Sometime ago, Maria Palma of CustomersAreAlways launched The Carnivale of Customer Service. I was not able to join the first one, but I promised her to join the succeeding events.

So today, I’m sharing with her and with you my dear readers a personal account of my guest blogger today. Read on…

A COO Walks the Talk

Good customer service culture transcends throughout the whole organization, from top management to the front-liners.

At Union Galvasteel Corporation (UGC), a leading manufacturer of colored roofing and GI sheets in the Philippines, no less than the COO delivers “hands-on” customer service. He walked the talk, so to speak.

A month ago, the COO of UGC came out of his plush executive office in the business capital and travelled to rural areas to meet with dealers and end-users. He said he did this because he wanted to hear for himself the voice of the customers.

That visit was unprecedented since no executive officer from the industry had ever visited these places. The customers themselves were suprised and pretty excited to meet and shake hands with the top man of their supplier. During this visit, one dealer could not meet the COO due to the death of his child. Upon hearing this, the COO sought out the bereaved family and even went to the wake.

When he returned, the COO felt extremely good about what he did. He achieved two things: first, he heard first-hand the customers concerns, from delivery time to promotional ads to pricing and discounts, and second, he was able to get on the spot definite commitments. This reinforced customers’ trust and continued patronage.

These dealers may not be among UGC’s big-time customers, but they are definitely among the most active who give repeat business to the company.

~Efren M. Delid, Guest Blogger

It is just as well, too, that Doug of Service Untitled sent me a scoop on GetHuman 500. This GetHuman project pushes for having a human—a real person—talk to a customer on the phone, instead of those automated responses. I’m fully supporting this one because I, irate or otherwise, would definitely want to talk to a real person about my concerns.

Getting out of the phone and into the real interpersonal contact is what the COO of UGC did in our story today. If you don’t call that being human, then I don’t know what is.