For me, customer service is a way of life. It’s not what you do; it’s who you are. It’s something that comes from deep inside of you. I can always pick out the people who practice this philosophy because they’re the ones who hold doors open for people, say crazy things like “please” and “thank you,” and pick up their garbage when they leave the movie theater. Plain and simple, they’re just nice people. They’re warm, friendly, approachable, easy to talk to, and are quite adept at turning lemons into lemonade.
It’s a philosophy that we should all live by.
Years ago when my eldest son played soccer, I remember walking off a soccer field after a game when I noticed a pile of empty water bottles on the side of the road. There were at least thirty of them, all piled on top of each other. Since no one was picking them up, and every parent was just walking by them, I decided to take a few minutes and dispose of them.
So I bent over and picked up as many as I could. Soon my husband pitched in to help. As we worked to pick them all up, we wondered which team could have left them.
As I reached for the last three bottles, an elderly gentleman stopped and looked at us. It was obvious that he had listened to our conversation because he immediately defended himself by saying, “Those bottles don’t belong to our team.”
Although my arms were completely full of bottles, I took the time to stop and answer him. I smiled and politely replied by saying I was sure that they didn’t.
He then asked why I was picking them up since they clearly didn’t belong to my team either.
I looked him directly in the eye and said, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
He just looked at me like I was a crazy person, muttered “good for you,” and walked to his car never once offering to help. Who did he think was going to pick them up? The guy who mows the lawn?
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Doing the right thing, even if it’s a small thing, is never wrong. In fact, even when you are absolutely certain that no one will ever find out about what you’ve done, you should do it anyway.
The real key to offering concierge-level service? Go above and beyond everyone else in both your professional and person life … even if no one sees you do it.
