Good customer service
Does it still matter? Should it be celebrated?
Every business knows that customer service is important. Many times it’s what determines whether a business survives or fails, especially in a time when bad experiences are easily posted on social media for all to see.
Some people believe that customer service today is lacking. Many longtime frontline customer service representatives left the hospitality and retail industries during the COVID-19 pandemic, never to return, leaving only the inexperienced to fill the void.
Consequently, some are calling for the celebration of the customer service professionals who have stuck it out. Others note that the customer service industry should be celebrated, just like other professionals are celebrated.
RANTS AND RAVES
No one knows the importance of good customer service like a business owner. Chris Wheeler, owner of Prison Hills Brewing Company, was in line at Starbucks when his phone started to blow up with people telling him that someone had called out his restaurant on the Rants and Raves page on Facebook.
Wheeler recognized that it was important to respond immediately and started typing a response while he waited in line at Starbucks.
“It was off the cuff. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t pre-write it. I just said what any business owner concerned about their business would say if this happens. ‘We do everything we can to make it right, please tell us when something’s wrong, and we will fix it on the spot. And if we can’t fix it on the spot, we will find a way to make sure that that experience is not the experience that’s common to everybody,’” he recalled.
‘MAKING IT RIGHT’
Wheeler explained why it’s important to him to “make it right” for the customer. “If you don’t do that, then you really put yourself at risk of not being a business anymore,” he said.
“The real gist of it is if somebody is going to take the time to post something about a deficiency, then my job as a business owner is to correct it. I don’t want anybody to come in and have a bad experience, I
mean, that’s not what we’re in business to do. We’re in business to provide a place where you can go and have a good time and have a good meal and enjoy yourself and go away happy and fat and full, whether it’s a full beer or it’s a full meal,” Wheeler added.
However, he asks customers for a little understanding if they make a mistake. “Everybody can make a mistake, people have bad days, something will slip by when you do a massive volume, and we do a pretty sizable volume. Sometimes these things happen. The goal is to correct it.”
It’s counterproductive for someone to wish for more local businesses while at the same time bashing small businesses without first giving them a chance to fix it, he noted.
“We want the local businesses to succeed. They don’t have the advantages of a massive corporate training staff and massive corporate support. We don’t have the cost savings that you get when you buy by the semi-load and then distribute through yourself. So our costs are higher and we have to make it work,” Wheeler said.
This is why he believes customer service is important. “If I go to a place where I get bad food, and the customer service is fantastic, I’ll give them another shot again because you want them to succeed,” he noted.
Unfortunately, he added, there are times when people simply want attention. This seems to have been the case with this rant.
“A lot of times, it’s a customer that’s really just vying for attention on social media. So they pick an easy target. And, in this case, unfortunately, that’s what it was. I pulled the video on it. The server was there five times, they both cleaned off their plates, and we gave them a free beer. But that was never called out on social media,” Wheeler said.
Russell Mccloud, owner of Accurate Automotive Attention, responds to all reviews, community development director of the Better Business Bureau Serving the Paci c Southwest, notes that good customer service begins by understanding and valuing a customers’ time and ends not with the customer always being right, but a company doing its best to educate and ful ll the customer’s requests the best they can.
positive or negative. “I believe it is important to show potential customers that management is actively engaged and cares what their customers think. I find it amusing when services contact me promising to remove negative reviews. I always ask them why would I want to do that, negative reviews are important,” he said.
Negative reviews provide dual opportunities: They serve as an opportunity to identify potential issues that need to be addressed to provide a high level of customer service if the review has validity. It also provides an excellent opportunity to showcase how management responds to criticism.
“Responded to properly, a negative review can provide more value to the company than several positive reviews,” he explained.
Mccloud also chimes in on Facebook rants in defense of companies when he believes the person posting negative comments did not provide the company an opportunity to correct or make good an issue.
Customers, Mccloud suggested, should speak to management if they are
dissatisfied with a service or product. “Be clear and polite regarding your concern and be willing to listen to the company’s perspective. Above all, be polite and calm. Attacking a person verbally likely will not result in a desirable outcome,” he said.
