For the next 3 months, a few of us fellow corporate trainers/consultants will be busy developing, conducting, implementing and evaluating a program that we have christened as " The 5 Star Customer Service Champion" or 5 Star CSC for short for a company involved in several service oriented businesses.
Interestingly, a few days ago I heard of a coffee life-style company (I think I am the first one who coined this term)which believes that service attitude is something that is not trainable. In other words, you either have it or you don't. The recruitment process of this company involves the entire team of staff at each outlet where an interview is conducted and a team decision is made whether the interviewee has the service attitude or not. No training! You come in with the skill to serve. You don't learn on the job!
The obvious question is : Can we train someone to have a service attitude or is it something inborn and natural. Is it nature or is it nurture? I think its both and there are more people in the service industry out there who have been trained in the service attitude although there are a few (very few) who have had the service attitude in them all the while. Lets talk about the latter.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to observe a customer service representative at a DiGi outlet in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. She was one of the few people whom I can confidently say was born to serve. She had such an aura of the service attitude that her other colleagues paled in comparison. I am also confident that providing exceptional service is so natural for her that she will probably wonder about all the fuss about customer service training! Don' get me wrong, as I have come across many other front liner for example, who have provided good service but I would not bet on saying that they have an internal built-in service attitude like the DiGi lady.
The thing is, there are not many like the DiGi lady around. The good ones, so to speak, will sooner or later find their way to better paying employers or more exciting industries. That leaves most other SMEs in a position of making the best of whoever comes their way. The only way to do that is through training.
The vast majority of the people who are employed to represent an organization when dealing with customers on a daily basis needs some form of training and development. Such trainings should also be a continuous and filled with exciting programs, friendly competition and an overall sense of 'activity' all the time. Yes, all the time.
You see, as I have said earlier, most of our people need to be trained in customer service as they are not born with the service attitude and people who needs to be trained in something will sooner or later forget all their learning. The only effective way to keep their learning fresh and active is by constantly creating a buzz around it. Remember the Fish Philosophy? I believe that it was so successful not because of its novelty of learning from a bunch of fish-mongers but because it was a process filled with laughter, fun, games, competition and a general sense of on-going buzz to the extent that much of the concepts became part of their everyday lingo.
In fact, 2 years ago when we were conducting a sales program for managers of a Malaysian telco, we noticed a drastic and noticebale change in the service attitude of the front liners of this telco who were at that time going though their own customer service training.
So, is customer service attitude trainable. Yes. Do everybody need the training? No. Are there many more who needs the training than who don't? Yes. Thats my equation.
But wait, there is another component to this equation: Are there those who are just not fit for the service industry? Yes. What to do with them? Train them and get rid of them if they don't perform to expectations. But remember: train them first for benefit of the doubt as there are many unpolished diamonds out there.
I am hoping to discover some of these diamonds in the next 3 months.
Cheers to all of you.
