Customer Service Week Resources

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Take a World Tour

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

The team at Masterbrand Cabinets celebrated Customer Service Week with a trip around the world. Well, okay they really did it all without ever leaving home. But what a trip it was …

The week began with associates traveling to the MBCI (Masterbrand Cabinets, Inc.) Airport where they were greeted by supervisors who handed out passports, itineraries, and snacks for the journey.

Each day, associates returned to the airport where they boarded a “Unite All Airlines” flight to their destination. They received a goodie bag with items for their trip, enjoyed a lunch of regional specialties, and played travel and location themed games. Here are the details:

  • Monday — Flight to Mexico. Each associate received a goodie bag containing a stress relief ball, Mexican jumping beans, and candy. Lunch included tacos, chips, and salsa. And the games included pin the flag on Mexico, ring toss in which rings were tossed onto a cactus, a memory game in which associates were shown travel-sized items for 15 seconds and asked to recall as many items as possible.
  • Tuesday — Flight to Hawaii. As associates arrived at the airport, they were greeted with a traditional Hawaiian lei and a goodie bag filled with candy, sea shells, and a bottle of bubbles. Lunch featured Hawaiian pork sandwiches. And the games included pin the flag on Hawaii, a timed hula hoop contest, and a golf putting challenge.
  • Wednesday — Flight to China. At the airport, associates received Chinese take-out boxes filled with goodies such as chop sticks, a compass, and candy. Lunch included egg rolls and various lo mein dishes. And the games featured ping-pong, a suitcase packing game, and a timed game that involved putting various objects into a take-out container box using chopsticks.
  • Thursday — Flight to France. Each associate received candy and a stress-relief toy for the journey. They enjoyed a lunch of croissant sandwiches and non-alcoholic Champaign punch. The day’s games included a French history quiz, pin the flag on France, and a painting contest.
  • Friday — Flight to New York. To wrap up the week, associates visited the Big Apple. At the airport they received a top hat filled with candy and a stress-relief ball shaped like an apple. The day’s meal included New York-style pizza and cheese cake. Games of tacky tourist, pin the flag on New York, and an adaptation of the television show Cash Cab rounded out the celebration.
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Tasty Treats with a Message

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

On the final day of Customer Service Week, everyone on the service team at Northwestern Mutual was invited to bring in a treat to share. But rather than simply put treats on a table, each person was asked to give his or her contribution an appropriate customer service-related name. So the table was filled with:

  • Courteous cupcakes
  • Loyal lemon bread
  • Added-value apple bread
  • Dedicated donuts
  • Kan-do Korean coleslaw, and
  • Customer satisfied strawberries.
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Teams Focus on Core Values

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

The team at AliMed celebrated Customer Service Week 2012 with an Olympic theme that focused on fun and some powerful messages.

To begin, the entire department was divided into five cross-functional groups. Each group represented an Olympic ring and a core attribute of great customer service.

Each group created materials and activities to share their attribute with the entire team. They used word searches, crosswords, tip sheets in the form of bookmarks, and more. Each day, a different attribute was celebrated:

Monday — Red — Positivity
Tuesday — Black — Empathy
Wednesday — Blue — Integrity
Thursday — Yellow — Communication
Friday — Green — Problem Solving

In addition to the color days, there were daily activities including an awards ceremony for reps with Olympic-related categories such as the AliMed Sharp Shooter, the person who has “the quickest trigger finger on the phone and is always on target.”

Throughout the week, the Olympic Medal Leader Board showed each team’s medal count. Winning teams received raffle tickets, and prizes were awarded at the end of the week.

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Theme Photos Create Memories

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

Each year, the team at Health Plan of the Upper Ohio Valley finds an opportunity to take individual and group photos during Customer Service Week.

The 2009 celebration included a “Night at the Oscars” party with dinner, goodie bags and more. The paparazzi were on hand to photograph each rep as she walked down the red carpet. Because there is only one man in the department, he individually escorted each woman and posed for a photo.

