With Baudville being its own little universe, a veritable Mulligan Stew of unique personalities and talents, it’s always been my fantasy to have more team members contribute to this blog. This week I got my wish with a guest star from our stellar Customer Service Team. I am geek-tacularly excited!
 
Why from our Customer Service Team? Because it’s Customer Service Week, of course!
 
Meet Ruth, who shares what she loves about the Customer Service Week celebrations we’ve had at Baudville:

It is another busy work day. The phones are ringing, the faxes humming, and emails are whizzing in and out. Your department is alive with activity, and your employees and co-workers are busy doing all of things that make you want to recognize them during Customer Service Week. The thought of pulling people from their routines to participate in some Customer Service Week fun might seem unthinkable. When business peaks and stress levels rise, being able to take a moment away from the typical rush of the work day for recognition is the perfect way to tell employees that you appreciate everything that they do to keep business running.

Some of my favorite moments from Customer Service Week, both present and past, have included being given the gift of time. Whether it was a whole lunch with my entire department or 10 minutes to participate in an activity like a paper airplane throwing contest, the time away is a moment in an otherwise busy day for my brain to stop and say “ahhhhh!”  While the occasional thought of emails piling up in my queue does pop into my head, it’s important to keep in perspective what a short time frame this is and to remember that I have been given this time away as a valuable gift from my managers.

Try giving your employees a little break during your next recognition event. Depending on the needs of your business, it can be longer like a lunch break or a small 10 minute mini-break. To make it extra special, you can accompany it with a small treat like desserts or a scheduled activity like a trivia contest. Your employees will appreciate that you value them enough to give them a gift as important as time.

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Ruth is a customer service pro who has been answering to Baudville’s customers since 2005. She currently spends the majority her time setting up and keeping an eye on custom art requests, so if you have an order with a logo, she’s one of your go-to gals. Outside of the ‘ville, Ruth rocks it in the rink as one of the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls. Look out, this girl’s ruthless!

I wrote in my last post about my past life as a department supervisor. At that time, I was working at a mortgage company that had a massive customer service call center operating out of our building. While this team was on the phones lines, my department was working behind the scenes reviewing mortgage documents and initiating the correction process if mistakes were found. As the perpetual bearers of bad news, we were not very popular folks.

We had a company-wide program called “WOW”, which was our way of recognizing exceptional customer service. While, philosophically-speaking, our organization subscribed to the concept that everyone is a customer, whether external or internal, the only employees who ever won a “WOW” were our call center reps who had received great customer feedback. There’s nothing wrong with that; except… I had a department of 27 hardworking people who had never shaken the hand of our CEO and they were starting to get hostile.

Facing the potential of an angry mob, my team leaders and I leapt to action and created our own program. We used it only within our group to nominate each other for a monthly excellence award. The winner took possession of our travelling trophy – one that we ordered, incidentally, from Baudville:

The trophy passed through the hands of several proud team members before I left to frolic in more literate pastures. Hmmm, I wonder where it is today…

Jumping back to the present, I’m thinking about how the same recognition disparity could happen at Baudville. Except that it doesn’t. Every morning, we read in our comment cards how a customer had a great order experience with Andrea, or Ryan, or Justin, or Mary Jo. Hats off to them for sure for making our customers so dang happy.

But even when our customers have never spoken to us and can’t mention us by name, when I read that a trophy arrived flawlessly engraved, I know that we have Lindsay or another member of our custom team to thank. Or when that same order arrived so quickly that our customer nearly fainted, Marilyn probably helped make that happen. When I read that our web site is easy to use and shopping was a breeze, I know Nik probably worked late to ensure that. Jeff made sure we had enough products in stock to fulfill a massive order without delay. April designed a theme that everyone is raving about. Laura handled a tricky issue with a customer’s invoice.

I sound like I’m tooting our horn a little too loudly, I know. But, really, I’m blaring out the praises of all of the individual Baudvillians who make this place work. Just as we are all customer service, so are all of the members of your staff. How about saying thank you this year during Customer Service Week? It’s right around the corner: October 3-7.

In the spirit of everything I’ve just written, I’m recommending gifts from our TEAM theme:

Its design will appeal to everyone on your team and the message drives home that every person brings value to your organization.

Did this post inspire you to plan a company-wide Customer Service Week celebration? Tell us about it!    

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Allison is a self-proclaimed Copywriting Diva and has the certificate to prove it! She’s been writing for Baudville for two years and has worked in a variety of business settings for more than 17 years. Before becoming a professional writer 10 years ago, Allison worked as a department manager where she used Baudville products to motivate her team. She’s what we call a true believer!