Good customer service is a highly anticipated feature of business interactions with most people, but every so often, good customer service is overshadowed by disgruntled employees or persons who may not understand its value.
Recently, Pepperpot Magazine sat down with some experts who teach the elements of good customer service to talk about its fall and upwardness.
Rawle Dundas, a business owner, explained that the quality of customer service is drastically inconsistent, adding that exceptional service is rare.

“There is certainly a crisis. The demand for excellence has risen with the influx of tourists and business travellers and our general response to persons’ reactions to poor service is the common Guyanese statement ‘is no big thing’. Customers are more demanding, but our behaviour towards them is still too ordinary,” he told Pepperpot Magazine.
Dundas added that it starts with leaders in every sector and at every level raising the bar, modelling exceptional behaviour, treating staff better, providing adequate training, and following up to ensure the quality of interactions with ALL customers improves. Each individual must also step up and deliver what they believe they deserve. “Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, would you expect or accept poor service?” Dundas posed.

Top-quality staff development (not just a training session) programmes that equip staff, modify behaviour, respond to the voice of the customer, and monitor performance will help, he added. The customer service expert added that our focus must move from just providing a product or service (a transaction) to consistently providing exceptional service experiences, encompassing every interaction the customer has with your business.

During his interview, the Dundas spoke on the status of customer service and whether or not it is dying. “It’s in a sickly state but not dying. Companies such as Professional Development Enterprise are pushing programmes that promote ongoing interactions in the classroom and beyond. Relationships are also being forged with training experts in the Caribbean with proven track records in the Tourism and Hospitality Industries,” Dundas noted during his comments.
According to Dundas, the decline has come because we have many nice people offering satisfactory service and not enough customer experience professionals caring for their customers and committed to providing delightful experiences.

Another businessman, Kirk Clarke, shared that customer service is a lifestyle; customer service starts at home.
Clarke recalled that there was a time that you would say good morning to older adults, whether you knew them or not, because if you did not, you were scolded by your parents following their complaints.
According to Clarke, that’s where it will take a new generation of people to revolutionise customer service, as he said, good customer service starts with the family.
He believes that good customer service is the readiness to smile, have good manners and ethics.