Remember the Origins of Great Customer Service

As we celebrate our country’s origins throughout this month, we are reminded that great customer service has been around a very long time.

When the pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, surely there was a directional who pointed the way up the gangplank and a greeter who welcomed arrivals on board.

Well, maybe not, but the origins of great customer service derive from the nature of humans, smiling, acknowledging and embracing one another from cave man to today.

The notion that most if not all of us, regardless of country of origin, need to relate to other humans in some form, that we greet one another with a look, a smile, a tilt of the head to indicate, we are present and we see that other human is as old as the origins of man.  It’s that initial human interaction that forms the basis for great customer service.

While the outward expressions of great customer service don’t show up in all the ways they did “in the old days,” we retain that human need to interact, to see and be seen.

When we walk into a crowded registration area or general session, we scan the room, looking for a face we recognize, or a welcoming face of someone we don’t know yet, but probably will.  Each of us is hard wired to reach out visually and facially for that human interaction, followed by the body language of greeting and all that follows.

Treating each other respectfully and in a caring manner is to some extent regional, but that’s only in its expression; the human desire to care for our fellow man is ingrained.

So, if we are made or conditioned to respond to give great customer service to our fellow man, it’s just fear or boredom or forgetfulness that causes what appears to be a national decline of great customer service.

Perk up, and find ways to take notice of your fellow man, to smile first, to welcome in a warm tone and with warm words, to embrace your fellow human in all the ways you are conditioned and wired to do.

And, if you want to take your meeting or tradeshow up a notch in delivering great customer service, consider assigning the specific role to a uniformed welcome squad of greeters who are trained to deliver curbside customer service to your attendees and exhibitors.  Your guests will feel happy they came and that buzz will carry throughout your event.

Great customer service is all in the details, and it is who we are by nature and design!  So, let’s make the most of what comes naturally.