Tag Archives: customer service problems

Our mind-set is powerful. What we think, feel, and believe, it drives our choices and decisions. Often, once we are set in our ways and it is hard to change. It’s the teach an old dog a new trick kind of thing. Do you have a culture of customer service problems, or a culture of the customer experience?

Conflict is an interesting word because most people automatically steer towards the negative. They consider situations or circumstances that are undesirable, things to avoid, and conversations to not have. However, conflict or disagreement, when properly managed may have a good side.

Problems or a Culture?

When you think about customer service in your organization, do you only think of the resolution? Do you think of the department that manages the problems, fixes errors, and tries to make the customer feel good? What is the mind-set, should you be thinking differently?

Customer service should not be about a problem resolution department, it should be about an organizational culture. When it is about culture, everything is about the customer before the sale, after the sale, and should anything go wrong, of course, it should be about problem resolution.

Customer service isn’t what you show on the outside, it is about what starts internally and is reflected externally. People have already bought into the political correctness of the customer being right, that isn’t what shapes the customer experience.

The question may become, “When do you show up for the customer?”

Customer Service Problems

Certainly, many people may decide to show up when there is an expressed need. The wrong product was shipped, the product broke, or the service paid for didn’t produce the correct outcome. This invites people to show up.

Other people may show up before there is an expressed need. The idea is that they will build the relationship, build for the order, the referral, or the payoff that will arrive later.

There are also people and organizations that are always there. They show up just because they want to. Perhaps they need nothing, perhaps they aren’t specifically trying to close a deal, they show up because it is what they want to do. It is their mind-set.

Show Up More Often

In business, we always have to think about the return on investment. True, it may feel expensive to always just be there, but your organization shouldn’t only show up for the customer service problems.

What causes your organization and people to show up for the customer is about culture.

At least, it should be.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

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