Boy, slow season sure does give me an opportunity to ramble …
.
I obsess over customer service. If I don’t respond to your email within eight hours, I go into a shame spiral. If I somehow cannot accommodate your request, my palms get all sweaty and my heart palpitates. If my mommy brain kicks in and I send you the wrong form, I am all in a tizzy. If I send your welcome kit to the wrong email address TWICE, I die of embarrassment. It’s just who I am. I’m the same way at my day job and with my kids.
I have been accused of being anxious and neurotic (by Mark? Noooo, what makes you say that?!?!). I frequently engage in yogic breathing. I am learning to set boundaries and “chill out.”
I don’t think I’m crazy, I just CARE … about people, and not making them wait or causing them inconvenience (perhaps this is because I am so phenomenally impatient myself? Ha ha!). I have received some incredibly bad customer service lately, and I can’t help but think about the implications of that as a business owner.
The quality of your product or service is hugely important … but I’m not sure how much it matters if you’re lacking in the customer service department. Not responding to people’s inquiries, refusing to right a wrong, taking foreverrrrr to fix something, even a lack of common courtesy … stay off my damn lawn, kids, ’cause that makes me cranky.
I’ve had clients tell me they booked with us because I responded promptly, or was polite and professional in my communications with them. This makes me just as proud as when someone says I really captured their families’ personality, or that a certain image brought a tear to their eye. It’s about more than customer service; it’s about treating people as you’d want to be treated, the good old “Golden Rule.”
This is not to say I am perfect … far, FAR from it. I screw up and make mistakes – in fact, those examples at the top of the post are all things I’ve done in the past month or two! And this is not to say we give our clients carte blanche to do or have whatever they want. I’m a big believer in policies, especially when they help us to be fair to everyone. But we try our best and hope it comes through in our work and our interactions with people, and that’s all we can do.
P.S. This is how bad customer service makes me feel. Don’t worry, she’s fine – just throwing a tantrum about not being able to open a gift for her brother.
no comments