CONCEPTS
OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
In todays hyper-competitive world
with internet and social media as well as traditional print, television and
radio, everyone wants to do everything they can to get their product or service
successfully marketed and sold.
Recognizing that a satisfied customer will often return and recommend
others, the art, and it is an art, of satisfying a customer will often include
giving that customer service. Notice I
said giving, not selling service, certainly the cost of providing that gift
must be factored into your equations, but none the less it is a gift-something
that must be freely given from one individual to another.
Much is made of, and much is
lumped into, the phrase customer service, which is often confused with
everything from marketing to sales to streamlining operations and even cost
cutting. Customer service is none of
that. It is something that cannot be
measured well by polls or surveys; a questionnaire cannot give you as accurate
of a response as a persons eyes. In
spite of the millions of dollars spent every year in trying to define customer
service with elaborate and complicated explanations, it all boils down to four
basic concepts brought together within the framework of a relationship, not
just between an organization or firm and their customers, but most important of all, between individuals.
·
The Golden Rule
·
Noblesse Oblige
·
Service-to something higher than ones self
·
Morality-a good moral compass with a strong
sense of integrity
THE GOLDEN RULE
The first, and most important of these four principle concepts
is the simplest, “do unto others as you would have others do unto you” which
may often sound corny in this day and age, but the fact is that it is not only
the base of customer service and our society, but our own sense of morality as
well.
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Centuries ago the peasants and the nobility had an
understanding of the duties, rights, privileges and responsibilities of one’s
station in life, a noble obligation.
This concept of Noblesse Oblige continues today between employer and
their employees and the employer’s customer, each with their own privileges,
responsibilities and each with in their own station. The same is true with our own lives: to
recognize our own place in life at that moment in time and living with in that
place with a sense of morality.
SERVICE
In the phrase customer service the word customer is the
modifier: the word service is the main point, and so it should be, for it is
far more than just customer service, it is service to something higher than
ones self. That does not mean that one
should not strive in our daily actions to better one self or one’s station in
life, nor does it mean that one should be a doormat, but it
does mean that not just in our daily actions but in the higher purpose of our
life that there is that which far overshadows our own mere corpuscular
existence and it is to that we give service.
If one cannot, or will not serve God and country, how can one serve a
customer? When you give service to a
customer, you are also giving service to God by serving his creations and
you’re serving your country by doing it in a moral way.
MORALITY
Without a sense of morality, without knowing right from
wrong, or without a desire to live and act in a moral and right fashion none of
the other concepts matter, for it is morality that is the foundation not only for
customer service but for our society and our own individual existence as well. As
Alexis deTocqueville said two hundred years ago America
is great because America
is good, the same holds true with an individual or a firm, to be great you must
be good. In order to give service to a customer, a
person or firm must be moral.
There is no other way. While no
one nor any one firm is perfect, and we all make plenty of mistakes, we must
try to live, and better ourselves with a sense of moral integrity.
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