In your travels, I’m sure you have run across companies that stand out from the others as far as taking pride in their operations or customer service or product. Those are the ones that stick in your memory and you will most likely buy something again, eat there again or refer people. As an employer, it can be a tough culture to foster depending on circumstances; I think we have all walked into places where nobody at the desks is looking up, hoping a colleague will take this customer and all that’s missing are some black clouds hovering below the ceiling tiles.
Pride is an incredibly powerful motivational trigger and some companies do better than others in leveraging the pride employees have in their company. Some places nurture a culture of pride where employees are encouraged to express their pride about numerous aspects of their work, their fellow workers, their mission, their customers and their successes. Don’t underestimate the power of pride in your workplace and in your own performance. Remind yourself of how proud you will feel once that certain project or task is finished. Share stories of your wins and revel in your achievements — whether it is a successful heart transplant all the way to delivering a good looking plate of bacon and eggs and everything in between. And never stop celebrating the great work you, your teammates, and your organization achieve.
We had a feel good moment from a supplier (go figure) the other day. This was the company we dealt with in Washington that provided the best deal (and as it worked out, best service) on our acoustic sound baffles we have hanging in the pool area. The fellow we dealt with back then had a great sense of humour, listened to our wants and needs, and did his best to make sure everything worked out for us. Did I mention patience? Even when Murphy’s Law kicked in and payment to the company was slowed up for a few weeks, all he threatened to do was drive up to Canada with a trailer and repossess our hot tub. Good guy.
Anyway, during that project, we were struggling with how to mount all those baffles to our ceiling — that’s a lot of screws, holes and lift work. Because we have really smart people in the Creston Valley, Doug, our contractor for the project, suggested using magnets and the light bulb lit up over our heads. Long story short, installation was a breeze more or less and we passed that great tip back to the supplier in Washington. Along with the new mounting method, we also passed along the tip (which our aquatic programmer discovered after her research into those baffles) that the baffle material makes an excellent cleaning sponge similar to a well known and more expensive product. I’m sure that the innovations from our project have helped the supplier better market their product in similar applications and when we recently approached him to get some replacement material, he made sure we were getting it at no charge.
It doesn’t have to be a huge gesture to demonstrate good customer service; he obviously took pride in his job and product and we were as equally proud to share our success with him to the benefit of everyone after us in a similar application. A good plate of bacon and eggs!
Neil Ostafichuk is the recreation supervisor at the Creston and District Community Complex.
