Most organisations have specialist divisions for customer service and train their customer service agents. But how many organisations train all their staff on customer service? Recently I was engaging in some business development with a well-known organisation.

In my opinion, if you are an internal recruiter you should be a brand ambassador for your organisation, as you only want to hire the best talent in the ‘war for talent’. Internal recruiters are the first point of contact for job seekers, wanting to join the organisation. But on this occasion, I found the internal recruiter was off hand and dismissive. Halfway through the conversation they just said, “not interested” and put the phone down. My mother used to say: “it is not what you say, but how you say” (I think I am turning into my mother), but now more than ever, I agree with her.

This made me think of how some organisations tend to overlook customer service to non-customer service positions. These days it does not matter what business you are in, chances are you face a lot of competition. There are only a few chances to differentiate your business from your competitor and one poor experience with your organisation equals 16 anti-referrals. That poor experience not only affects a paying customer but can be anybody.

It is not only about writing more business that results from amazing customer services, but it’s also about losing money if you leave any part of your business without a good customer service experience. That is why you should train all staff, irrespective of whether they are on the front line or in the back office.