What ever happened to service?
I went to our company Christmas party last night. My plan was to arrive late and leave early. I really like the company I work for; I just don’t have a whole lot of interest in socializing with people that I choose not to socialize with normally.
One of the strengths of my company has been its customer service. If you call us with a problem you will get a person, not an automated attendant, on the phone 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year. Occasionally we’ll have customers show up at our corporate headquarters with questions. I am on the short list of people called to assist in these situations.
On rare occasions I am called upon to help out our customer service reps. We have 3 levels of reps, the highest levels has a tremendous amount of experience and product knowledge. They also have to deal with our most difficult customers. Our customers typically are in the top 2% income-wise and are prone to remind you of that.
One of the things I’ve discovered over the last couple of years is that most engineers aren’t nearly as helpful to our customer service reps as I am. As a result I end up getting calls for products that I had no involvement in the design. These calls can end up really disrupting the day but I figure if one of these guys is calling me they must really be stuck.
So, getting back to the party, I walk around all the rooms to make sure I’m “seen” and can avoid the ‘anti-social’ label. I’m anxious to leave but I decide to stop into one of the kitchens to grab a handful of cheese for the ride home. As I’m starting to leave the kitchen someone grabs me by the arm. I turn around but I don’t recognize the young man standing in front of me. “You’re Terry, right?” he asks. “My name is Jeff, I work in customer service. I heard you were here and I thought I recognized you from the company directory. You really bailed me out a couple of times when we couldn’t figure out a problem. I just couldn’t let you go without thanking you.”
I shook Jeff’s hand, wished him a Merry Christmas and left.
Next year the plan is to arrive early and leave late.
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5 comments:
Your such a nice guy! :)
Its nice to get a "Thank You" for a job well done once in a while!! Nicely done! :)
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem happen as much as it should!!
that was great!
I just saw Rianna on the front page of the Wisconsin State Journal! Congratulations once again.
"“My name is Jeff, I work in customer service. I heard you were here and I thought I recognized you from the company directory."
Every time I hear something like that I RUN!! Have you learned NOTHING?
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