My boys and I visited the Naples Zoo in Florida yesterday and our experience with the ladies at the ticket station provides a useful story for considering the value of good customer service. We stepped up the the ticket booth in the gift shop at 4:01pm (according to the clock on the wall) to a sign that read “REGISTER CLOSED.”
The zoo closes at 5pm and the zoo’s website clearly states “No tickets sold after 4pm,” so the attendant was authorized by company policy to turn me and my now disappointed son 5 year old and 4 year old away, which she did not only without hesitation, but with a slight grin and a defensive posture. She was ready for a fight, but I did not give her one.
My sons and I walked around the gift shop for a moment when another attendant walked up to us, having seen the earlier interchange.
Attendant: Good afternoon, sir. I noticed that you were turned away and I feel terrible about your sons. Can you come back tomorrow?
Me: No ma’am. We came here last second as my wife has the flu and we were unable to return home today. We came to the zoo on our last visit and my sons loved it, so I thought we’d stop by for a quick visit.
Attendant: So you come to Naples regularly?
Me: Not as often as we would like, but we do visit on occasion.
Attendant: Well that might work in your favor today. What my associate perhaps forget to mention is that you can purchase an annual membership this afternoon, which will grant you immediate access to the zoo and likely save you money if you come again this year.
Me: Very kind of you to mention that, ma’am. Where do I pay?
Attendant: At the ticket booth. They’d be happy to handle your purchase.
Me: Thank you again!
It is so easy to go the extra mile and so doing goes further to differentiate one company from another than often even differences in product quality can. Good customer service – the art of providing creative solutions to genuine yet often hidden needs – is the cornerstone of a company’s sustainability, profitability and ability to grow market share.
In the example I just shared one employee transformed my potentially negative experience by her keeping alert at the end of the day and asking a few simple questions. Every company – even those with excellent hiring and training programs – will occasionally hire an employee who proves to be a dud. Like Charlie Brown, they will do their level best to quietly bring everyone down. It may be conscious or even subconscious, but the effect is the same either way.
When the bar is held continuously high by managers in the company and if employees are given room to innovate, be creative and solve problems on their own, those who don’t align themselves with the company’s culture of excellence will eventually be pushed out by the pressure. The sorting process is automatic and needn’t be painful or emotionally-charged, neither does it need to be helped along by self-righteousness on the part of those who are doing their job correctly.
The ability to listen while correlating solutions to needs is the fuel of good customer service. It is not that hard to do, especially when you can inspire your team to put their egos aside and focus on service, no matter what comes their way.
Gregory Hake 
Sometimes people just get so caught up in the letter of policy in any organization and their common sense goes right out the window. I’ll bet if you asked that lady in a situation unrelated to her job if she would purposely disappoint a small child, she would say no. But put it in the context of a daily job and you get things like “policy is policy” or “you should have gotten here earlier”. This is the same nonsense that leads to kids getting suspended or expelled from school for having a knife on ther camping eating utensil from the boy scouts, or drawing a picture of a gun with crayon. I believe it was Edmond Burke who dais that “common sense is an uncommon virtue”. Thanks again for doing something to make that quote irrelevant.
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Excellent quote, thanks!
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I’ll bet you’re not the only one at the zoo that knows who does a job and who does a great job. Everyone works for themselves it’s just that some don’t know it. Job satisfation is directly related to how much you bring to the task.
Good example of customer service vs customer no service.
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I like that: “Job satisfation is directly related to how much you bring to the task.” Good point!
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Well put that good customer service involves the ability to listen and sultaneously correlate solutions. It doesn’t seem that employee A would have even had to exercise their skills at that level to offer the same thing as employee B. Quick thinking on B’s part to save the opportunity.
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Indeed!
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Nice story!
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The picture of your boys is adorable! The zoo is always a good cause to support. It was a win-win-win upsell for the second employee. I hope your wife is feeling better. Our family just got over the flu – not fun!
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Enjoyed this post. It’s sad to witness someone with the 9-5 mentality (sad for the company but even more sad for the employee.) Missing an moment (opportunity) to make a positive difference in someone’s life is something you can’t get back. I appreciated the way the 2nd zoo employee asked questions and had a genuine desire to assist. Great example of living an uncommon life!
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I agree with your assessment about missing a moment and appreciate your comments!
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