In today’s competitive environment, customer service is no longer a luxury. It is critical for survival, and the key ingredient for success of the organization. Every employee and every management staff has got to think and feel like a customer.

Two weeks ago, I brought my brother and his family to a popular Chinese Restaurant. At the counter, the hostess gave us a very unwelcoming stare and asks if we have made any reservation. I answered “No.” The restaurant was 85% empty. Then I ask if there are available tables, and she simply nods her head. I continued to tell her that I need a table for 3½ adults (OK, I am just trying to be funny.) She did not smile, and refused to be emotionally connected with the guests, and asked if I can be more specific. I smiled and said “That’s 3 adults and 1 child.” Then she asks us to wait (For what? Who knows?) After a couple of minutes, she brought us to our table. At the table, I asked if she could arrange a baby chair for the child, I like her answer, “I am a Leading Hostess, if you want a baby chair tell the waiting staff later.” And she walks away. Need not to say, we have the most unpleasant dining experience.

What happen here is that the Hostess is having a ‘Job-focused’ attitude, which is about ‘getting their job done’. Many of our workers today possess a similar attitude, “as long as I have done my part of service, that’s it!” They don’t take time to create a relationship with each customer. (I know what you are telling me now, “But Peter, I don’t have the time to create relationship with each customer.”) Here’s my answer “98% of customer interactions are ultimately faster and more efficient if you take the time to establish rapport first. It takes a lot less time to prevent a problem with a customer than it does to solve a problem with customer adversary.”

Everywhere you turn today, you hear about importance of service, support, and customer satisfaction. All kinds of firms proclaim that “people are our business”, that satisfaction is the company’s highest objective. With all this talk, you think that service would be getting better all the time. Surveys, though, suggest otherwise.

What’s wrong? With so much talk about service, why aren’t customers being treated the way they want to be treated?

One reason is that too many companies and employees view customer support as an occurrence, something that happens once and then is over. But excellent service really focuses not on a one-time event but on building a sustained, positive relationship.

Firms and people with a positive attitude toward service know that just doing their job is not enough. They know that each contact is an opportunity that may never come again. That opportunity can be used to build, or re-build, a successful relationship. Or to destroy it!

Customer service ambassadors is about presenting yourself and your business in the best possible light and using everything you know about human nature and human psychology to build a greater sense of confidence and trust among the people you meet. In this sense, there is certainly nothing pejorative about the term “Customer Service Ambassadors”. When you get right down to it, any person involved in the business world is a customer service ambassador first and foremost. All other distinctions and job titles are secondary.

Every human personality is as unique as a fingerprint. One common trait that all master customer service ambassador seem to have is that they have a brilliant ability to make every valuable or potentially valuable person they meet feel like the most important person in the world.

Training your staff in customer service principles and techniques is not enough. Customer service is a science and a philosophy; is about finding individual true and most powerful self and becoming truly proud of who you are; is about the intense study of humanity and psychology. Most importantly, is about having more fun in life! Train your staff using insights from psychology to increase customer satisfaction and develop better business relationships!