There are about a million different things one could “preach” in regard to customer service. There have been books written, lectures given and training customized for all different types of customer service scenarios. From an account manager perspective, our PR efforts don’t usually pan out well for clients who consistently provide poor customer service on their end. Thankfully, we haven’t encountered very many of those client situations, and for that we are glad!

For some reason, I’ve been running into more bad customer service experiences than usual. Two of these took place at a drugstore near my house. It wasn’t that the employees were being purposefully rude; they just weren’t providing good customer service. They were doing the bare minimum, leaving me to figure out my requests on my own. This is point No. 1. If you are doing the bare minimum, you aren’t providing good customer service. I hate when people say, “I don’t know.” You should be saying, “I don’t know, but let me find out for you.”

What happened next gave me this very idea for a blog post. Let me preface this next paragraph with a little honesty — I am not a patient person. My blood probably starts to boil at least three minutes before someone else with at least a smidgeon of patience. So, at my most recent experience, I was standing there witnessing bad customer service firsthand. Blood starting to boil, attitude shifting, dirty look starting to form, I decided to give the employee “good customer service” from my end instead.

This is point No. 2. Practicing good customer service in your everyday life is the best practice for providing great customer service at your job and vice versa. Even if you are supposed to be the one receiving good customer service, practicing patient and polite communication will go far in your own workplace. After all, being rude sucks!