Hello shoppers...
I present to you (with all apologies to God, who has forgiven me for acts more egregious than tongue-in-cheekly paraphrasing from His Book, for purposes of a blog post) the following guidelines for employees, that I call...
The Ten Commandments of Customer Service
| 1 | “I am the customer, who pays your salary through what I buy in your store. You shall wait on no other customer but me at one time, no matter how busy you are or how poorly I am dressed." |
| 2 | “You shall not carry, on your person, your personal cell phone during working hours, nor bow down to its Twitter account or worship its ESPN feed while waiting on me because you've just got to know what Suzy thought of last night's "Idol" winners, or if the Cyclones won. (They didn't.) For I, your customer, am a jealous customer, and have earned the right to your undivided attention." |
| 3 | “You shall not take the name of your boss in vain - if you don't like him, quit, but don't complain to me. I've got my own bad boss to complain about." |
| 4 | “Remember that all six days you labored this week are a blessing, because thousands of others are out of work and would gladly trade their dwindling unemployment benefits and desperate financial situation for your steady paycheck and insurance. So bless the day you work, and hallow it." |
| 5 | “Honor your boss, your co-workers, your customers and yourself, by being joyful and thankful for the time we have together, for it is time that the Lord our God has given us, and so make the most of it." |
| 6 | “You shall not kill my shopping mood by telling me what a long day you've had and it's not over yet, or that you're sick and shouldn't even be at work, or by not greeting me at all, except to tell me the total price of my purchase." |
| 7 | “You shall not commit customer service adultery by ignoring me when I come into the store because I'm overweight and wearing sweat pants while you rush to wait on the hot chick wearing the tight sweater or the cute guy wearing designer eyewear." |
| 8 | “You shall not steal my right to have my issue resolved by stating the hair in my salad isn't yours and you don't know how it got there." |
| 9 | “You shall not bear false witness (lie) by telling me you're all out of a product I want, just because you don't feel like going into the back room and restocking it, or that the manager is too busy to talk to me about my issue right now, even though he/she is sitting in their office eating a sandwich and updating their Facebook page." |
| 10 | “You shall not covet the last job you had, or the next job you'll get, or my job or your boss's job or anyone else's job, while you are doing this one, the job you have and are paid to do, which is to smile at, greet, engage, help and nurture me, your customer, to the best of your ability, for the greater good of us all." |
| 11 | “You shall underpromise, and overdeliver." |
Jonnie Wright is a customer service trainer, marketing strategist and ad writer. Email him at jonniewright@thebuyosphere.com.
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