Why Good Customer Service Focuses on Spirit-of-the-law Mentality
It’s winter in Wisconsin, and that means slush on the roads and snow on the sidewalks, especially after last week’s generous snowfall from Mother Nature. Our family is what some people label “freaks” when it comes to snow and cold temps. While I dislike the cold, we are purposeful about not letting the snow lock us indoors for any length of time.
Even with snow and slush, one of our year-round activities is walking the pooch, no matter the cold or wind or snow. I guess we’re a little like the US Postal Service that way. While the snow doesn’t rattle me, I’m at times frustrated by homeowners who focus on the letter-of-the-law, and not the spirit-of-the-law when it comes to shoveling their sidewalks. What does that mean?
For homeowners who are letter-of-the-law folks, they shovel a narrow, single-file path on their sidewalk because they have met the city’s requirements of needing to shovel a walkway on your sidewalks. For letter-of-the-law homeowners on corner lots, they shovel their sidewalks, but not the accessway to the streets, meaning walkers need to Sherpa their way over foot-high (or more) piles of snow to cross the street. While they met the letter-of-the-law, the minimal requirement for compliance purposes, they didn’t hit the spirit-of-the-law, which is to provide safe, easy walking for those in the community.
From a work perspective, letter-of-the-law employees meet the minimum requirement to stay employed, but they rarely go beyond the requirement to meet what would constitute good customer service. One company who exemplifies the spirit-of-the-law is Chick-fil-A fast food franchises. Over the past few years, an article like this one from Inc. shows how Chick-fil-A has taught employees the importance of smiling, saying please and thank you as a means of spirit-of-the-law customer service.
Showing up to work and serving the customer isn’t enough, and Chick-fil-A knows that. They’ve gone beyond serving food to showing kindness and respect to their customers through building an easy-to-teach and measure etiquette piece into the culture of who they are.
Studies show employees who use good customer service go beyond the letter-of-the-law, to the spirit-of-the-law, and that spirit-of-the-law generates bottom-line impact on your business. Here’s a link to 100 customer service stats showing how service impacts your bottom-line.
Some of you are thinking, “But I don’t serve customers directly.” I’d respond, “But you do.” Every one of us serves someone else, whether that be our managers, our teammates, or co-workers from other departments. We all are in the business of customer service – internally or externally focused.
The next time your manager, teammate or customer asks you to do something, asking yourself if you are doing this to check it off the list, letter-of-the-law style, or to serve that person, spirit-of-the-law style. How you choose to act may make the difference between doing your job and rocking your job.
Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.
