The Flagg Agency

I worked in radio in a former life. There were four sides to radio:

• The talent or the programming side.
• The money or the sales side.
• The engineering side.
• The management side.

As part of this pyramid, I worked for about fifteen years in the programming side. At one station, we had someone in management who would freak out if you ever mentioned any other radio station in town. In a way, I could understand where he was coming from. On one hand, why give the competition free advertising? On the other hand, you have to be a realist. No one was listening to any one station all day every day unless you worked there or it was at an office!

In every industry, you can find countless references to a philosophy about customer service. Many times it reads like false platitudes, and if you have dealt with a representative you might start referring to that department as “Customer No-Service.” So I have to ask, what do you consider excellent customer service? Many times those slogans sound quite a bit like ‘Safety First’ signs you have seen in almost every dangerous industrial setting.

However, many times those are just slogans. About four years ago I read a question and answer interview with Mike Rowe about safety in the workplace. Mike Rowe is the host of the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs. Here is what he had to say about the slogan ‘Safety First’:

I received a comment the other day that asked “What is involved in a cruise consultation?” I decided to take the writer through the process. Before I begin, let me share part of an email I received two weeks ago.

Subject: HELP!!!

I have never been on a cruise before and my family and I would like to go around the Christmas holidays. I found a cruise on a ship going on 12/23 for three days…I am not sure what I need to know and how to properly prepare for the cruise before I make a purchase.

We specialize in everything

I was driving yesterday and at a stop light I pulled up behind a truck. Before the light turned green, I had to take out my phone and snap the picture to the right of this column. It reads “We Specialize in Everything.” Seeing that message made me realize in order to provide extraordinary customer service I am unable to specialize in everything. In this economy it is truly tempting to take on every customer who calls for every travel related recommendation a client needs. However when you want to provide extraordinary customer service, you cannot specialize in everything.

Image via Wikipedia

In the past 24 hours, I have seen and experienced the yin and yang of customer service at Delta Airlines. At the moment of this writing, Delta is making headlines due to the following story about a group of soldiers returning from active duty being charged $200 per person for having four bags. In just under a day, Delta actually changed their policy.