Being Thankful For Our Customers

As we plan for our Thanksgiving Day celebrations here in the United States,  it is a time for all of us to remember and be appreciative for what we have…family, friends, and other blessings we have received.  It should also be a time for us to be thankful for our customers.

Sometimes when I’m working with service agents and their leaders, I hear them complain about their customers.

“Why do they call for something so stupid?”

“That last guy had the TV blaring and I could barely hear him!”

“She was really upset.  It’s not my fault she didn’t get the package in time”.

We all have moments when we are thinking or saying negatives about a difficult customer. Anyone who says they haven’t isn’t telling the truth.  What is important is whether you allow these negatives to become a part of your daily approach to customers or remind yourself of your role, i.e. why we work in service.

How many of these calls are coming in daily?…”I don’t have a problem or complaint.  I just called to tell you how much I love your products and your service.”  If you have more of these than customers needing assistance or having complaints, we need to talk about how you are doing it

Let’s face it…our job is dealing with customers who are not always nice, polite, reasonable or happy.  But that is the nature of our job and without our customers, even the ones who make us take that deep breath and count to ten, we don’t have a job.

Our goal is to provide the best customer experience.  Our work only happens if we have customers.  If we work in customer service, we need to have appreciation for not only for the customers we love to work with, but also for the customers who are challenging and give us the chance to shine and do our best.

Let’s be thankful and count our blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!