In Life & In Customer Service - Be You

I spend a good chunk of my time thinking about what to write about next in this blog - when I’m laying in bed at night, when I am out for a walk, driving to work, eating my lunch...you get the idea. It occupies a large portion of my thoughts.

I decided to take a different approach to my thinking this week.  Instead of thinking about customer service as this entity all onto itself, and I began to just think about relationships as a whole. And here is the conclusion I came to:

Regardless of time, place, situation, circumstance -  it never ever pays to be anyone but yourself. I’m not going to get into the reasons, I’m going to leave that with you, because I think you’ll find that even if you disagree at first, the more you think about it, the more you will see it’s true.

Let me make a distinction - always be yourself, but mind your manners. We were all brought up with them, we all know how to use them, so they really shouldn’t put a cramp in your personality.

When I consider all the customer service experiences I’ve had (and boy, have I had a LOT of ones worthy of talking about lately!), the ones that stick out the most are not the ones where the person was very formal, yet polite. That’s all fine and good, but not memorable.

The ones that stick out are the ones where I could clearly tell they were being genuine and candid, where it didn’t feel like a business transaction but like I was chatting with a friend - it was casual, breezy conversation, jokes were made, interests shared and when I walked away or hung up the phone, without realising it, I was smiling because I had ENJOYED the whole experience.

It stopped being a chore the minute that person was able to connect with me. And the only way you can effectively do that is by being yourself.

This is why customer service isn’t for everyone, some people are more closed off, reserved people. This doesn’t mean they are unfriendly, just more introverted, less comfortable opening up with strangers.

Who’s on your front line? Do you think they will provide your customers with a memorable experience? What about you? Do you let your personality shine through?