Have you ever tried to cop attitude with a help desk chat bot? It doesn’t work, nor does it get you to a resolution any quicker. It rarely works with humans either. To honor National Customer Service week, which is Oct. 2-9, we’re taking a look at some of our favorite past posts about friendliness and stellar service. And remember, kindness encourages the same. Pass it on.

Like present-day meat cutters, IT employees are not thought of as a friendly bunch.

What IT Can Learn From Supermarket Butchers (August 2009)

If you’ve noticed a change in attitude at the supermarket meat department lately, you’re not imagining it. Some big-name grocery store chains have begun a meat education renaissance, training their employees on everything from the difference between cuts and grades to the many ways to prepare and cook meat.

It’s an effort to make supermarket butchers more personable, more knowledgeable, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Read more. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Customer Service butchers, Customer Service Week, Help Desk, juggling, South Philly, tech support

One of our consultants at work.

Our help desk handles many “how to” calls, which often have straightforward solutions. Sometimes, however, the requests that come in require a little more creativity from our consultants.

On a recent call, consultant Bradley Lyman found an ingenious way around a potential hurdle.

Lyman received a call from a customer asking for help copying a YouTube video for a presentation. There was one snag, however; the customer did not have rights to use the video. His presentation, which he was scheduled to show to an auditorium full of people, would be incomplete without a video of a juggler.

The presentation was due, and getting rights would have been a challenge.

Lyman wasted no time, and tapped fellow consultant Jorg Freiberg and team leader Ken Wilson for help. Lyman remembered seeing Freiberg juggling on his breaks and knew that Wilson had just bought a new iPhone with a video camera. The result was a copyright-free juggling video, which was produced and delivered to the customer in under an hour. File that under “Above and Beyond.” (Jen Darr)

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Jenny Sweeney Consultant Spotlight, Customer Service above and beyond, iPhone, juggling, PowerPoint, YouTube