Everybody is a customer !

Originally posted in my intranet site.

What seemed like a dreadful thing in the beginning has turned out to be a blessing. I started my career in a technical call center where I had to provide technical assistance to customers over the phone. I felt terrible and I hated it in the beginning. I was forced to do something that I hated - talk to strangers, and that too people, who seemed like complete morons. I was not a talking person. I was not a patient person either. But I had to be both

I now know that what I am today has a lot to do with many things I learnt then. As a part of our induction, we attended a program on customer-centricity and excellence in customer care. It turned out to be much more interesting than what I had expected. Many things discussed there have stayed with me. But this blog is not about all those things. It is about one point that has stayed with me and will remain so for a long time to come. And that is, to treat every person around you like a customer, including your friends and your family.

Tough to accept and practice at first. But once you stay on a job, where you are yelled at by random people for something that you were definitely not responsible for, you slowly start realizing the importance of this lesson.

Think about it, how many of us wear the same face at home, amidst friends and at work? I know a lot of people who are considered fun-loving, entertaining, easy-going and what not, at work (or by their friends). But the same people are short-tempered, silent, impatient, serious (as though that makes them more mature !!) at home ! How many of you take the time to answer a question from your mother/wife? How many times can she actually hear you respond?

Treat your family like you would treat a customer. Each one of us is in his/her best form when we interact with our customers. We are polite, we don’t get offended easily, we smile often, we say ‘Thank you’ and ‘Sorry’ and ‘Please’ etc. If we can do that with people who are complete strangers and with whom our relationship is purely business, why not with people who mean much more to us and who will do anything for us? Shouldn’t our best face be used with our family too?