Customer Service Week Resources

Activities • Bulletins • Celebration Stories and Ideas • Downloads • Gift • Puzzles • 

Reinforce Service Goals With a Little Mystery

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Highlight Training

At John Hopkins Healthcare, a relatively simple and low-cost Customer Service Week activity helped focus attention on service goals and brought the team closer together.

The only materials needed are 5″ x 7″ cards with each rep’s name and a border of stars, plus a hole-punch.

Here’s how it worked:

Without any prior explanation, supervisors and managers began punching holes in the stars and initialing rep’s cards.

Customer service manager, Nancy DiLeo, tells us that this drove reps crazy with questions, “Is a hole punch a good thing? How many holes can I get? Why are you doing this?”

As the week progressed, supervisors and managers began dropping hints as they punched and signed their way through the department. Compliments such as “Hey that was a great ending to a call” or “Thanks for helping the new rep with that tough problem” could be heard throughout the department.

By Wednesday, supervisors and managers were asking groups of two or three reps questions on departmental policies. Every correct answer earned the rep a hole-punch.

The mystery was finally solved on Friday when all of the cards were turned in and reps received tickets for prize drawings for each hole-punch they had received.

Nancy summarizes the benefits of the activity this way, “We might have started out on a mission to punch holes and have some fun; what we really got was a deeper connection with our team. It’s carried over into the weeks since our celebration; supervisors stop and listen and talk with reps a lot more now.”

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Reps Become Secret Shoppers

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Highlight Training

The highlight of the weeklong celebration at Cambrex Corporation was a special activity, which turned frontline reps into customers and gave them an opportunity to benchmark their service against other organizations.

Supervisor Tom Shifflett describes the benchmarking program as an eye-opening experience for the customer service team. Here’s how it worked:

Reps were divided into teams of two and given a list of items to purchase. Then, the entire department went to a local mall. But this was no ordinary shopping trip, as reps had to follow these rules:

  • Only one item may be purchased per store.
  • Each person on the team must purchase each item.
  • A salesperson must be consulted at each store.
  • A customer service evaluation form must be completed for each store.

Later, the entire team met to review their completed evaluation forms, to discuss areas where improvement could be made, and to determine lessons learned that they could transfer to their own operations.

While the Cambrex team chose to shop in the local mall, this eye-opening event could just as easily be adapted to telephone or online shopping.

And just in case you’re wondering what happened with all those items that were purchased — they were given to the reps as thank-you gifts!

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Reps Recognize Each Other

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

To celebrate Customer Service Week, Systems Services of America created an event filled with movie trivia and an Academy Awards-style party where every rep was a star.

Weeks before the celebration, service manager Dianna Bailey-Thompson asked each rep on her team to write something special about every other person in the department. All of the comments were then combined into a “You Are The Star” booklet.

For the Oscar party, reps dressed in sparkle top hats and star shaped glasses and lined the red carpet to wait for the stars. Dianna called each rep’s name and read the compliments she had received while the rep walked, or danced, down the red carpet past cheering coworkers who blew horns and tossed confetti.

Dianna tells us that it was “a great way for the CSRs to celebrate each other as well as themselves and it was a huge success!” As a momento of the celebration each rep received a copy of the star booklet and an award for her desk.

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Rhyme Time (Remote ready)

  By Puzzles
Materials:Rhyme Time sheets for each team member.

A Customer Service Week Pen to use.
Notes:For a puzzling time, try a rhyme.

In this rhyming challenge, puzzlers must solve each clue with a word that rhymes with the last word of the clue.

The last question on the puzzle sheet asks participants to create their own challenge. Gather these and share them with your team.

Reward everyone who completes the puzzle with a Customer Service Week Scratch Off Card.
Puzzles/
Solutions:		Rhyme Time sheets.
Rhyme Time solutions.

Return to Puzzles and Games

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Scavenger Hunt

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

This easy to execute scavenger hunt at Stryker helped coworkers get to know each other while searching for common and unusual items.

To encourage cooperation with other departments, managers from throughout the company were invited to team with customer service reps in this exciting hunt.

Each team received a list of items that they had to collect. This included things such as a key chain with the company logo and a copy of the company’s annual report along with some more difficult to find items including a hula hoop, an etch a sketch and a toilet tissue roll, which had to be decorated to look like a person.

There was also a bonus item. The company’s former CEO just happens to work in the same building (albeit for another company). The bonus item was a signed copy of one of his new business cards.

A final added twist was the decorating contest. Each team received a sturdy box to hold their treasure. To qualify for an added gift, teams decorated their boxes.

One box recreated a treasure chest and another was decorated as a pirate ship complete with a mast and a toilet-tissue person on watch.

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Seated Relaxation

  By Activities, Skill-building

Description

Sitting in certain positions can be relaxing for body and mind while other positions can add to stress. This exercise demonstrates the right way to sit to relieve stress.

