No matter where you live or what you do, once you step out in the marketplace to purchase any product or service, most of us will find there has been a serious decline in the understanding, delivery, or even the concept of Customer Service. Many would lead you to believe that Customer Service has not just declined, but that it has died all together.

Is Customer Service dead? No, in most cases it has simply just been severely misplaced and overlooked. If Customer Service were truly dead, it wouldn’t and couldn’t be found anywhere. Again, in normal everyday life, it may seem that way, but it does still exist.

From high end country clubs and hotels, to locally owned restaurants, taverns and bars, and everything in between, True Customer Service does still exist. If it is still out there, why is it so hard to find? The answer may initially surprise you, and then again, it may be painfully obvious.

The simple answer is that Customer Service is a Leadership issue, not a Service issue.

Think about it. You can go to twenty different places in the same city and find little, terrible or nonexistent Service. Then in the exact same city you can absolutely be blown away by the best Customer Service you have ever seen.

How can that be? Where is the logic in that? Twenty places seemed to have never heard of the concept of Customer Service, and then one place, on the same block, you want to just throw your money at them because their Service is so good.

While there are many reasons (training is a major one) the fundamental difference between these establishments is that at the twenty places where it didn’t exist, it wasn’t asked for, expected or demanded of the staff by management, so it didn’t exist. At the one place where the Service was outstanding, it not only was asked for, expected and demanded by management, it was simply who they were and what they did. They couldn’t imagine opening their doors and have contact without their customers without it?

Too simple of an answer? No, sometimes things are just that simple. The one place that delivered Great Customer Service recruited and hired people from the same neighborhoods and areas as the twenty where Customer Service was completely non-existent. The only difference was the expectation of management and what was consider acceptable behavior at the twenty places was simply not acceptable at the one.