Customer Service Week Resources

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

Celebration on a Dime

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

Carolyn Reynolds describes her celebration as, “Customer Service Week on a dime.” But there was no skimping when it came to planning a week full of activities, beautiful decorations, and thoughtful gifts.

And best of all, it provided the Metro Government of Nashville and Davidson County Information Technology Services Technical Support Center “a much needed opportunity to thank our internal and external customers, and, for the department leaders to recognize our Service Desk Analysts for the terrific job they do.”

Highlights of the week included:

  • Team members kicked off the week by signing the Customer Service Week pledge and recommitting themselves to their service mission.
  • Throughout the week staff acknowledged the great service, follow-up, phone etiquette, and teamwork of their colleagues with Caught in the Act Cards.
  • On game day, there was something for everyone as team members participated in basketball, pool, Mad Gab, and checkers tournaments throughout the day.
  • A stress-relief break, featured ice cream sundaes and stress-relief goodie bags.
  • Throughout the week, coins were awarded both for participation and for winning events. These coins were very important because the team member with the most coins received a grand prize and all others were entered in a prize drawing. The order of the draw was based on the number of coins awarded.
Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Celebration Spans 8,000 Miles

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Build Stronger Teams

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.
Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Chair Decorating (Remote ready)

  By Activities, Team Building

Description

Chair decorating contests have always been a part of Customer Service Week celebrations. The activity allows enough flexibility to fit into any event and participants enjoy the camaraderie and creativity. In addition to decorating chairs many organizations decorate the entire work area as well. Click to see how Health Plan of the Upper Ohio Valley decorated with a holiday theme.

Materials

Each team provides their own materials
Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners
CSW Scratch Off Cards for all participants

Directions

First select a theme for your contest. Some popular themes are “Vacation getaway: Decorate one chair to represent a place where you can kick-back and relax,” “Seasons: Decorate one chair to represent a favorite season,” or if you choose to make this an individual rather than a group activity, “Getting to know you: Anything that represents you, your hobbies, or your passions.”

Divide your group into teams of three to five people.

When your teams are assembled, explain that they will be decorating one of their chairs to reflect the theme that you have selected. Provide the time frame for the activity. Allow two or three days so that team members are able to bring materials and props from home if they wish.

When the work is completed, invite the group to view all of the chairs. Announce the first, second, and third place winners or allow the group to vote for their favorites.

Remote Tip

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

Instead of gathering in the office to view decorated chairs, ask reps to use their webcams to show off their creations.

Discussion

As you view each chair, ask the team to explain their work and the process they used to arrive at the design.

Return to Customer Service Week Activities

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Chair Decorating Contest

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

The service team at United Stationers Supply Co. has been celebrating Customer Service Week for several years. This year’s event featured the return of their popular prize wheel, known as the Wheel O‘ Fun, plus many creative new ideas.

Each morning members of the leadership team greeted associates at the door. Theme days, puzzles and activities, and a special breakfast or lunch each day rounded out the week.

But the activity that really caught our attention was called “Pimp Your Ride.” The activity is loosely based on the TV program, “Pimp my Ride.” In each episode a dilapidated car is restored and customized in an over the top effort to reflect the owner’s personality and interests.

In this office edition, associates were asked to customize their own rides — otherwise known as their desk chairs. It was all part of the “awesome week” at United Stationers Supply Co.

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Chair Parade

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

A new Customer Service Week activity at Martin Group is bound to become an annual favorite. Involving reps, other departments and a creative expression of the company’s commitment to service, it’s just what Customer Service Week is all about.

To share their service spirit with the entire company, the Customer Care Support Team created a chair parade during Customer Service Week.

The group was randomly divided into teams of four. The teams were asked to create an Office Chair Float, which represented their commitment to excellent customer service.

A total of seven floats joined the parade traveling through the building tossing candy, Mardi Gras style, to laughing spectators who lined the hallways.

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Comments are closed

Comments are closed

Chili Cook-Off and Community Food Drive

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Connect with Community

The Friday chili cook-off at Demag — A Terex Brand, was a company-wide team-building event.

Each participant brought in a crock pot with their entry and set up a tasting area in their own department. Each tasting area was unique and encouraged people to travel through the office visiting other departments.