“If a service is being recommended and you are not sure of why it is being recommended, or what the benefit is to you, ask questions until you understand both. If the person selling you the service cannot do so, you are best to politely decline and seek a second
opinion,” Mccloud added. WHAT IS GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE?
Mccloud believes good customer service involves creating a positive and respectful interaction between the service team and customers, addressing their needs, concerns and inquiries promptly.
For the auto repair industry specifically, he defines good customer service as “the provision of high-quality, efficient and personalized assistance to vehicle owners seeking maintenance, repairs or related services.”
Mccloud added: “Excellent customer service in an auto repair shop includes clear communication, transparency about the repair process, fair pricing and a commitment to customer satisfaction, ultimately fostering trust and loyalty within the automotive service relationship. This, of course, is the standard we strive for in our company,” he noted.
This can be adapted to most any business through simple verbiage changes such as removing “repair process” and “automotive
service.”
Crystal Mendoza, director of the Arizona Western College Small Business Development Center, defines good customer service as providing “a positive emotional brand experience from start to finish. There must be a human connection. People like to be treated more than just as customers, but as individuals who have needs and aspirations. It is important to establish good customer service and build that relationship as it will create loyalty, ultimately working wonders for the business in regards to customer referrals and customer retention, therefore increasing sales.”
John Hessinger, community development director of the Better Business Bureau Serving the Pacific Southwest, notes that good customer service is “an ever-evolving reality in the modern marketplace.”
Therefore, to understand how to give good customer service, Hessinger added, an employee must understand the company, the products, services and technologies the customer has had to use.
“Often a customer has to navigate a maze of technology, hours of operation and even a revolving door of employees and closed doors of bosses. This leaves consumers anxious and aggressive and makes for an unpleasant experience overall,” he noted.
Hessinger pointed out that good customer service begins by understanding and valuing a customers’ time, but ends not with the customer always being right, but a company doing its best to educate and fulfill the customer’s requests the best they can.
“This means being honest, and working hard for them. For many, that’s all a customer wants and asks for. Did you do your best for me? Did you answer my questions? Did you help me understand something better? Did you help maximize my time or value? Ultimately, a customer wants to feel seen and heard and appreciated, not necessarily just treated as ‘right’ and shown out the door. Communication and commitment make a one-time
customer into a long-time customer,” Hessigner said.
Marcus Carney, executive director of Visit Yuma, pointed out that there are levels to customer service. “There’s the bare minimum, which is alright, you go into a new experience and it’s totally forgettable, but you got what you needed. We move on with our day,” he said.
“Then there are the positive, smiley people, that’s good. But then there’s the above and beyond, the time where you go to a restaurant, and you’ve got your dog, and the server brings out the bowl of water, you’re like, Oh, that’s really nice, a bowl of water for my dog. And then the server brings treats for the dog, right? Oh, wow, that’s way above and beyond,” Carney explained.
HOW GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE HAPPENS
When a customer goes into a business and everything’s perfect, “that’s because there’s a mountain of hard work you don’t see,” Wheeler noted.
“We’ve all gone to a place where you can’t get the attention of a waiter or a server, you get food, it’s cold, it’s not right, you send it back or it just does not taste good, your beer is warm. The bad experience is because there’s no hard work under the surface and nobody’s paying attention to the details. Good customer service is the result of a lot of hard work in the background,” Wheeler said.
Both Wheeler and Mccloud, as business owners, stressed the importance of training. “For lack of a better phrase, we train the hell out of them. This is not common, but it should be,” Wheeler said.
In Wheeler’s restaurant, workers have to memorize the menu, front to back, cover to cover, top to bottom. They know the beers even though the list is constantly changing.
“When they come out, we give them descriptions. And you know, sometimes the staff aren’t 21 so if you ask them, Well, what does this beer taste like? Well, I’m not old enough to drink, but you give them enough information where they can describe it to the customer,” Wheeler explained.
Team members are also taught to go by the customer’s taste so if, for example,
they’re a Bud Light drinker, they can suggest a beer they might like.
If a customer requests mozzarella sticks, which
Prison Hills doesn’t offer, the server is trained to suggest something else, perhaps something similar.
