In my daily interactions, I notice many employees are showing up for work but are totally disconnected from the job, the customer and the experience. Their behavior is rote and nearly robotic. On a recent Delta flight, the passenger seated next to me had asked for a glass of red wine. The flight attendant delivered it. Then in a few short moments the same flight attendant delivered another glass of red wine to the same passenger. He never noticed that he had just placed the first glass on the same tray table. My seatmate, a jovial Australian, was amused by the inattentiveness. And not too unhappy about having two glasses of wine! However the flight attendant was clueless.

” The music is not in the guitar.”

This line is part of the extraordinary book called Life is Good by Jake and Rocket (aka, Bert and John Jacobs).  It holds a special message for remarkable service.  Examine how much energy and resources organizations typically expend on CRM software, ironclad return policies, service processes and procedures, and call center metric mania.  In the end, service is not about stuff–it is about people creating positively memorable experiences for customers.  Even erudite and super sterile business to business connections are far less B2B than P2P–people to people.

The only way to have a healthy, sustainable business is to be a good leader for your employees. You need them to run your business, so the success or failure of your business comes from how well you take care of your staff. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers and your business.

Here are some ideas to help.

First, you want to avoid the things “bad” bosses do, like these:

At AMA’s MPlanet conference I had the opportunity to be part of a special Blogger Q&A session with Mary Dillon, Executive VP and Global Chief Marketing Officer for McDonald’s. She talked about a strong focus on employees, reaching out to moms, and social media.

There are some employees who manage to withstand all kinds of criticism and negativity from management and find ways to brush it off and excel at work. Other employees, despite a supportive management team, fail to be productive.

I believe that people who work in an environment where doing their best is recognized have a better chance of feeling good about their work. They also have a better chance of becoming successful producers who enjoy pleasing customers.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Ask your customers these three questions…

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

Our customers know our businesses better than we think. And it makes sense. We’re in business to help them. If we don’t our business will fade away, as it should. Their experience is critical because it tells us whether we are actually helping them or not. It also tells us how we can do better.

It makes sense that if you improve customer service, you will increase customer loyalty. But improving customer service is not necessarily easy. It takes more than a seminar or a motivational speaker. It takes effort and time to make a sustainable improvement in the level of service you deliver your customers.

Not long ago I was talking with Dr. Alan Weiss about customer service. Among the many good ideas he mentioned to improve customer service, one stood out. Alan said “if you want to improve customer service in your company, get a role model”. So, with thanks to Dr. Weiss for his thought starter, here are some of my suggestions to find (or create) a Amazing Service role model in your company.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Get everyone involved

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines said: “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” It’s one of my favorite customer service quotes because it reminds us everyone in the organization needs to be involved in serving our customers.

Our customers come to us for help. They want to accomplish something (or prevent something.) And they want to

One of the best ways to increase revenue and profits in a tough economy is to get more new customers who are already sold on your product, service or brand. These customers can be hugely profitable because they require very little marketing or sales costs. By the time they reach your door they have already heard good things about your business and they are interested in learning more. If handle them right a high percentage will become customers with little effort on your part.

There is plenty of room for improvement in how many organizations serve their customers. And there are substantial benefits for those that do. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot of money to start making improvements in your customer service.

Here are some specific suggestions to get you started.

1. Improve People Skills

To deliver Amazing Service, people skills count. So a fast and high return way to improve customer service is to find ways to improve your team’s people skills.

This might include bringing in a speaker or trainer. It could mean focusing on people skills topics at staff meetings. It could involved providing useful training content to employees in a variety of formats like audio CDs, online material, videos, books, blogs, articles and even newsletters and ezines that cover people skills topics.

Poor customer service from airlines is legendary. It’s cliche. It’s so common that when we do get great service we feel like we’ve won the lottery, if only for a moment.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, airlines have big challenges that can be obstacles to providing great customer service. So do many other companies that find ways to provide remarkable service to their customers. They choose to overcome their challenges and they take care of their customers very well. And they do it consistently.