At Tony Conway’s special events business, A Legendary Event, when any employee answers the phone, he or she is automatically responsible for whatever is on the other end. There’s no passing it off to anyone else — the person has to take ownership of it. Taking this approach to customer service is just one way that the company successfully puts on more than 2,500 events each year, which have garnered the company $15 million in revenue and more than 300 awards.
Smart Business spoke with Conway, the company’s owner and president, about how to have strong customer service.
What’s the key to strong customer service?
For leaders, they first have to make sure they’re listening to their customers and that they’re listening to their team. That’s a real key. They have to hear what their team has to say about what they’re dealing with with the customers and what the customers are asking about.
I would say, as well, if you’re going to make the decision to be a leader in any business, make sure you understand every job that everyone in your company has — what they go through, how they do it — so you can have that dialogue with them. If you come in as a leader and you spend no time with your product or your business or with what your talent is providing, you as a leader aren’t going to be effective. You can’t talk about something being hot if you don’t know where the heat comes from. You can’t talk about things being beautiful or fresh if you don’t know how it gets there and how it’s ordered and what the cost is.
There are many leaders out there who say, ‘Well, that’s why I hire the people with the strengths.’ It’s still something that leaders have to be a part of. Someone with that strength will, somewhere along the line, need some help. They’ll need guidance. They’ll need direction. They’ll need an opinion, and if you don’t understand what it is they do, how can you give that opinion? If you’re at the forefront and have no idea what your team does on a daily basis to make that happen, you’re really an ineffective leader.