In order to enjoy this special lunch and to cast a vote for the best entry, employees were asked to bring in canned goods for a local food pantry. Customer Service and Spare Parts Manager, Tricia Ater, notes that she was overwhelmed by the generosity and saw many people bringing in bags full of food.

Charitable activities were also seen in penny wars, a clothing drive, and CanStruction activity.

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Classic Activities Get a High-Tech Update

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Focus on Fun

Pioneer Investments took three classic Customer Service Week activities and added some contemporary twists.

You’re sure to want to save these great ideas for your next celebration.

  • Morph Contest. The popular matching contest in which participants must match a baby photo, smile, or pet with its owner was updated to the Morph Contest. Reps were photographed and then every two photos was morphed into one. The photos were distributed via email and everyone tried to guess which two people made up each photo.
  • Selfie Scavenger Hunt. The traditional scavenger hunt, in which teams or individuals travel through the organization following clues and collecting items, was updated to a Selfie Scavenger Hunt. As each item was found, a selfie was snapped and later shared with the group.
  • Power Point Compliments Board. No more poster board for this team, the classic compliments board was re-imagined as a PowerPoint presentation that was played during a staff meeting.
Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Classic Game Shows

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Host Games and Competitions

Each year, the leadership team at United Stationers plans a full week of theme days, games, food, and fun for over 250 frontline associates.

One on the most popular activities is participating in classic TV game shows including Let’s Make a Deal, The Price is Right, Jeopardy, and Deal or No Deal.

The leadership team skillfully adapts these games to the office environment and creates everything that’s needed from a prize wheel, to questions, to glamorous hosts. In keeping with the spirit of fun, the hosts are “Jack Potts” and “Miss Terry Prize.”

Contestants are alert throughout the day for a call and invitation to “come on down” and play games. Winners may choose from a huge pile of exciting gifts including cookware, a tablet, gift cards, and more.

Additional popular game show activities include Fear Factor, Amazing Race, Jeopardy!, Cash Cab, and Survivor.

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Clear Communication

  By Activities, Skill-building

Description

This fun activity demonstrates the importance of clear communication and some of the pitfalls when instructions are ambiguous. This activity was adapted from The Customer Service Activity Book.

Materials

A jacket or sweater which buttons up the front

Directions

Ask the group to form a circle around you. You should be wearing the jacket.

Ask for a volunteer or select someone to participate in the activity with you.

Explain that it is not only important for service professionals to listen carefully to understand customers’ needs and wants, but that reps must also speak clearly and concisely so that customers understand them.

Next, explain the activity. Focus on the volunteer and say, “All I want you to do, standing right where you are, is to give me verbal directions and tell me how to put on my jacket. As you say this, take off your jacket, and as you are doing this, pull one of the sleeves inside out. Then, take off the jacket, ball it up and drop it on the floor. What follows is often very funny.

Now, listen very carefully to the volunteer’s instructions and do exactly what they say. Have fun with it. If the volunteer says, pick up your jacket, pick it up as a ball. If they say turn the sleeve inside out. Turn the correct sleeve the wrong way. If they say button the jacket, misalign the buttons and holes, and so on.

Discussion

This activity demonstrates the importance of precise communication. How can we apply this to our daily work?

Do we provide specific directions, either written or spoken that seem to confuse customers?

Return to Customer Service Week Activities

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed

Clothing Drive and Fashion Show

  By Celebration Stories and Ideas, Connect with Community

During Customer Service Week 2014, the Health Plan of San Mateo collected and donated 21 bags of clothing to a local organization, which desperately needed to restock its clothes closet.

It’s a wonderful activity that you can use any time of year to boost morale while doing good.

For the event, reps were randomly assigned to one of five teams. Each team was tasked with soliciting donations of gently used clothing. The teams then selected a model or models, picked a theme, and working with the clothing they had gathered, created an outfit and sent their model down the “red carpet.”

As you can see from the photos, the outfits were creative and colorful and the audience enjoyed them all.

Charitable activities were also seen in penny wars, a canned food drive, and CanStruction activity.

Pages:
Pages:

Comments are closed