A Culture of Customer Care
You know how you start to notice things once you become aware of a topic or become involved with something new or different? That is exactly what has happened with us since rolling out Taking Care of Your Customers. All of the sudden, customer service experiences are all around us…
Last week we talked about Barb and the exceptional care she took of us in the office supply store. This week we encountered a culture of excellent customer care at our bank; we thought this experience was a perfect follow up to illustrate the impact that culture has on customer care.
We define culture as “the way we do things around here,” in other words, the behaviors of people. So here is what happened:
We went to the bank to get some documents notarized; one of the services we get at our bank is that they will notarize our documents without charging a fee.
The teller who is the notary was on the phone with another customer, so we were offered a cup of coffee and asked to have a (very comfortable) seat to wait for her. Look, there’s the culture!
As we waited, we couldn’t help but overhear the call. Apparently the customer was having a very hard time understanding the statement and our teller was doing everything she could to explain over the phone something that would have been much easier handled face-to-face.
As over 20 minutes passed, the teller continued to work every angle possible to explain the statement to a customer who seemed agitated; not once did she raise her voice or speed up her conversation. She showed no signs of frustration, although she must have felt some. Look, there’s the culture!
Once she got off the call, she looked up at us with a smile and said, “I can take you right over here at my desk.” The woman didn’t miss a beat – she acted as if she had nothing else to do that day but take care of us. Look, there’s the culture!
As you can imagine, we were mightily impressed. It’s been our experience that this is a regular occurrence at this bank ~ we bank here because of that. We can tell by our past experiences that what matters most to the employees at this branch is how the customer is treated.
Intrigued? Check out our February newsletter for more on the value of excellent customer care.
