Big Picture

At my place of employment my team and I are entering the busiest time of year. We have hundreds of students to help as they work to complete their financial aid, housing, and items pertaining to their student accounts for the fall semester. As we are getting into this busy time there are dozens of tasks that must be completed daily and weekly and it can be very easy to focus on them rather than our customers. We routinely remind ourselves of our purpose (to prepare leader-servants) and why we are doing what we are doing. It is important to always stay focused on best-in-class customer service. My team works together to remind each other of that. Each week in our staff meeting we review a customer service concept or principle and share ideas of how we could implement it in our office and our experiences with it and our customers. It keeps us focused and excited to serve while we perform all of the necessary tasks. We should all do this from time to time, stop and evaluate how we are doing and what we could be doing better, particularly in relation to our customers and their experience with us.

Shopping Cart

A few weeks ago I was at a large retail store and had paid for my purchases. I was heading to the car with my wife and two children and the shopping cart full of merchandise. We arrived at the car, buckled the children into their car seats, and loaded the trunk. As I was finishing loading the trunk of the car an employee happened to be walking by. He jogged over and asked if I was done with the cart. I responded that I was and he asked if I would like him to put the cart away. I once again acknowledged in the affirmative. He grabbed the cart and as he began to push it back to the store (mind you he was smiling the entire time) he thanked me for shopping there and wished me a good evening. I have gone back to that same store (one I don't normally visit often) at least 4 times since then. Small and simple things. It's all about the small and simple acts of kindness. That is what great customer service, common "cents" customer service, is all about.