Bianca Angelico discusses the themes for this year’s National Customer Service Week and the importance of recognising front-of-house staff.
Monday: The future of AI
As technology continues to develop, the world of customer service continues to adapt to keep up. At On Verve, we always strive to operate with a human touch. Our understanding and rapport with our clients cannot be replaced with a machine, but there are ways technology and AI can be integrated into our practices.
From a neurodiversity perspective, AI tools such as ChatGPT are a great way to help with writing tasks. As part of the DayMaker role, we create a lot of written content for our clients and for ourselves. For those of us who have neurodiverse conditions, these tasks can be more difficult.
I have encouraged my colleagues to use the AI tool to help with idea generation and writing tasks to kick-start the process if they feel stuck. As AI continues to improve, I believe its efficiencies will make it a fantastic tool for our team.
Tuesday: Service with Respect Day
The Service with Respect initiative is all about highlighting the difficulties that customer-facing workers must contend with. Research has shown that more than half of customer-facing staff have experienced abuse at work since the beginning of the pandemic. This is shocking and should be addressed nationally.
At On Verve, DayMakers occasionally deal with building users who are frustrated about a certain element of the facilities. We train DayMakers to always acknowledge the person’s emotions but to remain rational and deliver the facts of the situation. DayMakers can escalate the issues to their managers if they feel it is necessary and are reminded that it is okay to step away from any situation where they feel things have gone beyond their capabilities or to let things diffuse.
Ultimately, the campaign must be heard, and guest services teams need to be respected.
Wednesday: Customer Service as a Profession
It has been great to see the increase in recognition of the industry and the opportunities within it in recent years. A fair few of our team members have been on journeys of their own.
Our new operations director, Gabrielle Lapompe, started her career in guest services as a receptionist before working up into account management, space management operations and now as head of operations for an entire business.
Similarly, Lauren Bibby delivers operational support at On Verve. Before joining the team, her background had been purely hospitality-based. She was quickly promoted to an operational support role as her knowledge and understanding of operations made her the best fit. Now, Lauren is a key figure in the On Verve team and helps oversee various accounts.
By investing in your team and promoting them according to their strengths, you can create great paths for progression and build an efficient team simultaneously.
Thursday: Driving Sustainable Growth
Guest service providers can and should be utilised more by businesses to help push ESG efforts. Once we understand these goals, we can align our practices to further support them. One aspect of the corporate office that is typically overlooked is lost property. Despite numerous attempts to return items to their owners, there are always pieces that sit in lost property for months with no claim.
At On Verve, we have started removing unclaimed lost property items to be donated to charity. We choose donation centres that are within walking distance of our client sites, meaning the process doesn’t involve further carbon emissions. This way, the unclaimed items can have a second life, money can be raised for charity, and we can further support the sustainable goals of the client.
Friday: Service Recognition Day
At On Verve, we’re all about service recognition and empowering DayMakers. We have ‘DayMaker of the Month’ where account managers nominate a DayMaker for their great work and the winner is celebrated with a commemorative certificate and online recognition from our social media channels.
Our most recent DayMaker of the Month is Nataly. Her account manager Milja said: “Nataly has gone above and beyond to support another contract. Nataly absolutely smashed it out of the park, created new procedures and processes, and impressed both clients and customers on a daily basis. Nataly, we are so proud of you, congratulations on your great achievement and keep up the great work!”
