(gentle music) There are several characteristics of good customer service including patience, attentiveness, product knowledge, and communication skills. We will now cover the key aspects of providing good customer service. Customer service in a retail environment may look vastly different from customer service in a service environment. What customers expect from an online experience will be different from what they expect in person. Let's look at some different scenarios. Here we can see a coffee shop. The customer is waiting at a table. Two employees walk past him, but no one acknowledges him. After about 20 minutes, a waitress comes to the table and gives him a menu without a word. There are no utensils at the table and when the waitress returns to take his order, she seems irritated when he asks questions about the menu items. She takes his order and walks off. 30 minutes later, the customer looks at his watch, sees the waitress laughing with another employee, and decides to leave. Let's pause right there. Would this be considered good customer service? If you were the customer, what would you have done? If you were the waitress, how could you have improved this experience for the customer? Let's try this again. The customer is waiting at a table in the coffee shop. A waitress approaches the man immediately and smiles. She asks, "Would you like some breakfast?" The man smiles and said, "I'd love some." She leaves him with the menu, but lets him know that she will be right back with some water for him. The table is set and has everything he will need for breakfast service. When the waitress returns to take his order, she looks happy and friendly and is patient while he asks questions about the menu items. She takes his order and lets him know there may be a short wait time because the coffee shop is busy today. Ten minutes later, the waitress stops by to let him know she hasn't forgotten him and is going to check in with the chef on his order. He sees the waitress talking with the chef. She comes back and lets him know his breakfast is just about done and he smiles and thanks her. Five minutes later, she brings him his food and asks if there's anything else he might need. As you can see, these two scenarios had quite different endings. In the first scenario, the customer looked upset and left the restaurant hungry. In the second, he looked happy and satisfied even though the coffee shop was busy and he had to wait a little while for his meal. The second scenario displayed what good customer service would look like in a restaurant setting. The customer was greeted promptly, the table was set with everything he may need for breakfast service, and the waitress was attentive to his needs and reassured him that his breakfast would be timely even though the restaurant was busy. She also provided service with a smile and answered all of his questions. Some of the key characteristics of good customer service used by the waitress in the second scenario were she used a professional and friendly tone, she was upbeat and positive, she knew that she was the first contact this customer would have with the restaurant, anticipating the customer's needs. She was attentive to the customer's needs by ensuring the table was already set with items the customer would need to eat breakfast, including things he might ask for like creamer for his coffee. She also made sure to keep him updated on the status of his breakfast order. She also was patient as he asked about the menu items before making his decision.
