Mary, the director of our customer service department, has a unique interview question she likes to ask candidates: how does having a sense of humor benefit you in work and life?
She believes that humor is key to building a strong and resilient team that can handle the tough work of customer service.
Humor helps us to stay grounded and not take ourselves and our setbacks too seriously. It helps us to enjoy each other’s company. Humor goes a long way in relaxing tense moments and building bonds between people.
When our customer service team gets on a meeting together, there’s often a lot of laughter and smiles, even when there’s serious work to do. The team enjoys being around each other, loves sharing stories and tips, and they laugh at and learn from their past mistakes.
They have to stay lighthearted to thrive in the day-to-day of customer service. Life is messy, and no day will be perfect. They’ll get tired, and grumpy, and make mistakes. People will get mad for no reason, or maybe for a perfectly good reason.
Humor helps us all stay human and humble. It also helps us do our best and then shrug it off and move on.
As a whole company, we like to say: we take our work seriously, but ourselves lightly.
Customer support is serious work. We’ve made good service one of the highlights of doing business with us, and we see it being front and center of our business strategy forever.
So yes, it’s serious for us, but we’ve got the right people, years of practice, a real love for our students, and a big dose of humor.
Customer service is our secret sauce, and it can be yours as well. Take these tips and tricks out into the field, and let us know how it goes!
