Self Leadership Coaching Blog

Imagine, if you will, long ago in a distant time at the dawn of civilisation, a group of people huddled around a fire, resting from the day and warming themselves from the night. The group is made up of several families, the young, the fit and the old all grouped together for mutual survival in a harsh environment.

 The evening meal had finished and a man stands, the group falls silent but with excited curiosity about what the man might say. The man, who was not old by our standards but had an appearance that communicated his wisdom and authority, starts to speak. He commences by taking his audience back in time to events that anchored them to deeds of courage, endurance and sacrifice. His words entrance each listener and carry them on a journey inside themselves so that they relive each story; even if they had not been present. Continue Reading »

What’s your worst customer service experience?

I bet you have a story about receiving lousy customer service, I know I have a few. On the flipside – do you have a story about giving lousy customer service? Ouch, this is more difficult to contemplate because we naturally see the world from our own point of view.

Whatever work you do, you have customers – whether they pay you directly or not. If you work in an organisation you will have internal as well as external customers.

The word customer contains the word custom which means habit. So a customer is someone who buys or interacts with you more than once, and this suggests some kind of relationship. Just like other relationships, customer service can be good or bad depending on the mindset you bring to it.

When I was about 12 years old I started working in my father’s hardware store. I was an enthusiastic young man and began to learn about the products, becoming knowledgeable and therefore important (in my mind). One day I got into an argument with a customer about the ‘proper’ definition of a product, my father stepped in, agreed with the customer and sold the product. I was furious because I knew I was right and confronted my father about this. His response was, “Son, I know you were right, but do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?”

The famous sales trainer Zig Ziglar said it this way:
“If you help enough other people get what they want, you can have anything you want.”

With this frame of mind we can prosper by meeting and exceeding the customer’s expectations.