The Definition Of "Customer Service"

 
The day after Memorial Day, down on the beach at Table Rock Drive in Laguna Beach, I officiated the wedding of Clare and Ed, who are from Nottingshire, England.  They combined a honeymoon with their wedding and so began their adventure in Seattle, WA and drove down the coast to Los Angeles and then on to Laguna Beach.

During our first Skype chat, I had urged them to look into staying at one of my all-time favorite hotels, The Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, but given all their other expenses, they opted for a small hotel in town.

Clare had a silk dress made for her back home. She thought it would travel better than it had and when she arrived in Laguna, it was a wrinkled mess. The day before her wedding, Memorial Day, Clare asked the concierge at her hotel if it would be possible to get the dress steamed. They didn’t have onsite services, but referred her to a bridal store in town. A sales woman informed Clare that they only steamed dresses bought from the store.  Although Clare offered to pay, “policy is policy” and what would happen if an exception was made?

Clare then recalled how I had raved about the service at The Montage. With nothing to lose, she went over and connected with Ms. Jimenez, the Executive Housekeeper, who agreed to steam the dress.

Clare was relieved and Ed was stunned. As he explained to me, “this wouldn’t have happened back home.” They were in awe of Ms. Jimenez’ kindness and that The Montage could be home to such graciousness.

Clare and Ed had made wedding dinner plans at a restaurant in town, but because of Ms. Jimenez, they canceled and dined at The Montage––which is what a year ago I told them to do!

If you go to Amazon.com and plug in “customer service” under the book section, you’ll find almost 87,000 entries!  Stunning really because if you think about it “customer service” is not a complicated concept.  As I consistently tell students and clients, it’s simply about serving decency and kindness to a customer, even if that “customer” is not yet a customer! 

Amazon should simply refer people to Ms. Jimenez, a woman who offered visitors far from home commonsense decency and graciousness.

What about you?  What kind of “customer service” do you take pride in offering?