At Baudville, our Spirit Team is busy meeting behind closed doors and completing top secret projects in preparation of Customer Service Week starting next Monday. Who’s the Spirit Team ? They’re a group of employees representing several different departments at Baudville who put on their party planning hats and organize our employee events. Customer Service Week is one of their biggest since they have to plan for an entire week of appreciation and fun.  And they do a great job! Our Customer Service Week celebrations are always a favorite among the Baudville staff.

We’ve found two major benefits to planning employee events as a team. First, it helps distribute the workload among several individuals. Events like Customer Service Week require a lot of work! It can be too much for one person on top of their full time job responsibilities. Second, the additional minds lend to more creative, original, and unique ideas. With a recurring annual event like Customer Service Week, getting new ideas is imperative to making your team feel appreciated during this holiday. If you’re not currently planning this event as a team, consider recruiting a few individuals to help you next year.

In the meantime, you have the entire Baudville team at your disposal to come up with creative Customer Service Week ideas your team will love! If you’re still searching for a few great ideas to celebrate your team, try our five resources for last minute ideas. I guarantee you’ll find at least one idea both you and your team will love!

1. Browse our Recognition Resource Center. We have resources dedicated to Customer Service and Sales recognition, including lots of articles, tips, and ideas on Customer Service Week!

2. Shop our recommended Customer Service Week gifts and themes. Our team has pulled together some of our favorite Customer Service Week gifts to help you start shopping.

3. Call a Recognition Specialist at 1-800-728-0888. Our team is always ready and willing to help you plan your employee recognition event! They have great product and event knowledge that they are dying to share with you.

4. Engage with us – and your peers! – on social media. One of the best places to get ideas for Customer Service Week is from your peers. Ask us a question on Twitter or Facebook, and our
followers will share their ideas, too.

5. Get ideas on Pinterest. One of my favorite places for event and recognition ideas these days is Pinterest! We’ve created boards for all the major employee recognition holidays, including Customer Service Week, to inspire you and give you some great ideas.

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

Customer Service Week is coming up October 1-5, and managers are in the midst of planning themes, games, and prizes to energize and recognize their team. This year for Customer Service Week, why not get the team involved in the recognition?

This activity is from our Team Up! eBook, and it’s great for Customer Service Week. This activity doesn’t interrupt business as usual, and employees can incorporate it into their every day routine. It encourages employees to practice peer recognition and look for the great things their coworkers do every day.  And if your team really likes the activity, it can become a long term recognition program!

You can do this activity with as few as three people and as many as you want! You will need a set of Cheerful Change coins and a note cube or note pad. You could also use Tokens of Appreciation for the coins and add your company logo to the back. This activity is very quick and easy to explain:

Step 1: Fill a bowl with your choice of Cheerful Change coins. Bring the bowl and the note cube to your next team meeting.  Explain to the team that this is the bowl for “making change,” and that the goal is to create a more positive, helpful culture. 

Step 2: Explain to the team that whenever they see someone doing something that contributes to the team’s goals,  helps a teammate, or makes things easier for a customer, they should write that person’s name and what they did on a note and place it in the “Making Change” bowl.  Then they take a coin from the bowl and give it to that co-worker, thanking them for the specific action that is making the workplace change for the better.  Example:  “You have demonstrated positive change for us by creating this customer service form, so I want to give some cheerful change to you.”

Step 3: When a team member receives a coin, he should look for someone else doing something helpful and pass it on, being sure to write what they did on a note and place it in the bowl.

Step 4: When the bowl is empty of coins, celebrate with a team lunch or a treat at the next team meeting.  Ask everyone to bring back their coins to refill the bowl and begin again.  When the coins are returned to the bowl, remove the post-It notes and say, “Let’s find out how we made change.” Then ask everyone on the team to pick a note and read it.  This allows them to re-live the helpful behavior and the recognition given for it.

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

Looking back on Customer Service Week, I have to say our Spirit Team has done it again! This year’s theme was “Made in Michigan,” and if you live in Michigan, near us, or have just heard about our great state, then you know we have a lot to offer. 

From a Euchre tournament, to afternoon treats from Grand Traverse Pie Company, to Hot Wheels racing with Motor City classics, our team did an excellent job incorporating themes that are dear to Michiganders while making sure there was something to energize, engage, and enthuse everyone in the building!

At Baudville, we believe that all of our team members represent customer service, whether they’re on the phones or tucked away in a cubicle crunching numbers. That means celebrating the week always involves a variety of diversions, from games to food to everything in-between. Essentially, something for every Baudvillian to enjoy – just like we like it! 

We make Customer Service Week a really big deal because we know that our customer service is what sets us apart. And we also know that every single person at Baudville is a part of making our service exceptional. We can’t think of a better way to say thanks than making it last for an entire week. 

Cheers!

 
Baudvillians race their Motor City Classics! 

How did you celebrate Customer Service Week? Tell us about your theme and activities here!

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Brad Darooge is President and CEO of Baudville and a positive mojo aficionado. He brings the positive mojo to work every day along with his bike. In addition to leading Baudville, Brad is also an amateur triathlete.

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!

This year we are kicking off Customer Service Week by celebrating something that is close to all our hearts here at Baudville. We are celebrating Michigan, with our Made in Michigan themed Customer Service Week.

For me Customer Service Week is extra special this year because it’s my first one… ever.  I was told last week kind of what to expect going into Customer Service Week, but for the most part I was left to determine what Baudville’s Customer Service Week is all about all by myself.  

Here's what we have been up to so far:

My first discovery about Customer Service Week at Baudville is that we get an entire week of casual days! If you have read any of my previous blog posts you will know about my enthusiasm for casual days. I promise, this blog post is not another rant about how much I love casual days.

Friday afternoon all of the employees received an email pumping us up for Customer Service Week but leaving the theme a secret.  On the dot at 8 o’clock Monday morning we were greeted by an email introducing our Made in Michigan themed Customer Service Week and the activity of the day: euchre.  Euchre is a very dear card game to all of us Michiganders and most of us have grown up playing with family and friends. Here at Baudville, two people from each department volunteered to play a high stakes game of euchre against the other departments. The winning team won a special prize for their department.  With the thoughts of euchre looming in the air that day a lot of Baudvillians got together and played card games at lunch. It was a great way for employees to hang out during their break and have a good time with each other.

On Tuesday our knowledge was tested. How much do we actually know about Michigan? We were quizzed with Michigan trivia questions like, What is our State’s Reptile? How many lighthouses does Michigan have?  and True or false, Michigan is one of two places in the world with a floating post office? False… we’re the only one! Then we finished the day with some yummy Made in Michigan pies!

Today, Wednesday, we were greeted with toy Hot Wheels cars and a gift certificate for a free car wash. At lunch we opened the cars and raced them against others. This provided a fun little activity that Baudvillans have been talking about all day, or should I say smack talking, as they compared their cars.

I found out that Customer Service Week is incredibly important here at Baudville. The activities that are planned throughout the week are great ways of saying thanks for all the hard work and that we truly do appreciate our customer service reps. Appreciating your customer service reps doesn’t have to be an over the top occasion, games and trivia can be just as nice of a gesture.

Tell us what you are doing for Customer Service Week!

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Kendra is the newest Baudvillian. She is currently an advertising intellectual at Grand Valley State University, and is ecstatic about the change of atmosphere as Baudville’s web marketing intern. Watch out because this young professional just touched down at Baudville.