The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Customer Service Up North
Wednesday - March 22, 2006 04:22 PM in
I took a little mini-vacation the past couple days to Grand Marais, MN, a small town on the north shore of Lake Superior.
As luck would have it, we hit an icy patch while driving on a rural road in the Sawtooth Mountains (hills, actually) and wound up in a snowbank. My son and I hiked about a half mile to the nearest house to call AAA for a towtruck.
Things are different in a small town. By the time we were extracted from the snowbank, fixed up, and on our way again, I knew:
So what's the point? I'm not sure there is one, other than the fact that people like to make connections with each other. When we slow the pace down a little bit (and getting stuck in a snowbank will do that every time), it just happens naturally.
It is not necessary to know the life history of the bank teller in order to get my account balance. But there are a lot of people who miss that level of getting to know each other.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Things are different in a small town. By the time we were extracted from the snowbank, fixed up, and on our way again, I knew:
- The name of the owner of the house.
- His wife's name
- When they moved in
- Their jobs, and when they retired, and most of their career paths
- How much they paid for their home
- How they heated their home (firewood mostly)
- How often stranded motorists (and drunk townies) show up at their door
- Their hobbies
- What they plan to do when they can no longer split firewood for heat
- The name of the tow truck driver
- His dog's name
- When he bought the tow truck
- When he bought his home
- How much he paid for it
- What his kids are doing, and where they live
- What happened to his service station when he sold it (turned into a park)
So what's the point? I'm not sure there is one, other than the fact that people like to make connections with each other. When we slow the pace down a little bit (and getting stuck in a snowbank will do that every time), it just happens naturally.
It is not necessary to know the life history of the bank teller in order to get my account balance. But there are a lot of people who miss that level of getting to know each other.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 04:22 PM by | | | |