As our businesses grow, our attention gets pulled to new areas. Company growth, product offerings, partnerships, behind the scenes housekeeping… it all eats into the time we originally spent on the front lines, interacting with our customers, solving their problems, and answering their questions. I recently realized how very long it had been since I had put myself in the position to be customer-facing and decided to dedicate a day to returning to my “roots”.
I showed up bright and early and grabbed a headset. When my first call came in, I was honestly a bit nervous! But as I settled into the call, I started to enjoy myself. As more and more calls came in, I had more and more fun. I challenged myself to be the very best customer service agent each customer had ever dealt with, and the day got better and better. I laughed harder and smiled more than I had in ages, and my customers were having fun right along with me. Several even commented that they really enjoyed calling in or that they were surprised to have such a great time when they were calling to complain about something.
I also noticed that the atmosphere in the office changed as the day progressed. In the morning, I could tell that the team was a bit nervous to have the boss sitting in with them as the room was far quieter than normal. But as I got into my calls, so did my team. The more fun I had with my customers, the more my team did with theirs. It was an atmosphere of contagious excellence. I realized that what had begun as a simple way for me to reconnect with my customers, and morphed into an enjoyable day for my team and I, also ended up being the day our customers enjoyed dealing with us the most!
By switching things up, we brought new energy to our team, and new energy to our customers. Which further propelled our dedication to making them happy. This positive feedback loop was seemingly endless, and before we knew it, the day was over. We had a team meeting to reflect on that day later in the week and decided that this is something we need to do more often. We now have a lotto at our company meetings to select which member of the management team will next “take a day for service” and reconnect with our customers. It has turned into such an enjoyable thing both for our company and our customers and truly has elevated the level of service we provide to the people we are honored to call our customers.