This is why it happens

 Whenever I speak of

customer service, I am reminded of how some people from north India, from the

Hindi speaking belt of UP and MP pronounce it. They say, ‘Kasht-mar service’.

Now ‘Kasht’ in Hindi means ‘difficulty’. And ‘Mar’ means to die. So, the literal

translation of ‘Kasht-Mar’ would be (Kasht-say-mar) meaning ‘die slowly with

difficulty’. Not a very nice thing to say but that is what some people in the

business of providing service seem to be saying to their customers (Kashtmars).

Customer service is about customers, not about the content, technology or industry in which those customers operate. This is a very important thing to understand and accept if one is not to fall into the trap of feeling that somehow our own industry is so unique that the lessons learnt in the airline, hotel, BPO, IT or hospital businesses are not applicable to us. If we deal with people, lessons learnt in any industry that have to do with people, apply to us and we would be very foolish to ignore them. Customers and people think holistically. When we experience bad service on board a plane, we compare it quite happily (albeit sometimes unconsciously) to the overall service standard that we are used to in our own environment and feel proportionately bad about it. If we come from a country like Singapore where the quality of service is generally very superior, we will tend to feel highly dissatisfied with bad service. But someone who comes from another country where service standards are generally pretty low, they may find the same service to be acceptable because their expectations are so low to begin with. When experiencing on-board in-flight service, we don’t compare it only to our experience on other airlines. Even people who are flying for the first time feel dissatisfied with poor service. So, lessons are transferable.

Great customer service is a

combination of two things: a genuine desire to serve and some key things to do

(tools). Let us look at each of them.

Attitude: Whenever I think of an attitude

of great customer service I remember when I first went to Singapore in 1994. I

was there to teach a course in teaming skills at GE Asia. I reached my hotel by

about midday and having had lunch and rested, decided to go out in the evening

to see the city. I came out of the hotel and stood at the curbside waiting for

a cab. One came along in less than 2 minutes and then it happened. The driver

pulled up, got out of the car, trotted (he didn’t walk, he trotted) around the

back to where I was, opened the rear passenger door and ushered me into the cab

with a flourish. I realized that I was in the presence of something special and

silently got in.

The interior was spotlessly clean

and smelled of some pleasant mild perfume. I sat waiting for the next act of

the play. And there it was. He said to me as I was sitting in the cab, ‘That is

today’s newspaper for you Sir and some water if you’re thirsty. I hope you are

comfortable.’ I said that I was and thanked him. He shut the door respectfully,

trotted (once again he didn’t walk) back to his seat and said, looking at me in

the rearview mirror, ‘Where can I take you Sir?’ I replied, ‘I don’t want to go

anywhere. I want to just sit here so that I can enjoy the experience of being

in your car.’

I still remember this incident so

many years later as if it happened yesterday. The point is that he was an

ordinary taxi driver who had never gone to a single training class in customer

service. He was in a business where customers commonly have the least

expectation of service and are only interested in not being deceived to pay