Not that long ago, I had a bad employee. He was charming, funny and a good looking person with charisma that was approaching James Bond devilishness. He also happened to be a sociopath.
It took me a while to realize that this employee had some issues. What it taught me was the power of excellent customer service.
You see, this employee sabotaged some customer’s office machines for a different company of mine. He was smart enough to then keep in constant contact with them to let them know that help was on the way…soon. It took me a few weeks to get wind of the underlying problems that were building up.
This isn’t a blog about bad employees. This is a blog about great customer service. This employee, though criminal and negligent and void of all concern for our client’s office machines, was smart enough to care about the client’s feelings. That is why it took weeks to discover the issue.
That is to say that this employee spoke kindly, punctually and routinely to the clients he was working with. We live in a culture that believes that communication does not need to be kind, common or timely. At least, that is the way most communication is happening. So when we find kind people that meet our desires to have a real person to speak with to help us, we latch on. As we should. Good customer service is defined by great communication.
The joke around the Calls On Call office is that we could start any service company and be terrible at what we do and still thrive. For example, we could start a plumbing company and be terrible plumbers. The difference between us as terrible plumbers with great communication and great plumbers with terrible communication is that the people that need a plumber will be able to actually reach us. Have you ever tried to call a plumber? Most do not answer their phone.
After the person that needs a plumber reaches us we would keep kind, timely communication occurring. It may take days for us to solve their problem. But we would treat the customer with great respect and keep them involved in knowing what we were doing.
But Calls On Call isn’t going to start a plumbing company. We exist so that great plumbers can use us to have their companies become great communicators. Imagine a service company that was great at communication AND great at the actual service they were providing. That is the world that Calls On Call is here to help promote and grow.
You as a consumer deserve great communication. You as a business owner deserve to have clients that trust you will keep communication with them open.
James Kademan is one of the owners for Calls On Call, a shared receptionist service in Madison, Wisconsin. If you would like to know how Calls On Call can help improve your business communication, call 608-210-3110 or email hello@callsoncall.com. Or hire a full-time receptionist. Or something else, just get your phones answered. Seriously, you have a real business and clients want to give money to people they can actually talk to.
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