During the first full week of October, we celebrate frontline staff during the nationally observed Customer Service Week. The recognition holiday takes place annually and is an important time to express appreciation for employees who interact directly with your customers.

Why is this important? Recent research by The Forum: Business Results through People has found that employee behavior increases customer spending. According to the study, “engaged employees created customers that purchased more, and a key measure of employees’ value was their impact on the income flows from customers.” Employees are more engaged when they feel valued and appreciated for their work! Customer Service Week is a great opportunity to make a big deal about your frontline employees, and hopefully influence customer sales, too.

We take Customer Service Week pretty seriously at Baudville. Our Spirit Team plans five days of activities that all revolve around a recognition theme. This year, our theme was Celebrating our Superheroes. We had so much fun with our theme that we wanted to share it with you. Maybe you’ll end up using some of our ideas for your next Customer Service Week theme!


Our Spirit Team designer created Baudville superhero characters!

Monday – During Customer Service Week, every Baudvillian was treated as a superhero! Employees had the chance to promote their super powers by designing a mask and creating their superhero alter ego. Creative stations were set up throughout the building with mask-decorating supplies including pipe cleaners, jewels, construction paper, and glitter glue.

Tuesday – To fuel the work of the superhero masks, we brought in a soft serve ice cream machine. Staff created their very own Super Sundaes!

Wednesday – Baudville superheroes had the opportunity to throw, shoot, punch, and knock their way through a Superhero Obstacle Course! Competitors donned capes and made their way through the course to defeat the super villain at the end.

Thursday – After all the superhero masks had been completed, teams voted on their top two favorite. The winning masks and their superhero counterpart were featured in a special photo shoot! See the awesome pictures below. 

Friday – First thing in the morning, all employees had a note of appreciation from their manager displayed in a Memo Clip waiting on their desk. The notes were a great day for managers to thank employees for sharing their super powers every day!

As a grand finale to our Customer Service Week, all of our superheroes enjoyed a lunch buffet and voted on the best superhero duo photo from Thursday. Which one is your favorite?

Did you celebrate your frontline staff last week? What was your Customer Service Week theme? Tell us about it in the comments!

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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.

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.

 When it comes to celebrating Customer Service Week, we recommend taking advantage of the holiday to express appreciation for customer service professionals. Customer Service Week is a nationally-recognized observance week taking place October 1 – 5, 2012. The recognition holiday provides companies the opportunity to put the spotlight on frontline customer service representatives.

We recommend companies start by brainstorming Customer Service Week themes. Using a theme makes the event more memorable, and saves time and money during the planning process. A theme serves as the branding for your event or program. Our designers spend weeks perfecting themes and searching high and low for the newest gift items.

We have over 100 recognition themes, and our recognition experts recommend customers choose a different theme for Customer Service Week each year. The popular Customer Service Week theme for 2012 is You Rock, a new addition to the Baudville repertoire that is designed for a diverse workforce.

When you’re planning your Customer Service Week celebration, remember that sincere appreciation of frontline employees is an important part of customer satisfaction and retention. Research shows that happy employees lead to happy customers and happy customers generate more revenue.  Customer Service Week themes make the appreciation more memorable and effective, and therefore has a greater impact on customer satisfaction.

Managers looking for unique Customer Service Week themes should visit our Recognition Resource Center for articles, videos, and newsletters. All the resources focus on planning effective Customer Service Week celebrations that will increase employee and customer satisfaction.

At Baudville, we’ve seen firsthand the value celebrating exceptional customer service can bring to an organization.  We want to help our customers have a similarly great experience with their celebrations!

We recognize Customer Service Week with a week-long celebration that includes the entire company because we believe every employee plays an important part in the customer experience. We celebrate our customer service excellence every year, and it all starts with great Customer Service Week themes!

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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.

One of Baudville’s best practices for Customer Service Week includes Pocket Praise, our popular mini-note cards. Every year, our managers write a note to each employee and have it waiting for them when they arrive in the morning. This has become a favorite part of our week-long celebration that you can hear more about it in this Recognition TV webisode.

The easy part of writing notes to your team is picking the card design and putting the cards on their desks. The hard part is knowing what to write! When sitting down to write your Customer Service Week notes, use these tips and ideas to draft meaningful messages to your team.

1. Say thank you. Thank the individual for their contributions. Let them know you couldn’t do it without them and you’re thankful they’re on your team! Try to write “thank you” or “I appreciate” at least twice in your note. I usually include it once at the beginning and again at the end.

2. Be specific. What specific qualities or characteristics does this individual have that are valued at your organization? Do they have the patience of a saint with not-so-saintly customers? Are they a creative problem solver who can get the product into customers’ hands no matter what? Identify what makes each team member unique and put it in writing.
 
3. Talk about values. I’m confident that regardless of your type of work or where you’re located, your organization has values that drive how it does business. If you want employees to embody those values, then you need to recognize them! Customer Service Week is a great time to do that. Which value do you see this individual exhibit day-in and day-out? Tell them about it!

4. Avoid criticism. Remember that Customer Service Week is all about appreciating your frontline employees. Sure, there are areas where each of your employees could improve, but don’t be tempted to include criticism in your note! The purpose of this note is to tell your team thanks and let them know what they’re doing right. Save the coaching for another day.

Not get started! Just because Customer Service Week 2012 is October 1-5 doesn't mean you can't get a head start! For more positive feedback ideas and phrases you can use in your notes, visit our Recognition Resource Center for our popular Give Positive Employee Feedback with your own Positive Words article.

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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.