Hello,
how nice to have this forum going!
As you may know, customer service week is approching rather quickly and for some reason, I cannot stop asking the question WHY celebrate customer service week? I have to intriduce to 200 ppl the reason why we are celebrating and I would like to hear some of your experiences and perhaps your reasons why you will celebrate customer service week with your coworkers. The speech is on Tuesday and although it will last only for 2 minutes, i'd like to motivate theorganization to be part of this big thank you note.

Thank you and please share...

Le

Customer Service Week is a joke. I still recall being a rep on a CS team. Under management that micromanages, CSW is pointless. Especially since reps will use it as an excuse to slack a little bit more.

Despite this, if you treat your reps with respect and provide them the tools and training to get the job done, they'll have much less stress and not require a CSW. My reps don't get a CSW. Instead, I just take a "hands-off" approach to managing them. I only step in when I see something is wrong in their numbers or Q&A. I don't get many complaints.

Bottom line is...
CSW is only for the companies who over stress their reps. If you're not doing that, then it's pointless. Gallop surveys are a good way to verify how stressed employees are.

I find myself to be a bit more cynical on the topic of "Hallmark Holidays." Which is the only reason to celebrate CSW or Administrative Assistants Week or Bosses Day or Mother's Day. Assuming one cares about Hallmark staying in business.

PS - If you really want to share the successes of your department with the rest of the organization, do it because the staff works hard and does a good job. Not because the calendar says to.

Honest, heartfelt and worthy celebrations of achievement mean more than some arbitrary folks designating arbitrary days.

Boy - do I disagree with the posts thus far . . .

We celebrate CSW here - and have since I came here 2 years ago. We decorate the department space, have a kick-off breakfast and activities all week. This year we invited back our "Alumni" - folks who have moved to other jobs in our organization.

Our team loves that they not only have fun and get food - they get recognized in front of the whole organization. We have have an active KUDO program and staff is recognized regularly throughout the year.

I don't think you can thank your staff too much - CSW gives you another opportunity to show your team how special they are.

Well done Christa

CSW should be fun and a time to recognise and encourage your team. I am new to this site and have never heard of CSW but I think it is a brilliant idea and with a positive attitude, could be very useful to the team.

I am an NVQ Assessor in Customer Services in England and so I have joined this forum to keep up to speed with developments etc.

Julie

Hi All,

Excellent notes from everybody. I really appreciate the way you all describe it.

My feeling towards CSW is same as Christa, because work force should be motivated 365 days to achieve their targets and give 100%. Celebrations can be done every day in different means.

CSW specific week doesn't really add spice to motivation or work. However some of them can try to have fun for sometime.

Ash

Even though there are not dozens of responses to the initial post, I can see that "why celebrate customer service week" generates a mixture of feelings.

I think there is a validity to the view that sees it as "calendar observance" instead of something that is meaningful. A familiar argument is made about Xmas (ie, why don't we do something nice for someone any time of the year?). In terms of CS in the workplace, why would abide by a calendar when it comes to recognizing performance?

Xenoranger raises points worth looking at. Sometimes companies thrust "events" on employees and a valuable outcome is not found, and time seems to be wasted.

But I am left wishing I could explore the part that goes "I only step in when I see something is wrong in their numbers or Q&A." There are limitations to message boards, but I am forced to interpret that Xeno appears when there is a problem, and I don't know if Xeno is visible to his employees when there is not a problem. So this allows my buy-in level to decrease where being against Customer Service Week celebration is concerned.

I have not used Customer Service Week to date, but not out of a lack of interest in it. Maybe this is a "miss."

Customer Service Week should not be "a week off." It shouldn't mean throwing computers out the window, and it should not be fluff. If it would mean "fluff" in an organization, then it should not be used. But I don't think it is something to write off.

We have celebrated CSW . Each day we did a different activity, and it only took the CSR's away from their desks for about an hour as everyone said they were too busy to participate. They all enjoyed it and looked forward to the next days activities. We had prizes for 1st/2nd/3rd place Teams. We finished the week off with a Pot Luck Lunch which was enjoyed by all. I will certainly being doing it again this year.

I disagree with Xenoranger's statement that "CSW is only for the companies who over stress their reps". Our CSR's are not stressed and enjoy coming to work everyday. We are very much a Team oriented department and know how to have fun and still get the job done!

Here is my contribution, I believe customer service week is to appreciate the great job we do, as to providing good services to customer, remember that some customer can be challenging and some are not, some do appreciate you helping them but some don't.

But as long our organization recognize that day and celebrate with us as provider of better service I think we should be happy, though its might take 15 or 30minutes out of our time to participate but it still been done to make us feel we are all recognized.