Good customer service is rare.

In order to get it right, you need more than politeness. You need to be upfront on what you are delivering and then deliver it.

Think of a restaurant. Your waiter may be excellent but if your roast chicken comes to your table cold, undercooked and is overpriced, you'll leave very disappointed. On the flip side, your waiter might be horribly mean but deliver a great meal to your table. No one is leaving either one of these situations with good feelings about the customer service.

Then there is the bait and switch. No matter how pleasant someone is, if the product you get at the end is nothing like what you expected or is double in cost, no one will leave happily praising the customer service. You've got to always let people know exactly where a project stands.

Or what about the lack of follow through? If you're really attentive for 20% of the time and absent the rest, no one will remember that first 20%. In fact if you drop off even 1%, you are in trouble.

Why write this here? In the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries, customer service is a primary concern. Sometimes in our industry it is not. We feel that no matter what you are working on or delivering, excellent customer service should be expected and required. Good customer service is rare indeed but we are rather obsessed about getting it right.

-Pete Bjordahl