Good Customer Service – It’s All About Me

I went to Amazon and searched customer service books and got 15,141 results. I googled “great customer service” and got 743,000,000 results in .26 seconds.

We should all have this practice down people. We all know what it feels like to experience great customer service. We all know what it feels like when we don’t. We coach and are coached on it. Every job, even if we are not on the front line, requires customer service. It’s even part of what we do with our coworkers, and I don’t believe I have ever had a job when I didn’t deal with people. For that matter, I come into contact with people from the moment I wake up til the time I go to bed – everyday.

We have every tip, quote, video, book, webinar, class available to us in seconds that can tell us how we should handle phone calls, face-to-face interactions with customers, angry customers, and it goes on and on. We should really know what makes a customer happy – educational resources are abundant.

But, here’s my take on customer service . . . it’s really all about me. It’s about how I feel at the end of the day. It’s about what’s in it for me. What do I get?

If I have a good interaction with someone, I feel darned good. If I end a call with a customer and it feels good, it feels good for ME. Never mind that the customer was happy; that’s been drilled into me from the moment I learned about great customer service.

What’s in it for me? Not only do I feel good, but others feel good about me. They think I am awesome and I like being awesome. If I find a way to turn an angry call into a pleasant one, I win. I like to win. If the customer does something wrong and I don’t point it out, but figure out the next step to fix it, I, again, feel awesome. My boss feels awesome about me too. I like being happy after dealing with a customer.

I get very short-lived satisfaction from proving that I am right. No good can come from this. So what? If I prove I am right, I still have to deal with the customer, and now, they don’t love me. I wasted a lot of time proving my point only to still be left with dealing with the reason I am talking with them in the first place. If it’s all about me, I better figure out a way to deal with them and make them happy. If they made a mistake, so what? They know it, I know it, and what better opportunity for me to feel awesome about myself and deal with it? This is long-term satisfaction folks. Never mind that the customers love me now and that I get to keep them and that they tell their friends about me.

What else might be in it for me? I might have the opportunity to earn more, because if I am wonderful at what I do, others will notice. Never mind that customers love me – the people I work with might love me and my boss might love and trust me with the most difficult of customers. I might get a promotion or a better job or a bonus. After all, my boss wants me to support him well, so if I make him and our company look good . . . I think you probably get the point.

What else? I will love what I do. I like loving what I do and when I feel awesome at the end of each day, because I happened to make a customer feel that they were right, fixed their problem, or turned their nasty attitude into a happy one, I am happy. I am more relaxed and satisfied when I go home, which is really what I care about.

It really is all about me. Never mind that I made customers happy, I am good at what I do and that feels awesome.