Celebration Stories and Ideas

The celebration at Orkin was filled with a wide-range of activities but two that really captured the spirit of Customer Service Week focused on recognizing frontline reps for their hard work and commitment to service.

The week began with a continental breakfast and motivational comments by the department vice president. Then everyone returned to their desks hoping to be “Caught in the Act” of delivering excellent service.

This activity is based on what author Ken Blanchard calls the most powerful way to motivate employees: to catch them in the act of doing something right, and then cheer them on.

Throughout the day, many reps were “caught” and duly rewarded with small gifts. Reps names were also posted on the walls of the breakroom as the company’s “Customer Service Stars.”

Wednesday was Team Spirit and Peer Evaluation day. Teams dressed in their chosen colors. And participation was high because only those teams with 100% participation qualified for a team prize.

In addition, reps participated in a recognition program Orkin calls Peer Evaluation and Recognition for Excellence. Manager Janet Carmichael reports that this is one of the most popular activities. Everyone in the company is encouraged to send a note of thanks or commendation to anyone else in the company. To make the process easy, pre-printed Star Cards were created for the event. As Janet says, “It was wonderful to see how faces lit up on receiving a compliment from coworkers.”

The team at Demag Cranes and Components Corp. celebrated with lots of events and activities every day of the week. Two of their activities focused on building strong connections with other departments.

Throughout the week Demag posted slide shows on the company Intranet for everyone to enjoy. These included photos of the service team, information on Customer Service Week activities, and customer praise for frontline reps. One humorous slide show, pictured above, featured reps on the covers of popular gossip magazines.

While other departments were learning more about the service team, the reps were learning more about their coworkers by participating in an amazing race activity.

Loosely based on the popular television show “The Amazing Race,” the contest had teams of reps traveling around the office and interviewing people in other departments. The goal was to learn more about their work in order to solve the day’s challenge.

“And, of course,” says organizer Tricia Ater, “there were lots of laughs and fun shared.”

Off-site workers were included in this on-site Customer Service Week celebration through the clever use of technology.

Dairyland Healthcare Solutions started their celebration early. Goodie bags with the week’s agenda, daily puzzles, a pen, and a small treat were distributed on the Friday before Customer Service Week.

Then throughout the week, reps enjoyed a muffin morning, pie and ice cream social, a training seminar, and the return of the popular cube cram in which as many people as possible cram into one cubicle. This year the team beat their previous record of 21-1/2 with a total of 24 people. Just in case you’re wondering about that half, one of the reps was pregnant last year.

Finally, Dairyland created group photos of each of their customer service teams. Some teams include remote employees. To create the photos, one group photo was taken and then the heads of missing team members were added. Everyone received a copy of their complete team as a memento of the celebration.

Can you spot the off-site workers?

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.

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.”

A busy Customer Service Week at Mondial Assistance aims to help reps relax, keep fit and smile.

But like many service organizations Mondial faces the challenges presented by a 24/7 center. Andrea Smith tells us that, Mondial always makes a strong effort to involve everyone in as many activities as possible.

For example, Wednesday featured a company-wide lunch. Extra food was delivered and set aside for the overnight team so that they could enjoy a special lunch rather than leftovers. Later in the week, associates showed their team spirit by wearing their favorite team or sports wear to work. Prizes were awarded, but not until the following morning so that the overnight associates could also participate.

Mondial also took the classic Smile Challenge and made it uniquely their own with a high-tech twist.

“We took pictures of 36 associates in our office and posted their smiles on our company Intranet. Everyone really seemed to get into it, and one of our executives even brought in vampire fangs for her picture!” says Andrea.

Associates tried to match each smile to the correct person, which led to lots more smiles during the week and to three employees with perfect scores.

Mondial also hosted a health and wellness fair during the week. As an emergency assistance company Mondial has a team of registered nurses on staff to organize such an event. But the real lesson from this activity is that a health fair was already planned. By working together, the Customer Service Week team was able to combine the two events.

Customer Service Week is the perfect time to partner with your training, human resources and other departments to bring together many activities under the Customer Service Week banner.

Are you a Speedy Gonzales, Gumby or Martha Stewart? That was the question that reps at Cox Health were pondering during Customer Service Week 2009.

The Physicians Billing team wrapped up it’s week-long celebration with a pot luck lunch and awards ceremony on Friday. Actually, there were two types of awards. First, were the “Oscars,” in which reps received recognition from management in categories such as Dedication to Accuracy and Offering Assistance.

Then there were the People’s Choice Awards in which reps recognized each other. A form listing the various categories for recognition was distributed prior to Customer Service Week. Reps voted for winners in eight categories including the following:

• Speedy Gonzales: This person is a go-getter, he/she approaches issues with a sense of urgency, produces high-quality results, is persistent, and stays on top of things.
• Payton Manning: This person is a team player and is always willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done right.
• Gumby: This person represents flexibility. He/she is always willing to help a coworker, has excellent multi-tasking skills, and will assist in any area where there is a need.

To create your own People’s Choice Awards, view all eight of the categories used by Cox Health.

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.

At the Memphis IRS Employee Resource Center, Customer Service Week is a time to show reps how much they are appreciated, celebrate milestones, recognize outstanding service, and connect with coworkers and former employees.

How do they do all that in one week? It’s a very busy week.

Each day is celebrated with a different theme and then there are the major events like the gala Director’s Luncheon on Thursday. While the management and leadership team serves lunch, the Director’s Awards and the Length of Service Awards are presented. To make this event even more special, executives and former employees from near and far are invited to attend and share in the celebration.

Another important event was incorporated into the celebration when the team received its 4 millionth customer call. That’s like one call from each person in the state of Oregon. It’s an amazing milestone, which was celebrated by all, including a special gift for the lucky rep who took the call.

Finally, to wrap up the festive week, a special video was created. It included highlights of the 2010 event as well as prior celebrations.

The celebration at Approva Corporation in Virginia was designed to include everyone from local service staff to support staff over 8,000 miles away. To get everyone involved three different types of events were organized.

• Department-Wide. Each day, members of the service and support team received a small token of management’s appreciation. By the end of the week everyone had a treasure chest of mementos from the week. The team was also treated to a thank-you lunch, which was hosted by the Senior Vice President of Global Customer Solutions. But the highlight was surely the desk-chair parade. Teams of service and support staff worked together to transform their chairs into festive “floats” for a parade through the department.
• Company-Wide. The entire company joined in a mid-week celebration with a giant cake and words of thanks and encouragement from the company CEO.
• World-Wide. Finally, the off-site service and support team in India celebrated Customer Service Week as well. They hosted their own parade with amazing costumes made entirely from paper. While the groups are over 8,000 miles apart, they bridged the distance by sharing photos of their celebrations.