Through the eyes of an intern...
I had a conversation with a colleague of mine about an interesting story. There was a woman who lived in an apartment, in Toronto, and the pipe burstmaking a mess of her apartment. So, at first, you may think this issue is going to be handled by the insurance company, but the property manager downstairs gave the lady a $200 gift card as soon as this happened. It turns out the lady was out of work and was getting ready to go to an interview a few days later for a job. Her clothes were ruined and the guy wanted to make sure she could go purchase new clothing and a pair of shoes. It wasn't a matter of wanting to brush the situation off or bribe her with money as an apology, but he was genuine in wanting to help her out.
It is interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, typically you don't think a building property manager would have customer service on their priority list. The second thing is a lot of people don't think that far ahead. Most of the time, they would be apologizing, cleaning up the mess, or calling the insurance company and that would be it. Instead, he handled this situation in a very generous and professional manner. He didn't looked at this person who just lives in an apartment, or as a number, but as an actual person with specific needs.
The moral of this story is that you never know where you will find good service and the second thing is to put yourself in the customers shoes literally and figuratively. In order for growth and expansion of one's business or company, managers must accommodate and treat every person equally and consistently provide quality and effective customer service in a friendly manner.
