5 Ideas For Customer Service Week 2024

Customer Service Week is celebrated each year during the first full week of October. This week was created back in the 1980s by the International Customer Service Association. Most people think Customer Service Week is to recognize and appreciate customers, but it’s not. Yes, we should always appreciate our customers, but this week is meant to be dedicated to the employees who take care of our customers and make them want to keep doing business with us.

Over the years, I’ve written numerous articles on my blog and my weekly Forbes.com column. If you’d like to dive into some of the ideas I shared in previous articles, here are some links:

· Ten Ways To Celebrate National Customer Service Week

· National Customer Service Week Isn’t Just About Customers

· What Customers Want And Don’t Want: A Special Article For Customer Service Week

In addition, here are five more ideas. They are correlated to each day of the week, but you can use any of them on any day, change the titles, use one or two or all five—whatever works for you. Even using one idea to show your thanks for your employees during the week will be welcomed and appreciated.

• Motivational Monday: This is a day to have a motivational rally around your customer service vision and CX goals. It’s a great way to kick off the week. If you don’t have a service vision, it’s time to create one. My preference—and what I work with my clients to create—is a one-sentence (or less) statement that defines how you want your customers to be treated. I often reference The Ritz-Carlton’s nine-word statement: We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. Often you can find a variation of a one-sentence mantra in your company’s vision or mission statement. I like the short version of one sentence or less because it’s easy for people to remember.
• Testimonial Tuesday: Remember, Customer Service Week is about recognizing employees. Rather than having management and leadership do the recognition, ask some of your favorite customers to share a short video testimonial about why they love the people in your organization.
• Wake Up and Smell the Coffee Wednesday: Kick off the day with a coffee drink. For those who don't like coffee, be sure to include other drinks like hot chocolate, soft drinks, etc. Another option is to buy everyone a Starbucks gift card with a short appreciation note.
• Tell Me You Love Me Thursday: I refer to this as Kudos Day. Each employee is asked to write a note about a fellow employee with a compliment. It reminds me of a Secret Santa program. Each employee is secretly given the name of a colleague, whom they surprise with a complimentary note. This is a great way to create connection and camaraderie within your teams.
• Funny Friday: Most organizations have an HR (Human Resources) department. For Funny Friday, HR means Humor Resource. The idea is that everyone has a great laugh together—or at least are laughing about the same thing. The exercise is simple. Either one person or a small team scours YouTube for a funny video. Videos with animals or children are very popular. It must be clean, non-offensive and G-rated. Consider having someone in leadership do a short video intro to set up the clip. Depending on your organization—how small or large, if employees work on the premises or remotely and other variables—you can show it live at lunch or send it out as an email. Just keep it simple, light and fun, adding to the celebratory mood of Customer Service Week.

You don’t have to do all five of these. You may choose to do only one. And you don’t need to do it on its appointed day. You can even use some of these ideas throughout the year, which brings me to my final observation. Even though we celebrate Customer Service Week during the first full week of October, be sure to celebrate your employees’ hard work the other 51 weeks as well. CS week is just a week to highlight the importance of showing how much you appreciate your employees.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author.?Learn more about Shep's virtual?training programs and follow #ShepHyken for more customer service and experience insights.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com .

Check out Shep's latest research in his Achieving Customer Amazement Study , Sponsored by RingCentral .