The following year, the team celebrated with a holiday theme and the lone male rep dressed as the Easter Bunny. He posed for photos with each rep and distributed plastic eggs filled with surprises after each photo was snapped.

The photos are wonderful momentos of the celebration and are sure to bring a smile for years to come.

If you don’t have an opportunity to take team photos, consider distributing disposable cameras so that you are sure to capture the fun.

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This or That (Remote ready)

  By Activities, Team Building

Description

This simple game is easy to play but it will spark deep conversations among staff as they debate and get to know each other. There’s no winner and no looser, just laughter.

Materials

List of “this or that” prompts
CSW Scratch Off Cards for all participants

Directions

Invite the team to gather in a circle, either seated or standing. Three or more people are required to play.

Explain that you will be playing a fun game to see how well you really know each other.

As the leader, you will read a series of simple “this or that” prompts. Start on your right and continue around the circle. The player must immediately choose their preference from the two options. Then ask them to explain.

Start by answering a few prompts yourself to break the ice.

Prompts based on your work environment and procedures will be the most fun and engaging. Some generic prompts are suggested below:

Three calls at once or no calls all afternoon?

Phone support or email support?

Loud, chatty office or completely silent workspace?

Onsite or remote work?

An overly detailed customer or an overly vague customer?

Offering a full refund or offering a free upgrade?

An angry customer or an overly chatty customer?

Directing customers to an FAQ page or giving personalized step-by-step guidance?

A chatty customer or a straight to the point customer

An angry customer or a complex issue?

Open-ended or closed-ended questions?

Difficult problem or difficult person?

Remote Tip

Dispersed teams can easily complete this activity using a video conferencing tool such as Zoom, Webex, or Google Hangouts.

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Tie-in with Local Activities

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

Many Customer Service Week celebrations tie-in with seasonal events such as the fall harvest, Halloween, or Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In Winston-Salem, NC, the celebration at Aon Hewitt tied-in with the local county fair, which takes place at the same time.

The festive mood began as reps arrived on Monday morning and were greeted by their managers with music, balloons, and raffle tickets. The winner of the raffle drawing received tickets to the Dixie Classic Fair.

The fair theme continued each afternoon as managers distributed snacks including candy apples, cotton candy, and snow cones. And a classic hot dog lunch, complete with Customer Service Week cake, wrapped up the week.

Games and activities also had a fair theme. Reps tried their hands at ring toss, corn toss, a duck pond, and Wii games. There was also a little good-natured competition between Aon Hewitt service centers in different parts of the country, to see who could collect the most toys for donation to local children’s centers.

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Trading Cards Feature Reps

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

The Customer Service Week agenda from the Philadelphia Water Revenue Bureau is absolutely packed with activities, but two stand out as truly unique.

All week long, team members participated in activities such as treasure hunts, bingo, secret pals, daily quizzes, a pie-toss, and more. Reps were rewarded with “Bureau Bucks” which they used to bid on a wide range of items in the bureau’s silent auction on Friday.

Another highlight of the week was trading and collecting customer service All Star Trading Cards. Each trading card included a photograph of a team member on the front along with their All Star “stats” on the back.

Prior to Customer Service Week, each employee had provided information about themselves along with their personal motto for the card.

During the week, each employee received a pack of five cards. They were encouraged to get together to trade and collect the cards. As manager Phyllis Chase tells us, “Trading proved to be an exciting activity and helped to introduce employees that may not have otherwise known one another.” All Star Cards also played a role in earning Bureau Bucks. At activities throughout the week, an organizer might announce, “If you have a Phyllis Chase All Star Card, you’ve just won 50 Bureau Bucks.”

Finally, Phyllis tells us that the entire budget for this event for 250 people comes from the fund-raising efforts of the bureau. Beginning in January the bureau hosts two events per month. The events both raise funds and keep morale and team spirit high throughout the year.

Some of the many fund-raisers include:

  • 50-50 raffles
  • Two casino trips per year
  • Pretzel and water ice sales in the summer
  • An ice-skating party in the winter
  • A candy sale, and more.

