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It is when you leave a call, a meeting or an interaction and feel that you were not just a number, not just a pawn in a pre-defined process, or part of a pre-defined business rule.

It is when you feel as though you were treated as though your interaction was unique to you. It is the feeling that the person you interacted with generally cared more about you, your situation and ultimately making you happy without revealing that they were potentially following any pre-established norm or rule.

Geico, American Honda and American Express come to mind as companies that are excellent at customer service. US based airlines are an example of an industry that simply does not understand or value customer service.

Extraordinary customer service occurs often when the employee has to “break the rules” to do the right thing.

Quite often managers try to “program” the language of customer service into staff by having them say “Have a nice day” etc. The test comes when the customer needs something that goes against policy but the employee could make it happen. That is when there is customer advocacy not just service. Example, the nurse at Rex Hospital (Raleigh, NC) who turned off the annoying machine that went BING for 15 minutes so I could fall asleep even though the Doctor’s orders were not written to allow this. Anti customer service example. JC Penney’s Men’s department. A customer is returning a suit. He paid full price. The suits are now on sale and policy says you return it for the current price. The sale ends tomorrow. Do you…
A) return the suit for the sale price only
B) tell the customer to [...]

I think a lot of people define extraordinary customer service by how a company handles itself during adversity.

I’ve had my share of these kinds of experiences too, but my best example is a stay at the Omni in San Diego a couple of years ago. While I was getting out of the taxi, a bell hop read my name off of my luggage and checked me in. As I walked through the door, he handed me my key. I went straight to the elevator and up to my room.

Extraordinary Customer Service, what does this mean to me?

Well, I could certainly share more than 1 occasion in which the service was so terrible it seemed almost personal, and I chirped off to the competition and that was that. I have to agree with Jim that a good example is sooo hard to find. So, I’ve started to take this approach – and, if you’re creative enough at the time, you may enjoy it too… I reward the extraordinary services even more by going that extra step as a customer. I call over a supervisor if out somewhere, ask for a contact name/number/email in which I can share what a great experience I just had with so-so doing such-such, or leave a bigger tip, a more detailed comment card. Whatever I can do to share how I feel after being served by them. Since I’ve been doing this, [...]

Some of the Nordstrom stories I’ve read are extraordinary…

“Here’s one notable, but not atypical, example of a heroic. A customer, who was about to catch a flight at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, inadvertently left her airline ticket on a counter in one of Nordstrom’s women’s apparel departments. Discovering the ticket, her Nordstrom sales associate immediately phoned the airline and asked the service representative if she could track down the customer at the airport and write her another ticket. No, she could not. So the Nordstrom salesperson jumped into a cab, rode out to the airport (at her own expense), located the customer, and delivered the ticket herself. (Nordstrom later reimbursed her for the cab fare.)”

Extraordinary Customer Service to me means leaving the customer with a feeling after that point of contact thinking to themselves, “I will model all future opinions of exceptional customer services after this experience.”

Extraordinary Customer Service to me means leaving the customer with a feeling after that point of contact thinking to themselves, “I will model all future opinions of exceptional customer services after this experience.”

Basically, are you setting an example for your business, your particular service or product(s), or yourself that everyone around you can admire?

Are you taking ownership of that particular interaction, whether it’s your own company or one you “just” work for?

The above questions, if answered correctly, will set a ground point for Extraordinary Customer Service.

1. Take ownership of the interaction
2. Take pride in the interaction
3. Always thank the customer for their time, business AND ask them to come back.

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