What is customer service?

Think about the last time you took a ride in a taxi or airport transfer. Over the years I’ve certainly had some funny experiences – especially on one chilly night in Melbourne where our taxi driver told us that living in his country was all about sleeping and partying (in some more expressive language than that!)

I must say however I’m always keenly aware of cleanliness, odour and the ability of the driver to assist when asked questions. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised, often I’m not.

The reason that I’m writing is that I had a great experience this weekend up on the Gold Coast with our airport pick up.

To me when I experience amazing service it’s usually just a whole bunch of tiny things adding up. The components to our service this day included:

• Being greeted with my name spelled correctly on the sign (it’s a small thing I know, but with the number of times my name is spelled incorrectly I always appreciate it)
• Our driver introduced himself by name – Barry, shook our hands and asked for each of our first names
• While we were waiting for our luggage Barry took our carry on to the car
• Barry carried our luggage to the car for us
• He then informed us of the better spot for the one of us with shorter legs (me!) to sit
• In the car were magazines and some jokes that had been printed out
• Barry had a pleasant and knowledgeable answer to every question we asked from how far away a dinner spot was (7 and a half minutes walk) and who he though would win Big Brother (his vote was for Joel!)
• Our pick up time was confirmed and rechecked and he let us know where our driver would be waiting for us
• In case of any other questions we were asked to take a business card so that we could call straight through in case of any problems
• On the drive home Barry remembered the dinner spot and asked how the meal was
• Our luggage was lifted from the boot of the car onto the footpath in front of the airport (ie: so we didn’t have to lift it above the curb)
• Our doors were opened and closed for us
• Barry also requested on the return journey that we take a card in case we needed another ride next time we were in that area.

Nothing Barry did was rocket science – but it all lead to an extremely pleasant customer service experience and one that will make me want to refer Barry and “BT tours and Airport Transfers” whenever I get the chance.

It definitely made me remember that customer service is about little things done well consistently.

By Kirsty Dunphey with 1 comment