In the old days of the Soviet Union,collective farms managed the growing process like this: one brigade tilled the soil, one brigade planted, one watered, another harvested and no one was responsible when the crop failed. Unfortunately, this same style of management and customer service seems to have been adopted by America’s biggest companies.
If an interaction with a vendor is pleasant, solves a problem quickly and leaves you feeling good, it’s actually a bit of a shock these days. But a visit to Newport, RI last week demonstrated that customer service still lives and that there are many “linchpins” who walk among us going above and beyond their specific task.
Todd Defren had a great post recently on his blog PR Squared. The post is entitled, “If You Only Do Three Things in Social Media” and one of them was blogging. In his post, he notes that, yes blogging is hard and time consuming but very worthwhile because it encourages people to create content, respect each other by commenting and helping to make content more relevant to target audiences and it is timeless.
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll certainly never get there. But all too often when we seek to engage others either to buy or use a product or to embrace our cause or point of view, we start the conversation in the wrong place. This is where professional facilitation comes in handy−to make sure we make the kind of connection we are expecting.
Recently, I got a call from a survey company asking me “a few” questions about local hospitals (it was more like 30). As someone who often conducts such customer service surveys on behalf of clients, I decided to participate. It was clear after a short time that the survey was about a specific local hospital trying to understand its reputation in the minds of potential consumers and how they make decisions about which hospital to select when they need one.
Just got back from spending two days with my mother who was in the hospital. I was quite amazed at how poorly all the different doctors, technicians and nurses communicated with each other and with my mother, the patient. As an exercise in poor customer service, let alone medical treatment, the focus seemed to be on efficiency over compassion.
