Customer Service VS Customer Servant
“Great reward is earned through genuine service”
By Nathan Jamail
How often do you hear about companies stating that the key to success is customer service, yet is it one of the greatest struggles of most businesses? Like parents we alway think our kids are great while other people’s kids are not as great as our own (guilty as charged). Many leaders see bad customer service everyday by businesses that serve them, but when asked, most will say, “At my company we offer great customer service”. There is a likely chance that the leader of a company you visited today, that offered average service, or below average service, is telling others that their company offers great customer service. There is a solution, but it requires more than a change of focus, it requires a change in purpose and team culture. The real key to great customer service is to become a customer servant.
Customer servant is more than a creative word change, it is a mindset and belief change that is based on a purpose to serve people VS’s offer customer service. To be a customer servant a person must change their mindset, discipline and execution. One offers service while the other offers a servant.
Mindset and purpose:
A person must have the mindset of wanting to be a servant to their customer. If a friend came to visit your house, would you be glad to see them and would you welcome them to your home with a smile, love and joy? I hope so. Would you offer them dirty towels, dirty sheets and left overs? Or would you pull out the nice towels, that you even lay out for them, you would, more than likely change the sheets and make the room cleaner than it has been in a while. Lastly you would probably make the best dinner you could (or buy it, whatever is your style). We should have the mindset that we treat our customers the same way- even the bad ones. Like, if our “bad in-laws” visited- we would still do the same best in class treatment. We serve to be rewarded, in money, appreciation and most importantly a sense of significance.
A Servants mindset looks like:
- I want to please you
- I want to make you feel special
- I want you to know I love having you with me
- I will do whatever it takes to please you
- Making you beyond happy is not my job, it is my purpose!
If you don’t desire to have this mindset among your team or if you feel it is beneath you; that is a choice and that choice does not make you wrong or right, it just makes you not a servant. You most likely will not like the remainder of the is article, so feel free to stop reading because it is only going to get worse. If this makes sense and you agree with the purpose, then continue on, servant.
Discipline:
A leader must have the discipline to share this expectation with their employees and hold them accountable to the belief. If a leader holds one accountable to the belief then they won’t have to worry about holding them accountable to the activity and most importantly, the leader shows the employees by example, simply by serving. A leader serves employees differently than a customer. A leader serves employees by creating a positive, motivating and accountable environment by allowing only those whom have the same servant mindset and commitment to be on the team. A leader is a servant to their employees by coaching them and making them better, by caring enough to engage in conflict to make all team members better and by coaching them up or out.
The discipline for all team members and leaders it to be committed when we are tired, frustrated, hurt or just in a funk because it is our purpose to make a positive difference. We must be so committed that we will not let the uncommitted distract us or get in our way. I have found when I offer to serve the unhappy customers they become less unhappy. The most powerful aspect of our mindset it not to allow others to take our purpose away from us.
Execution:
Challenge the team to find ways to do servant activities. Ask ourselves, what would shock our customers that we could on a daily basis? By the way, very rarely does any servant activities require more money, it just requires more effort and the servant purpose. Here are some examples of servant activities: run to get stuff or move quickly- show the customer your urgency. Hold the door when they are walking in or out, even if they are not your customer. Never multi-task when you are talking to a customer, (fast food you are excused only when typing in the order).
Story of execution:
I read this story in a book, (though, forgive me, I can’t remember which one). A guy goes to a restaurant and orders a coke. The restaurant does not serve Coke they only serve Pepsi. The waiter say we don’t serve Coke at the restaurant, but let me see what I can do, please give me a moment. He runs to boss and asks him to watch his other tables, then he runs next door to the convenience store and buys the guy a Coke. The customers says I thought you did not serve Coke, the waiter said, “not usually but we serve customers.” I think we all can learn from that waiter, and although not take the exact steps, but the concept to heart.
As leaders and business people we have a choice of who we put on our team, what we expect from our team members and what we deliver to our customers (and potential customers). When leaders go from managers to coaches and team members start focusing on being servants verses offering customer service- everybody wins. Some may tell you that serving sounds a lot like “sucking up”, and my advice is- I would not waste my time explaining difference, but if you must, you can explain it this way, “Sucking up is discussed through meaningless words, being a servant is shown through genuine action”.
