Story:
The First Line Manager: Customer service is critical to creating goodwill.

I was cleaning out my closet and came across a customer service training video the Western Division of Alabama Power made in 1984. I was the chairperson for the Employee Involvement Team that produced this program.

This program was and is what diversity is about, different people from different areas coming together to produce lasting value.

I noticed that the concepts of customer service have not changed in all these years. Nothing else is the same in the video. The processes and procedures are all gone. There are no meter readers. Every field service employee has a computer in their truck. They can create orders and send messages. Computers are on every desk. Actually customer service offices are now going away as the customer want to interact with companies from their homes or in their grocery stores at computer payment centers. Most of the employees in the video are like me retired, or sad to say, no longer with us.

But the concepts and attitudes about customer service are the same. We can use electronic innovations to make our service closer to our customers and almost instant. We can be excited about learning new systems, procedures, and policies that help us satisfy the needs our customers. Here is the link to the 1984 program: copy and paste into your browser

https://youtu.be/YtNzIPOVXDI

I hope this gives you incite to how critical good customer service practiced by your employees are key to their and your company’s success. We knew employees created goodwill for Alabama Power in 1984.