Customer Service WOW

It's been a year since my promotion to Customer Service Manager at my "actual" job. Even though I was already handling most of our front-line support at that point, I wasn't thrilled about the idea of taking on customer service full time. It conjures up images of call centers staffed by people like Peggy at USA Prime Credit. But far from the soul-numbing chore that I feared, it has been a dream job.

Part of the reason is because our company is awesome, and the other part is because I'm the manager, so I do what I want. Our CEO is a WOW evangelist and I drank the Kool-Aid enthusiastically. From the top of our company on down, we have adopted the philosophy of WOW as outlined by Zappos. This approach has transformed my conception of what customer service could be (i.e., actually serving the customer).

When your organization's top priority is to surprise and delight your customers, every interaction is a fun challenge! Not "how can I spend the least amount of money," or "how quickly can I get this person off the phone," but "how do I get a WOW here?" It's a simple but profound idea that makes all the difference in the world.