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What Business Are You In?

Group of People and Customer Service Concepts

What Business Are You In?

This is a question we are all frequently asked and often requires additional explanation to people not in the IT industry. However, in pondering this question, I think there is one business that we are all part of regardless of our technical and managerial skillsets. For the past 40+ years, I’ve been in the customer service business, and it’s taught me some universal lessons that have withstood the test of time:

  1. Know who your customer is – sometimes this is confusing with complicated organizations, but we must always know who they are to ensure they are always treated as customers.
  2. Listen to your customer every chance you get – making assumptions about their needs can be dangerous. When I slow down the process by reflectively listening to my customer, I always learn something new about them and their needs.
  3. Be respectful with your consultation – even though we are hired for our expertise, the customer deserves your respectful and articulate communications always.
  4. Be responsive to their requests – meet all deadlines and communicate status frequently for those longer-term requests.
  5. Seek to make your customer successful – customers want what we want, simply to be successful in achieving their goals. If you help them do that, you too will be successful!

Contributed by Jerry Parsons, Director, ECCM