Service Basics

This week I called a company to get help with additions and changes to our services.

My experience with this call made me think about the meaning of ‘customer service’. Put the word ‘customer’ in front of ‘service’ and immediately expectations of something good, excellent or beneficial is bound to occur.

On the contrary, ‘customer service’ does not carry the definition I attach to it. It simply means, I am the customer and someone is going to provide assistance to me. There is no promise of good, excellent of beneficial being made in the term ‘customer service’.

Back to my call I was making.

After listening to a long menu of choices, and selecting what I thought was the best possible choice, I finally reached a person. She asked if I was interested in purchasing additional services. I responded yes and added that I was interested in deleting some as well—she told me she needed to transfer me to ‘customer care’. I waited on ‘hold’ for 17 minutes.

I wondered quietly about the ‘customer care’ that’s too often the absent in our service oriented culture. Maybe I’m more hyper-sensitive than some. In our remodeling business, it’s all about the service and the details. I’m happy to be a part of a company where our commitment to ‘customer care’ makes these personally shared testimonials and remodeling stories possible.