Service is Not a Science

Service is not a Science, it’s an Art.  Put another way, think of a great painting like the Mona Lisa, from across the room…Beauty, Magic, and Inspiration!  Yet if you walk up right next to it, you will see gobs of paint!  Getting closer to it doesn’t make it look clearer or better, you must stand back to appreciate it.

When you try to get to the whole truth simply by analyzing Customer Service, you get the same thing, gobs of nonsense.

Ask someone you know to explain to you why they love baseball or fishing or golf or anything that doesn’t really resonate for you.  They won’t be able to, because it’s not the sum of the parts that creates a love, it’s the thing itself.

I’ve heard many speakers over the years and read many books about Customer Service but they all make it sound so complicated. 

You see, although I’ve heard it discussed so many times by so many “experts”, I’m still amazed that, so many companies get it wrong.  It’s not really complicated, that’s part of the problem, it’s really quite simple, and that is why the “Real” answer to Customer Service escapes so many including those who head up some of the biggest companies in America.

Because they succeed and grow by analyzing their performance in every area of business, from inventory turns, to shrink management, to sales trends, they make the critical mistake of thinking that Customer Service is another facet of business that can be understood and improved simply by analyzing it.

In almost any direct customer service business imaginable, survival is based on repeat business, not on random folks just wandering into your store or restaurant, right?

So why do so many service businesses fail?

Here’s what I have come to believe…

It takes more and less than just the numbers to explain Customer Service…let me show you…

Let me share with you “The Truth” I’ve learned over the years, some of the most critical lessons, and let me preface it by saying that it took me about 25 of those years before I really began to “Get it”.  I’m a slow learner, but I think I finally “got it.”  It probably started with The Hells Angels…

I’ll never forget it, the Friday night I thought I was going die dipping Ice Cream cones!

I had been working at Sav-on Drugs in Whittier, California for about 6 months during my senior year in High School, dipping ice cream cones.  8 hours a day, 40 hours a week.  Cones cost 5 cents for a single dip and 10 cents for a double!  Wow, prices sure have changed!

You never saw the end of the line!  People would wait 20 or 30 minutes to spend their nickel and the whole time they were in line they would be staring at the menu board.  Then, when it was their turn at last, I’d say, “what would you like?” and they would look at me and say, “What flavors do you have?” 

“Are you kidding me?  You’ve been looking at the menu board for half an hour!  We have vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, rocky road, chocolate marble, strawberry cheesecake, lemon sherbet, lime sherbet, raspberry sherbet, all the same flavors we had yesterday when you waited in line for half an hour!”  

Well, I didn’t really say that, but I wanted to!  Like most teenagers, I didn’t have much patience and was just being exposed to working with the public for the first time.

On this particular Friday night, I was dipping away when I glanced at the back of the line and spotted about a dozen Hells Angels just getting into line.  They were huge and very scary looking.  As they advanced through the line I kept getting more and more nervous.  The one in the lead looked bigger than Goliath and I was sure that when he got to the front, he would just grab me, pull me over the counter and stomp me into the floor for entertainment.

I’ll never forget what he said when it was finally his turn; it’s burned into my memory like it was yesterday… 

“Can I have a double-dip chocolate cone please?” 

I was flabbergasted; he had smiled at me and was actually very pleasant!  All the rest of his friends were also.  After that, they would come in every Friday night and I always looked forward to seeing them.  They sort of became my friends…

That was the first lesson I learned…when you give someone, almost anyone, an ice cream cone, they smile.  Little kids, senior citizens, men, women, it doesn’t matter what they look like, or who they are, they all smile.

Well over the years, I realized that you get the same reaction when you give a smile that I got when I served that ice cream…A smile right back from almost everyone.

But it took a long time to really sink in, to really understand what that meant…

So, Lesson #1:  Smile…even when it hurts!

Hire only people who can sincerely smile when you talk with them.  If they don’t smile during your interview, do you think they will smile after you hire them? And oh, by the way…the smile isn’t about the teeth, it’s about the sincerity.