Five Steps to Five Stars: A Leader's Guide to Improving Customer Service

By Alvin L Blake

Five Steps to Five Stars focuses on the individual leadership steps necessary to achieve excellence in customer service. All the steps outline the required intentional and deliberate actions to succeed. Leaders who follow these steps will be able to improve their existing organizational policies by becoming better customer service focused leaders. Five Steps to Five Stars is a leader's guide to improving the overall customer service environment. The steps will help leaders and managers build, promote, and create working environments which produce 5-Star customer service!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543999198

Book preview

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54399-918-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54399-919-8

Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Introduction

Step One: Evaluate Yourself

Step Two: Look through Different Lenses

Step Three: Right-Your-Wrongs

Step Four: Closing the Customer Service Gap

Step Five: Apply The 5-5-5 Rule

Final Thoughts

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, who taught me the true meaning of serving others; a service which required sacrifice and commitment and produced excellence. I can still hear her voice speaking to me, demanding nothing less. I can now only hope that the words on these pages have met all her expectations.

This book is also dedicated to the men and women of the United States’ Armed Forces, for it was through their example that I was able to perfect the principles of service toward others with excellence. Thank you for your daily sacrifices for our nation; many will never know the true nature of your service. God bless you all!

Prologue

As I stepped up to the door, I was pleased to see that there were no other customers in the lobby. Pressed for time, I just wanted to grab a quick bite for lunch, and get back to the office. As I opened the door, I found myself maneuvering around a young lady who was haphazardly cleaning the glass door at the entrance with one hand, while holding a cellphone in the other. Though this slowed me down a little, it appeared that I was somehow in her way. She only greeted me with an uncomfortable stare. I watched as her eyes transitioned from me to the window and back to her phone as I maneuvered around her and her bucket, making my way toward the counter.

Though the lobby was empty, there was much activity going on behind the counter with people moving about and chatting. But somehow, they did not notice or acknowledge me—the one customer standing there.

Finally, someone from the back yelled out ‘Pam, you have a customer upfront’.

To my surprise, Pam was the window cleaner at the door. I watched as she pushed her bucket to the side, and casually walked behind the counter to the register. Once there, she looked out at the empty lobby, and announced, ‘Can I help the next customer?’ A bit perplexed by this statement, more than just a question, I looked around to see if somehow someone else had walked in behind me.

I smile a bit sarcastically and responded with, ‘That’s me. Can I please get the number one, with a large fry, and drink to go?’

I am not so sure what was taking place between Pam and the person who ordered her to the register (who I later learned was the manager), but it was clear that there was a lot of tension in the air. I stayed focused on my sole purpose of getting lunch, as I watched her punch my order into the register without any eye contact or even an attempt of a conversation with me. Trying to be overly polite, I paid for my meal, took my change, and stepped back to wait for my order.

I watched as the young lady walked over to the ice-bin and scooped up some ice using my drink-cup. All this while I was thinking to myself—what part of the training program did that come from, and also wasn’t her hands just in the cleaning bucket?

She then walked over to the fry area where she yelled for someone to drop more fries. I assumed this was her idea of retaliation for being called, as she started scraping from what was left in the bin to fulfill the minimum requirement of my order. After the final piece of my meal was ready, she united it with my salvaged fries, and questionably clean drink, and walking back to the counter announced, ‘Order number 316!’

I thought to myself, it’s still just the two of us, I am standing right here. At this point, I was torn between just taking my order or actually saying something about the overall poor customer service experience. Reluctantly, I simply smiled and responded, ‘That’s me (inwardly thinking who else could it be)’. I took my food, and headed toward the exit door, passing the bucket, thinking how I was never coming back in here again!

A week later, as I was pressed for time and looking for a place to have lunch, I found myself once again standing in front of Pam. But this time I ordered a number one, with a bottle of water only, and no fries!

Introduction

Before we start, let me first say that there are some great customer service providers