“There is also a sort of
Prison Hill ethos. It should With good service, customers be casual, but not informal. will come back and We train our staff to are more likely to forgive have a rapport with the when something goes customers so that you feel wrong. comfortable. You might not “You can have an know this person, but they incredible food item that feel like they can be your people are in love with, friend,” Wheeler said. but if the interaction is
Mccloud’s company has negative, you’re probably both formal and informal never going to go back,” customer service training. Carney noted. “If you go to Formal training involves a restaurant and the food sending service advisors to isn’t necessarily very good, job-specific training courses. if your interaction with the For those answering the staff is really nice, you’re phones, Accurate Automotive probably going to forgive Attention uses “phone them.” skills” training courses. The service a visitor
Informal training is ongoing. receives could also impact “It involves me read- the overall local economy.
attendingnd ing an article or Take, for example, a visitor training specific to owners to Yuma who interacts with and then bringing that information the frontline service people or process back in the community. to staff for implementation,” “Think about somebody Mccloud explained. who just arrives at the “This is typically a two-way airport, who’s the first conversation where I explain person they’re going to talk what I’ve learned and to? It is the rental desk at then ask ‘what do you think the airport to get their car, about implementing this?’ it’s the cab driver, the Uber Any such improvement in driver, whatever, that’s the process is likely doomed to first person they’re speaking fail without their buy-in,” to in Yuma, Arizona, he added. right? And that’s their first
Sometimes employers experience,” Carney said. and managers erroneously “And from there, every believe workers automatically single person that you know how to give talk to, they get to their good customer service. hotel, they talk to their
“We expect somebody to front desk person, they get come into our workplace already to their restaurant, talk knowing how to have to the waiter, they talk to really good interactions, the host, they talk to the and so we forgo formal bartender. All those people training or any kind of like who are interacting with developmental courses for them every single day are them, or whatever it might giving them the impression be, because we already of what they’re going to expect them to achieve,” experience in Yuma. And Carney said. that tells them, is this a
Sometimes businesses place that I like? Or is that don’t see the value in training a place I don’t like?” employees. “For a lot Consequently, Carney of small businesses, it can noted, “we can have incredible be really challenging to put food, we can have the time, the money and incredible scenery, and all the training into staff, especially these incredible activities for part-time staff to do and all this stuff that’s and frontline staff, which just awe-inspiring and incredible sometimes turns over quite and exciting, but if regularly,” Carney noted. people are having negative
However, he advises experiences with the people businesses, especially those in Yuma, then they’re never that require direct interaction coming back.” with customers, such as restaurants, hotels and retail, not to forgo training in customer service. “I’ll tell the businesses to focus on that training, to offer their staff the opportunity to experience what their own levels of hospitality are,” he added.
The results? “People will talk about it, people will know it, people will see it,”
Carney said. “Train your staff and make sure that the ‘above and beyond’ attitude is recognized. It’s one of those things that the companies that do, the small businesses that focus on it, are the ones that succeed and have the biggest following. They’re the ones that people are recommending their friends go to.”
Mendoza pointed out that “providing customer service training will deliver your business a good return on investment, although exceptional customer service begins with ensuring we focus first on treating our employees well. Creating
a work environment that cultivates a positive energy where employees are heard and appreciated, will in turn, motivate employees to reciprocate and ensure that customers are valued as individuals.”
WHY BUSINESSES SHOULD CARE CELEBRATING CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service is something that the community should celebrate, according to Carney.
“All of us who live in Yuma, we experience frontline customer professionals every single day. We interact and hopefully we can help make their bad days a little bit better. It’s a shared experience where the importance of that positive experience helps every single part of your day,” he said.
However, Carney believes customer service is an unappreciated part of business and industry.
“A lot of people assume it’s easy to have good interaction with people, it’s easy to be a server. Those things aren’t easy, they have their own challenges, and they have to deal with a lot of personalities,” he noted.
“When you are a frontline customer service professional, you’re dealing with people every single day. You have to have a lot
of skills in practice every single interaction. A server or bartender, they’ll be therapists and consultants all in one, not necessarily things that they train on, but they’re skills that are from their life that they have to practice,” Carney added.
