Customer Service Is Key!

As an empty-nester I often eat out alone. I'll go somewhere quick like to a fast food restaurant on my way to work in the morning or in between my normal work day hours and my evening schedule. At lunch time I try and do something like a lunch special at a sit down restaurant, even though I usually get my order to go. Some days I'm all over the Hampton Roads area between Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Virginia Beach with no rhyme or reason each day is different. I like the variety that comes with selling real estate. It comes with the territory with someone who goes solo like me - you have to get out to make things happen. Thankfully I have a great tool that I use to help me try and figure out where I should stop and eat. I'm not familiar with the service of every restaurant in every city. One of the features I am really thankful for on my cell phone is the navigation. I use the GPS to find the local restaurants and how they are rated. One thing I have learned if other consumers take the time to submit a rating they (1) had a really good experience or (2) had a bad experience. Thus, analytically I would imagine if service was provided as deemed expected the restaurant probably won't receive a rating at all. Well, whoever developed this application I have something to say to you "THANK YOU!" I can view the reviews and if the next closest restaurant is close by and my ETA (estimated time of arrival) looks good to my next destination - I can keep it moving and go to the one with a good rating or no rating at all.

My father was excellent at softening bad situations. He taught me to find the humor in any situation (which is probably the #1 reason why I am alone- - men hate it when I snicker when they get mad about stuff). We spent a lot of time together when I was young and would often hang out together when he was in port. One day we went to a convenience store and the service was really poor. The clerk wasn't really focused and one of the times the clerk walked away he said to me in a jokingly manner in a low voice not to offend the clerk and to diffuse the apparent frustration on my face, "minimum wage mentality." It would help me later in life because when I worked for minimum wage I took it as an opportunity to treat my customers with the same courtesy and respect they would receive if they had gone to a five-star restaurant even though I was taking their order at a fast food place. Well, now thanks to the GPS application - when fast food restaurants provide great service a consumer can rate them with 5 stars on the app. It doesn't cost anything to be polite. It requires more effort to provide great service - however, the rewards intrinsically and monetarily normally provide better compensation.

I am all about customer-service! I've learned it, attended all-day workshops on customer-service at least annually for years and strive to get better at it an ongoing basis. There is always room for improvement. As a consumer myself I realize first impressions are lasting impressions, and how you handle clients from the initial point of contact forward is very important. The verbal testimony I received from my very first client in real estate was: "Lynne handled my dishes the way I handle my own dishes." The intrinsic value of her comment was priceless.

Customer service within a business is full circle - 360 degrees. How departments interact with each other, how corporate offices interact with the employees in the field, how colleagues interact with one and another, defintely how employees interact who choose their establishment to walk into. Technology has made it even more important for customers to receive great customer service! Customers can rate businesses online, on their cell phone, via voice over internet protocol systems (when you call into a phone line to take a survey). My advice to anyone who works serving others or requiring one-one-one interaction with others: "Leave the bad attitude outside of business transactions. Attitude is the way you react. Pick it up after the transaction is over if you don't feel complete without it."

The bottom line is a customer approaches a business to be served. If there is no good service this shows up on the bottom line. Corporations can have all the right policies and procedures written in their corporate manuals for each and every customer to have a great experience each and every time. However, if the policies and procedures are not put into practice from the bottom to the top with the warm fuzzy how can I help you today service resonating with a smile everyone's efforts are impacted. Businesses are normally rated based on how they are treated by the person they come face to face with first. If you work greeting the public, how you greet people internally and externally to a business impacts more than just you.

I think corporate america should spend more of their dollars on customer service training and interaction on those positions that meet and greet their public. Customer service is key in today's society when consumers have so many choices - why pay your money for bad service when you can have great service at the same price. I'm thankful to my daughter for pointing that out to me.