Materials

A relaxing Impossible Timer for each participant

Directions

Ask participants to arrange their chairs so that they are all facing you. Ask a volunteer to come forward with their chair. Explain that you will be demonstrating a seated relaxation posture that can alleviate some of the tension that comes from sitting for long periods of time.

First, ask the volunteer the sit in an awkward or unnatural position. Now ask all participants to get into the same position. Hold that position for one minute.

Next, demonstrate the correct posture. Ask all participants to get into the same position. Hold that position for one minute.

To find the correct posture, follow these steps:

First, bring your heels together on the floor in front of you, then let you feet and legs find their natural position. Your knees will separate slightly, the space between your thighs will widen and your toes will naturally move to the left and right.

Now, face your palms toward the ceiling, let your fingers curl up naturally, and gently drop your hands to your lap.

Let your shoulders relax.

Let your jaw go slack, so that your mouth is open a bit.

Close your eyes.

After a minute, have people slowly open their eyes and ask them how they feel. Lead a discussion about how the relaxation posture might be used during the day.

Discussion

  • Which comes first, stress or an awkward sitting posture?
  • Can an awkward sitting position cause stress?
  • How can you use the relaxation posture to help you relax during the day?

Return to Customer Service Week Activities

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Secret Agents Discover Other Departments

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

To celebrate Customer Service Week, the team at Systems Services of America took a page from the classic television series Mission Impossible.

While the theme music played on reps’ computers, each person selected an unmarked envelope with their mission … should they choose to accept it.

Dressed in trench coats and dark glasses the team made their way through the building gathering important information. The goal was to learn about the many steps taken to ensure worker safety in the company’s warehouse. The idea would work equally well to inform and educate staff about other departments.

After all of the safety information was gathered, the staff met at a non-alcoholic cocktail party to celebrate the week and share their new-found information.

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Seven Ways to Give Back

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Connect with Community

The team at The Results Company wanted to give back to their community during Customer Service Week. So each of seven locations selected a teambuilding charitable activity. Below are all seven activities. There just may be an idea to inspire your team.

  • Results Stuart held a Pumpkin decorating contest with all pumpkins being donated to the Blue Ridge Nursing Center. They held a 50/50 drawing and raised $150 for the Cancer Society. They also began a coat and canned food drive with all contributions donated to local food banks and the Salvation Army.
  • Results Streator focused their efforts on the Saving Sidney cause. Sidney is a 5-year old girl diagnosed with achalasia. At a benefit event, the team presented Sidney with $710.
  • Results Eastwood adopted the MyShelter Foundation and their “Liter of Light” initiative. The Foundation is dedicated to bringing eco-friendly bottle lights to communities without electricity. Team members donated 150 empty bottles as well as liquid bleach, sealants and other materials needed for the project.
  • As part of a site-wide team competition, Results Hermosillo collected 1,088 food items and donated them to the Banco de Aliminentos.
  • Results Galax donated $950 to the Twin County Humane Society. Blankets, towels, food, a dog house, and other items were also collected by staff and donated.
  • Results Provo held team competitions in an effort to collect nonperishable food items for the Utah Food Bank. Agents also participated in a “bike build off” in support of the Utah Foster Care Foundation.
  • Through various activities including raffles, “Supervisor Dials,” “Pie your Manager” and a car wash, Results Winter Haven raised $375 for the Polk County Education Foundation. The foundation assists Winter Haven-area teachers by providing tools and supplies.
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Show Training Videos in Style

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Highlight Training

At the Virginia Department of Transportation, training is both educational and fun during Customer Service Week.

Each year, the Customer Service Week committee hosts a Video Day in which decorations, costumes, and snacks all reflect the theme of the training video.

One popular video was “The Royal Treatment,” which focuses on treating customers like royalty.

Guests entered the auditorium where the video was shown by crossing a wooden drawbridge. Once inside, they found that half the room was decorated like a dungeon and half like a castle. Members of the Customer Service Week committee were dressed appropriately as characters from the movie, including a king, executioner, and jester.

As guests left the auditorium, they received magnetic cards that had been imprinted with the committee’s formula for giving every customer the royal treatment.

  • R — Recognize and acknowledge
  • O — Offer assistance
  • Y — Yes, I can attitude
  • A — Agree on a solution
  • L — Leave them in awe
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Smile Match Up

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

It’s true, the warmth of your smile really can be heard across the phone lines. So any Customer Service Week activity that reminds reps to smile is sure to be a success.

At Mile High Foods, Manager Jeanne O’Brien found a great way to focus on those wonderful smiles.

Here’s what the service team did:

Each customer service rep received a disposable camera and spent a week taking pictures of coworkers throughout the company. During Customer Service Week, those smiling faces were displayed in the lunchroom.

Everyone was invited to vote for their favorite photo in categories such as Most Contagious Smile, Most Sincere Smile, Upside-down Smile, and more.

Awards ranged from the appropriate wind-up chattering teeth to gift certificates.

The activity was a great success and Jeanne notes that, “Sometimes we all forget how important that smile is to our inner happiness and in providing internal and external service excellence.”

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