The community celebrates the military, agriculture and other aspects of the area. Likewise, he said, “I would love for us to celebrate a little bit more of the customer service professionals in our community. They’re the ones who make everything a little bit brighter, a little bit better, obviously, not putting down any other parts of the economy or other workers because all of those are very important, obviously.
“But the customer service ones are the ones that we say, hey, it’s time for us, as a community, to show respect for them and celebrate them and get excited for them and show that not only are they good jobs to have, but they are reasonable and great careers to pursue,” Carney said.
Sometimes customers will ask people who work in customer service jobs “what do you hope to do when you grow up?” For some of those individuals, being servers or bartenders is their career.
SUNSHINE AWARDS
That’s why Carney is “excited” for a joint venture between the Yuma Sun and Visit Yuma that celebrates good customer service.
Carney believes they deserve it, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. They were the ones that, in the height of the pandemic, went to work and put their health at risk to serve the community.
And many times, instead of thanking them, they were mistreated. “During COVID, one of the things that trended on social media were those videos of these just horrific interactions with customer service professionals. Everyone was stressed out, the workers were stressed out, the individuals were stressed out, people were being furloughed from their jobs or losing their jobs, whatever the situation was at that time. And we saw these videos, they were from hotels, they were from airlines, they were from grocery stores, where they were denigrating the worker, screaming at them, it was horrible,” Carney explained.
“I think there was a very big gasp in the community, in the industry, because all industries lost a lot of workers during COVID. Hospitality lost 50% of our workforce, half of our workforce was fired. And so coming off of that, the people that used to do those jobs were finding jobs working online, replacing what once was an in-person customer service job with something that ultimately they weren’t getting yelled at every day,” he noted.
“So hospitality suffered. We are still recovering from that. We’re getting there, but we’re still a long way off. We lost a lot of career professionals in our industry, like a lot of hotels and a lot of service industry folks that were lifers, that had been laid off at the peak of COVID. They didn’t come back,” Carney added.
The response from Visit Yuma was to come up with the Sunshine Awards, a program that recognizes good customer service. The Yuma Sun and Visit Yuma are expanding the program to recognize and encourage good customer service each month.
Carney would like to see the community celebrate the workers who positively impact customers’ lives everyday. “If you go to a coffee shop and talk to the barista, and it picks you up, it sure is wonderful to go in and experience that every single day. That’s the kind of person that deserves the recognition and this Sunshine Award.”
In particular, he would like to see recognition go to those that go “above and beyond,” especially in times when people are quick to post rants about bad experiences on social media but not so much about good experiences.
“Yuma has our Rants and Raves, which I think can play a really great communicative role,” Carney said. “However, most of what is posted on social media, most of the times that we want to talk about what we just did, the interaction we just had was negative, right? People aren’t very often sharing, Hey, I just had a really lovely encounter with the barista at Cafecito, because the expectation, most of the time is smiley, positive, happy. And it’s only when we have this negative experience, oh, gosh, we’ve got to suddenly let everyone know and everyone should find out.”
He hopes this program encourages people to celebrate positive interactions. “Let’s make sure people know that, hey, when I go to Cafecito, I’m getting a smile every single time. When I go to Prison Hills, my server is kind and thoughtful and understands and knows what to expect from me. And those are the things that really do matter for me, in my daily life,” Carney said.
“When we do have those positive things and go above and beyond, we shouldn’t even question that we should share that to the world and say, Hey, I just had this experience at this place. And I think everyone needs to know, and we need to celebrate the person that did that for me.
“Let’s make the sharing of just the negative side a trend of 2023. And let’s make a trend of 2024 sharing all the positive stuff,” Carney added.
HOW TO NOMINATE
The public, peers or supervisors can nominate for the Sunshine Awards a person for providing a good customer experience. The link to nominate a customer service ambassador is Yumasunshine.com.
The Yuma Sun will publish names of nominees each month in the Yuma Sun. Nominees will receive a certificate and a Sunshine Award pin.
Visit Yuma and a committee will use the nominations at the end of the year to select the 2024 ambassadors.