What Is Good Customer Service

what is good customer service

It's amazing how many customer service oriented companies and organizations when you ask for their opinion on what is good customer service. Over the years I have personally been assaulted by customer service people who are unknowledgable, unfriendly, unwilling to help, lacking in basic hygiene, and out and out rude. Of course, there are many customers themselves who are also severely lacking in all of those areas, and I imagine this doesn't make customer service jobs any easier. However, if customer service is your business, and you recognize that the difference between good and bad customer service can either make or break a business, it comes as quite a shock that good customer service is so sorely lacking in many businesses today. It brings up the question what is good customer service?

Companies that are customer service focused have based their mission statements, visions and goals on the very definition of what is good customer service. Much time and forethought goes into defining what good customer service means to the organization as a whole, and time, money and energy is spent training senior management, instructing them in the finer points of dealing with customers with success. Sadly, this same degree of training and instruction seems to be sadly lacking when it comes to the actual front line people who will actually be dealing with customers on a daily basis. The customer service knowledge base tends to be very top-heavy, with very little of the key information trickling down to the customer service folks themselves. Many times it seems that these customer service people are chosen based on their willingness to work for minimum wage, rather than there grasp and comprehension of what is good customer service.

In the end, I guess it's a trade-off. These companies talk the talk, but seldom do they walk the walk. The almighty dollar all too readily takes precedence and these employers just can't bring themselves to pay top dollar for quality customer service representatives. It's quite silly, really. If they were to hire a high quality customer service team, their profits would likely sky-rocket. However, far too many customer service organizations are not that farsighted. They deal in the here and now and completely miss the value of truly understanding what is good customer service.

And so, we as customers are left to deal with customer service people who are unknowledgable, unfriendly, unwilling to help, lacking in basic hygiene, and out and out rude. This results in us having a negative impression of the establishment in general and often motivates us to spend our hard earned dollars elsewhere, perhaps at stores and business that truly understand what is good customer service.