We’ll get to the topic soon… but first, there is no secret reason for this choice of photo. It’s Teddy, thinking that he should have cheesecake too!

To the topic: Job Seeker or Job Keeper?

Yesterday I talked about customer service as it relates to Breaking All the Records. Jim Connolly also talked about the topic in his post, What’s your Experience, asking you to analyze what makes you choose one service or business over another and think about what makes a wonderful buying experience. His post inspired Robin Dickinson to write his post, The Golden Key to being Remarkable They both spoke about the peak and off-peak experience. Robin’s question was why don’t businesses design their services for peak times.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about my restaurant experience but it is bigger than that. It crosses the lines to all service industries, retail shopping, grocery shopping, restaurants, coffee shops, and more. It also crosses over to client-driven businesses like mine, Design Resumes. I’ve had excuses in the past, because I was juggling multiple roles with other organizations like Wausau Whitewater. When I made the decision to focus on Design Resumes, it was a decision to start being deliberate, and not random.

It takes work to provide over-the-top customer or client service! As Dan Gacke said yesterday in his comment, he wants to be in a WOW experience so that he will not only want to come back but he will bring all his friends. I understand how hard it is to consistently deliver a WOW experience but that’s not what puzzles me.

What puzzles me as a career industry professional who has spent most of her life crafting resume strategies and career marketing materials, why in this economy are we still getting BAD customer service. If you are a job seeker now, you know that it is tough out there. Even with professional help, job seekers are finding it hard to find a new position. But if the statistics are right, about 90% of people are still employed. With the threat of more unemployment ever looming, wouldn’t you think that every one in a job right now would be focusing on how they could remain a Job keeper so that they don’t have to compete in the marketplace as a job seeker?

I’ll tell you why it doesn’t happen that way. The mind is very talented at forgetting painful experiences. Ask any mother who has given birth, after a short time, you only remember that the experience of giving birth gave you a precious child. You forget the pain for the most part. Same thing, unfortunately for many job seekers. They forget the pain of seeking a job and forget how they felt, how long it took, and all the effort that went into finding a new position. They get complacent. They start complaining about their new job, new boss, new customers… If you want to stay a job keeper or even grow to a more challenging and responsible role, I think the focus should be on the things Jim – “The kind of positive, commercially valuable experience I’m talking about here, needs to penetrate your marketing, your delivery, your customer service, your design – everything.” and Robin “You want to take your remarkability to the next level?  The golden key is to design your customer/user experience to be remarkable in both peak and off-peak periods.  This will put you at an immediate advantage against off-peak only providers.” mentioned. Provide incredible customer service wherever you are working now as a job keeper.

What do you think? Talk to me, I talk back!