Tour Guide, Senator and Cheer leader

HPMD Quotes & Sources

The role of customer service representative is part of everyone's job description. The question is who does the service representative represent? The company or the customer? It is not accidental that the title is customer service representative. As a representative of the customer, your role is analogous to the tour guide, the senator and the cheer leader.
As company tour guide, you help customers navigate your organization. What does a tour guide do? As experts on the area, they guide visitors through a foreign country, explaining the sites and customs. So service representatives should guide a customer through the rules and procedures of the organization to help them find what they need. The key here is not to make the customer learn your organization.
As customer senator you help customers get what they want from the company. Customers are your constituency, and your role is to represent their needs to the company. As such, you provide a single point of contact, you own the problems, and you make things happen on behalf of your clients. As senator, you do not engage in "grenade volley ball," bouncing the problem along to someone else before it explodes in your lap. You disarm the situation and bring the parties together.
As cheer leader you encourage the company to get excited and pay attention to customer needs. You do this by jumping up and down, yelling and waving your arms with the choreography to get the company's attention.

Short Quote:

"The Customer Service Representative needs to realize that they represent the customer. Their job is to play the roles of 'company tour guide,' 'customer senator,' and 'corporate cheer leader,' helping customers get what they need" --E. Happ

Author:	Happ, Ed
Title:	Tour Guide, Senator and Cheer leader
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Publication Date:	12/31/95
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Quote Number:	108
Categories:	Customer Service, Case Studies