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Article: Customer service: back to basics is better.
- Article from:
- Public Management
- Article date:
- December 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 International City-County Management Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"Not customer service again! We tried training, but it didn't work. Besides, we don't have the money for customer service programs in these tough times!"
Sound familiar?
Attention to customer service seems to ebb and flow with the economic cycle. We seem to pay attention to the issue when budgets are flush, but when financial times are tough, customer service initiatives are often among the first to go.
Working on customer service is actually more important in tough times than when revenues are flowing. These are the times when employees may be handling more than their usual workload, salaries and benefits are stagnant, and morale is difficult ...