A portion of the funds raised are also donated to a local emergency shelter.

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Training for Everyone

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Highlight Training

After a 10 year hiatus, Barton Community College was ready to begin celebrating Customer Service Week again. This time the festivities involved college staff from all of the departments on campus.

To ensure that everyone could participate, the event featured several activities that were repeated throughout the week. For example, the popular FISH! video was shown on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in both morning and afternoon sessions.

And stress reduction training was presented on Monday and Thursday in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

Not only were participants informed and motivated, they were also entered into a prize drawing each time they attended an activity.

The week came to a close on Friday with a one-time only ice cream social complete with photo booth. Plenty of hats, sun glasses, and boas were available to create a special memento of the week.

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Two-Way Communication

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Highlight Training

When NorthStar Capital Markets Services held its first Customer Service Week celebration, the week was packed with creative activities that focused on team building, training, and just plain fun.

Two of those activities combined fun with a purpose. The first focused attention on the importance of two-way communication, and the second on vocal tone and quality.

In the first activity, reps were divided into teams of two to complete a series of challenges, which required both trust and excellent communication skills.

In each team, one person was designated the leader and the other was blindfolded. The teams then completed a series of tasks using words only. Here’s what they did:

  1. The blindfolded person was instructed to draw specific shapes on a flip chart. To get it just right, the leader had to give very clear and precise instructions.
  2. The next challenge was based on the party game, Mad Gab. The leaders were instructed to read the following phrases to their partners and to vary their pace and inflection until their partner understood each one. The phrases were:
    • Heaven Iced Hey — Have a nice day
    • Awe Wean Heed Issue — All we need is you
    • Hike Wallet He — High quality
  3. For a more tactile task, the leader guided her blindfolded partner to place a stone in the correct position among other stones on a tray.
  4. And for the more athletic, the leader guided her partner in an attempt to toss a foam football into a bin.
  5. To wrap up the event, the blindfolded rep pushed her partner, in an office chair, through an obstacle course. At the finish line, they celebrated completing the tasks together.

The second featured activity focused reps attention on the importance of vocal tone and quality.

In this “experiment,” reps were asked to call their desks and leave themselves a simple message. Next, reps were asked to leave themselves the same message but this time to stand up, smile and face the person next to them when speaking.

When comparing the two messages reps noticed the difference, says operations trainer, Brenda Knutson, “The participants were shocked at how lethargic and uninteresting they sounded on voicemail. But once they stood up, added the smile and acted as if they were talking to the person next to them, everything changed.”

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Two-Way Communication (Remote ready)

  By Activities, Skill-building

Description

This classic communication exercise illustrates the importance of two-way communication in a very visual and often humorous way.

Materials

8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper for each participant

Directions

Have participants arrange their chairs classroom style or around a table.

Give each participant a sheet of paper. Ask them to close their eyes and follow your directions as noted below:

No one may ask questions during this activity.
You must keep your eyes closed during the activity — no peeking.
Fold your sheet of paper in half.
Tear off the upper right hand corner.
Fold your paper in half again.
Tear off the lower right hand corner.
Fold your paper in half.
Tear off the upper left-hand corner.
Fold your paper in half a final time.
Tear off the lower left-hand corner.
Unfold your paper and hold it up.
Open your eyes, look at your paper and compare it with the others.

Remote Tip

Dispersed teams can easily complete this activity using a video conferencing tool such as Zoom, Webex, or Google Hangouts.

Discussion

Take a few moments to discuss the importance of effective communication and to ask participants for examples of how this applies to their daily work with customers.

  • If you were given the same directions, why is everyone’s paper different? (Remember when you communicate with others, they may not receive the message you sent. Individual perceptions vary.)
  • Would two-way communication have resulted in all of the papers being more similar?
  • What does this mean to you as a communicator?
  • How does this activity relate to our daily work with customers?

Return to Customer Service Week Activities

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