Customer Service is everyone's job Published June 22, 2007 By Chief Master Sgt. Jennifer Hooks 305th Medical Group MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. -- When most people think of customer service, they think about front-line staff providing goods or services for payment. Many of us don't believe we serve "real" customers, because money does not change hands during business transactions. Each one of us, both military and civilian, serve a customer. Whether we do blood pressure checks, hand out key cards at billeting, turn wrenches on the flight line, run a commissary checkout line or anything in between, we are providing customer service. The level of service we provide our customer is important to overall mission success. Peter Drucker, author of more than 35 management books, wrote, "Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it." That's pretty clear-cut. Those who don't provide great service probably don't understand their business area ... and they certainly aren't professionals committed to service. Each of us can probably remember a time when we received exceptional service. You walked away with a smile on your face and a deep feeling of satisfaction. Why did we feel this way? As customers, we appreciate honesty and committed service from people who go beyond the daily standards of service. We also appreciate efficiency and responsiveness to our needs, a definite push for excellence. We should strive to make our customers feel just as we do when we receive quality service. Make them see that their business is important to us, because it is. Let them see that they are worth our undivided attention. And if we can't satisfy their needs immediately, we should let them know when they can expect results. We should do our best to satisfy our customer -- every customer, military, civilian, reservist, guardsman, retirees and family members -- to prevent them from walking away angry. We should take our customers' complaints, comments and compliments seriously. Listening to customers is vital to customer satisfaction. If we don't provide customers with quality service, the customer will most likely tell others about the bad service they received. This problem will result in a downward spiral of negative comments through word-of-mouth. Remember, a good customer experience is remembered for a few weeks and may be told to 3-4 people. A bad customer experience is remembered for 25 years and is told to 20 to 30 people. If we can communicate effectively with our customers, find problems with our customer service, solve these problems and be consistent with new policies and procedures, we will gain customer loyalty and improve upon the bottom line ... mission success. Why are we called servicemen and women? Because we serve, we provide service to our nation, service to our Air Force and service to our customers. And so our role must be to take great care of our customers, whoever they are. For military members, service before self means that our individual needs are subordinate to the needs of the nation. The Air Force requires a high level of professional skill, a 24-hour-a-day commitment and a willingness to make personal sacrifices. We can take service before self one step further as we serve our customers who support our warfighters around the globe by giving them the same quality service we expect in return. It's pretty simple, really. Treat your customer as you want to be treated as a customer.