers who expect to be treated poorly.
Q: What’s the alternative?
A: Choose to provide outstanding customer service instead. No one can force another person to give good service beyond the most rudimentary mechanical levels. But when we choose to give of ourselves – to apply the power of customer service - we feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction. Then, a job can be fun and rewarding.
Q: A cynic might say that most customer service jobs don’t pay enough for all that extra effort.
A: But there are other rewards. Like the satisfaction you feel for acting professionally on the job. And providing good customer service is really teaching you how to get along with people. Those skills are widely applicable to all the relationships in our lives, personal and professional.
Q: You’ve said that providing good service can be fun. How’s that?
A: For most people, true fun is equated with satisfaction. It’s fun to feel good about something you’ve accomplished. It’s fun to know you have the power to give of yourself to achieve team success. It’s fun to grow as a person and develop new skills and abilities, and to know you’re increasing in value every day through your experience and learning.
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