Customer Service Week

Customer Service Week 2009 is October 5 – 9.   For anyone making their first foray into Customer Service Week, here’s a primer and some free resources.

What is Customer Service Week?

1 – Customer Service Week is the first full week of October.  (Go ahead and mark your calendars for next year, you will appreciate the extra time to prepare.)

2 – Customer Service Week is an opportunity to recognize employees and teams who support our Customers. It is a chance to reward and motivate our front line staff, who often do not get much in the way of recognition, so don’t let this opportunity go to waste!

3 – It is a great time to celebrate outstanding Customer Service with competitions, awards, prizes, food and fun for both employees AND Customers!

Suggested Ideas for Customer Service Week

1 -Pick a Theme – A quick search on Google will bring up dozens of ideas for Customer Service Week, and there are countless others that teams have come up with on their own.  We had a Football theme one year, a friend of mine had a Survivor Theme in their company.  Use that theme throughout the week for everything from food to competitions.

1 – Serve Lots of Food.  This is perhaps the single biggest thing that people look forward to in Customer Service Week.  Many companies bring in breakfast for their employees on Monday of Customer Service Week, then cater a lunch or take their teams out to eat mid-way through the week.    If you have a budget for food, then this is your chance to spend it! If you have a shoe string budget (which is all too common), I would suggest donuts or bagels for Monday breakfast, a potluck for Wednesday lunch and some sort of snacks throughout the week.

2 – Hold Competitions. Whatever your industry is, there is some sort of competition that your employees can engage in. Whether it is work related (how many transactions can they achieve in a day, what is the highest level of quality they can score) or simply just fun (best costumes, cubicle decorations, bingo games, etc.), there are a host of opportunities for you to pump up your team this week.

3 – Recognize Your Employees.   From printed Certificates of  Appreciation to handwritten notes, there are many ways for you to show your employees that you care about them and value the work that they do.  Start now and make sure that you find a way to recognize each and every employee individually in some way that is meaningful to them.

4 – Thank Your Customers.  We often miss this during Customer Service Week, which I find quite interesting, given the name of the week starts with the word “Customer”. Many companies will offer some type of Customer Recognition, a giveaway or something to show their appreciation.  Other companies send Thank You notes to their Customers, timing them so that they arrive early in the week.  Whatever method you decide on, this is the time to really reach out to your Customers and thank them.

This should get you started, in addition, here are some free resources for Customer Service Week. Many are Tech Support related, however, I think they are appreciable by all. Of course, the best thing for Customer Service Week is to order copies of my book, Customer Service Voodoo for everyone on your team.  You can order it here (Amazon), here or here.

If you get stuck and just want some ideas or to brainstorm, contact me and I will be glad to help you.

Humor

The Chronicles of George is an Irrevent, funny, all-too accurate journal of Technical Customer Support. Please, don’t be George.

Nick Burns, the Company Computer Guy, was a reoccurring skit on Saturday Night Live several years ago. It featured Jimmy Fallon as the geeky, smart-alec IT Support person who made fun of his customers for their lack of technical knowledge. Great examples of what not to do in Customer Support. Extreme sarcasm follows…..

Skit 1 – http://cnettv.cnet.com/9742-1_53-11125.html

Skit 2 – http://www.hulu.com/watch/19050/saturday-night-live-nick-burns

Articles

A few years ago, I wrote an article for HDI’s Support World magazine (http://www.thinkhdi.com/) titled “Darth Vader Works At My Help Desk“. It originally first appeared in print in the July / August 2006 issue of Support World (available from HDI). The original idea came from Kirk Weisler (http://www.kirkweisler.com/) and I mulled the idea for a while and expanded it. Here it is in the original form:

http://customerservicevoodoo.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/darth-vader-works-at-my-help-desk

Free Webinars

HDI is offering FREE webinars for Customer Service Week (I am giving one of them). The line-up starts Monday, October 5 and as more information comes out, I will post it.