Originally Posted by
HereAndThereSC
Given the choice of working in the fields harvesting tomatoes, and doing customer service for the same pay... Which would you chose?
Customer service is not a highly skilled job, I dare to say.
JP
Ahhh... but that is the very problem. It is the attitude that "customer service is not a highly skilled job," that causes so many of the problems. It is the thought by airlines (and others... DMV comes to mind) that interacting with customers is not a very highly skilled job that is exactly the problem.
What is customer service? Well, generally speaking what it "is" with most airlines - and some other companies - is more or less "customer issue automation." It's a process designed to "handle" customer complaints in a manner that is most efficient for the corporation.
What it should be? Serving your customers. That's the "art" of customer service. It's also the definition. It's the idea that 'my job is to make this customer's experience outstanding.' It happens to be a very high skilled job.
Look at the spectacular examples of outstanding customer service:
FedEx: I pay more to ship FedEx than I could with UPS or USPS. Why? Because it always gets there on time. And in the INCREDIBLY rare time that it doesn't - they ALWAYS go way above and beyond to personally handle the situation. Their customer service people spend more time in training than their operations people.
Disney: It's not the most magical place on earth because a bunch of high school students are manning the shop. Disney recruits and trains the best of the best and insists on creating an outstanding experience.
Apple: I pay more for their "applecare" warranty because the service is impeccable. I also shop in their stores because they "get it." Their people are skilled and trained well.
Enterprise: Want to get promoted at Enterprise? It's TOTALLY based on your customer service quality score. Not on how much revenue you produce - but whether or not you are exceeding customer expectations. Sometimes it costs me more to rent from them, but I've never had a bad experience.
Outback Steakhouse: They train their people for an average of 10 days before they ever wait a table on their own. You pay a little more for a steak, but again, the service is always outstanding.
There are companies that get that serving customers, and providing outstanding service is not only the "right" way to run a business - it's also the profitable way!
opps... almost forgot to add... with the exception of the pilots at FedEx, not a single "customer service" related person in any of these companies are in a union.