Why Customer Service is Just Like Trick or Treating

We all remember Charles Schulz’s wonderful It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. In this holiday classic, the Peanuts gang are comparing their trick-or-treating hauls after each house. A typical conversation sees the kids gloating over their wins: “I got five pieces of candy!” “I got a chocolate bar!” “I got a quarter!”

Then, poor ol’ Charlie Brown reveals his prize: “I got a rock.”

Customer support is kind of like trick-or-treating. Sometimes you get a winning experience that culminates in a positive outcome. And sometimes… you get a rock.

Now is the perfect time to ensure that your customer-support team is treating your audience well. After all, you wouldn’t want your place to get egged, now would you?

Be Prepared

The best houses in any neighborhood are always well prepared for the little ghouls and goblins that come calling, stocking up on candy to ensure that there’s enough to go ‘round. Don’t want to disappoint the kids!

Your Customer Service team also has to be prepared – not just on October 31. You need to have qualified workers with the ability to respond to each and every request, whether by providing a solution or knowing how to escalate a ticket to serve the customer with a fulfilling response. Better yet, you want to be prepared to take calls whenever your audience is reaching out to, in all appropriate media, and in all tongues. Are you prepared?

The Law of Supply and Demand

Kids in every town quickly learn which houses are the cool ones, and which folks give out the best treats. The neighbor who skips out on Halloween or the clueless ones who offer unappetizing food products you wouldn’t feed your dog? They’ll soon suffer from a bad reputation.

And it’s the same with your company’s customer service. Are you offering the best service in your space? If so, the word will spread. Think about it — you can come up with a number of companies off the top of your head that have a great reputation for providing sterling customer support. That didn’t happen by accident. Those companies focus on proper staffing, training, and engagement. When customers come calling, they’re not serving up rotten-apple support. They’re giving out the equivalent of full-size candy bars and treating their customers like the superstars they are.

Good Customer Service is a Two-Way Street

Your customers can play a role in fostering successful interactions as well. Even kids know this: If they’re not decked out in clever costumes, they are less likely to be rewarded with sweets. And a good attitude will garner them a larger handful of goodies. They’ve done their part, now you do yours. Likewise, a positive attitude from a prepared customer can go a long way toward the success of a support call. Do you have all of the necessary info at hand, and can you provide all of the background the CS rep needs in order to help? Doing all you can on your end will only make the process easier for everyone.

Good customer support isn’t some mystical force like The Great Pumpkin. You won’t be rewarded for freezing your butt off in a pumpkin patch, pulling an all-nighter. You have to plan, budget, hire, train, manage, and keep improving. It’s an ongoing process, one that will keep your customers faithful and advocating for your brand. Isn’t that much better than giving them a rock?