January 2019 Membership Update

By Hylan Joseph

We’ve all been there. It’s the top of the morning rush, the machine is down, you’re trying to get the service customer’s machine running. You’re worried about the machine overheating and spraying hot water everywhere. This is crunch time where keeping your cool is tantamount.  It’s making sure that the customer is taken care of and you don’t scald yourself in the wrong place. If you could just get the store manager off your back, that would be great…

As techs and service managers, our ability to provide excellent service is tested constantly. We assume the brunt of the stress when a customer’s machine is down even though it’s not our fault, and we are largely neglected when the machine is running. We press on though and keep our cool, because ultimately, we’re good at our jobs and we want to make sure the customer is happy.

Good customer service requires a lot of bravery. Excellent customer service asks that we set aside any pre-conceptions that we may have about the customer or the equipment we’re servicing and accept the fact that our goal is to get the equipment running and make the end user happy. To do this requires an immense amount of self-discipline and the ability to have the mental fortitude and moral strength to face the suffering flurry of working with really stressed customers   

Likewise, bad customer service is cowardly. It’s super easy to not be professional and do the bare minimum to get the machine working. It’s easy to blame the customer or manufacturer, talk negative and perform poor service using the excuse the customer was a jerk or hovering or the manufacturer designed it incorrectly. We all know a tech like this or – and I will admit this – have been that tech.

With that, one of the goals of the Education initiatives is to empower new techs and seasoned techs alike with the tools they need so each one of them can provide excellent service while in the field.

2019 is going to be the best year for the guild yet. We are actively working to get the education initiatives out there ASAP. We’ve got a great new board committed to getting out there and having more events, more training, and more membership engagement. I’m looking forward to this year and I hope you are too.