What comes after Customer Service Week (CSW)? For a week in October organizations all over the world celebrate their customers and the professionals who serve them. During this week customers feel appreciated, special and valued. But what happens after Customer Service Week is over?
Activities during CSW are always great fun. There are prizes to be won, fun activities, intriguing competitions and lots more. It’s always a fun experience for customers and customer service practitioners.
In 2017 the theme for CSW was ‘Building Trust™’. According to the organizers of this annual event, the rationale for the current theme is recognizing the ‘importance of trust in forming strong, productive, and lasting relationships with customers and coworkers’.
This is a really good ideal, but how many organizations really maintain the momentum after the Customer Service Week is over? Do we just revert to relationships devoid of trust, care and the foundational principles of service excellence? What would our customers have to say in response to this?
Does your organisation only make customers and the people who serve them special one week in the year, and run roughshod over them the remaining 51 weeks of the year.
I believe that customer service week should not be an opportunity to pay lip service to either customers or staff. It should not be an opportunity for smart window dressing. Rather it should be an opportunity to showcase the real essence of our organisation. Customer Service Week must highlight the pillars upon which our customer service philosophy stands.
Shep Hyken insists that Customer Service should be habitual and I agree. It must never be a one week a year project. (Image on the top left is from www.Hyken.com)
Related Reading: Customer Service Is A Habit (So Is Bad Customer Service)
Every organisation must have foundational pillars or what I call a unique organizational Service Philosophy. This philosophy is what ensures that your firm is not a one week wonder. That is an organisation that strives for customer service excellence just once a year during Customer Service Week. These types of organizations see customer service excellence more as a series of gimmicks than foundational policies or pillars that guide every interaction with customers.
Related Reading: Five Fundamental Principles of Service Excellence
Keeping the Buzz Alive
So how does an organisation ensure that it’s keeping the Customer Service Ethos alive even after Customer Service Week? Let’s share a few ideas:
- Do not limit your customer appreciation strategies to a week in October. Have a slew of activities planned for the year and execute them in phases.
- Keep the dialog going although the year. Never stop talking you’re your customers. Dialog and feedback are golden opportunities for every organisation.
- Explore new ways to bridge the gap between your organization and its customers. Get more intuitive and intentional in planning customer engagement. Technology can be your friend…and it doesn’t have to break the bank. Lizspire can help you plan and execute a budget friendly customer engagement & feedback plan.
- Celebrate the people that serve your customers. This way they feel empowered to give customers a consistently wow experience. The person who first said ‘happy staff = happy customers’ was 100% correct. Research shows that a highly engaged workforce is directly proportional to higher levels of customer satisfaction.
Obviously this is not an exhaustive list. Every industry has unique customer traits, and the industry players need to know what it will take to wow their customers.
Let me know what you plan to do post Customer Service Week to keep your customers raving about you. You can either drop a comment or contact me directly (use this link).
Original images from Pixaby.com
