Wander Around, Have Fun = Awesome Customer Service Teams

I sometimes take time out randomly to have nerf gun fights with my team members. Ok, maybe it’s not just sometimes, it’s frequently. But there’s a reason why I chat about sports, I shoot the breeze, go out to lunch with different team members, and shoot nerf guns with my customer service team. It makes us a more awesome customer service team and improves the ability of my team to provide an amazing customer experience.

To provide an amazing customer experience you must create awesome performing, engaged, customer-focused team.

Developing awesome teams requires a level of interaction between team members and managers that is impossible to get except through one-on-one discussion and personal involvement in the service process.

There is no agenda. It’s not about getting status updates from the team on various work assignments. It’s not about solving problems. It’s about interacting with people and informally talking to them to strengthen personal connections within the team.

When is this type of contact more effective? When it is: FREQUENT, FRIENDLY, UNFOCUSED, and UNSCHEDULED. Otherwise it’s fake, people see thought it, and it’s ineffective.

Customer Service Management by Wandering Around is about face time with team members, uniting them as a team and rallying them around the customer-focus mission of the team. During this wandering time, take time out to listen to people, get their thoughts and overall feelings on how their work is going, how their life is going, how the team is doing. What their challenges are. What can be done to make the overall experience at work better. What can be done to make the overall customer experience better.

• Be unpredictable with your contacts (it can’t be a daily 10 AM walk-around).
• Ask questions and LISTEN to what people have to day. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
• Make personal connections with team members. Talk about NON-WORK items.
• Seek out ALL TEAM MEMBERS. Don’t just gravitate to the most social, or the ones you get along with best.
• Do it OFTEN.