A World-Class Customer Service Story and 6 Ways to Find One in Your Company

In the early 1980s, Sterling Price worked as a cook at chain pizza restaurant in Springdale, Arkansas. According to Sterling,

“A lady came in one day and asked if we had meatball sandwiches. When I told her we didn’t, she got very upset—on the verge of tears. So I said that even though we didn’t have it on the menu, we did have sandwich rolls, meatballs, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Since we had all the ingredients, I told her I could make it for her and just ring it up as one of the other sandwiches on the menu.

“She thanked me profusely, and then explained that her husband was very sick and had lost his appetite. She was desperate to get him to eat something, and had asked him if there was anything that sounded good. He told her he might be able to eat some of a meatball sandwich. She’d been to several restaurants already and no one could help her. We were the last stop she was going to make before going home empty-handed.

“She took the sandwich home and I didn’t think much more about it until the next day when she called the restaurant and asked for me. She told me her husband had eaten as much of the sandwich as he could manage, and was very grateful she was able to get it for him. It was the most complete and enjoyable meal he’d had in days.

“Then she explained a bit more about her husband’s condition. It turns out he'd been diagnosed with stage four cancer a few months earlier. His loss of appetite was the least of his unpleasant symptoms, but perhaps the only one she could provide any comfort for. So it meant a lot to her that I had been so flexible with our menu.

“Then she told me that he passed away quietly during the night. That sandwich was his last meal. She was crying by then, but thanked me again and said it helped make his last day of life a little more bearable. It still touches me to this day, and is a great reminder that even seemingly small things we do for others can have a big impact on their lives.”

Now, here’s the travesty, other than, of course, that this man lost his life. The business travesty here is that this event happened over 30 years ago. And yet, according to Sterling, it was never written down and shared with anyone else until five years ago when it was published in my book, Lead with a Story. Why? Because nobody recognized the value in it. After all, it’s just a story, right?

Wrong. There’s no such thing as “just a story.”

Imagine how much good that story could have done for his company. It could have been used to help teach other employees what stellar customer service looks like. Or it could have made for a great advertising or public relations campaign. Unfortunately, it never was. A priceless company asset went to waste.

Don’t let this happen to your company stories. Recognize that stories are as valuable (if not more so) than data, as hopefully this story illustrates. Make customer service story-gathering part of your daily routine. Here’s how:

1) Find stories your customers have already written about you -- Mine industry websites or customer reviews on Amazon (or wherever your products are sold).

2) Make it easy for your customers to write their stories -- Create a place on your website to collect them, or put up a "story box" where your customers do business with you stocked with paper and pencils. Or go old school: send your best customers a self-addressed stamped envelope and a blank sheet of paper.

3) ASK!

• Interview the people in sales, customer service, collections, and other people at your company who have regular contact with the customer. Ask them for the best (and worst) customer service stories they can think of.
• When you survey your customers about your service, don't just ask for a satisfaction rating, ask for a story. Ask, "Tell us about the moment it became clear to you how you would rate us if we ever asked. What happened?"

4) Make it fun

• Hold a contest for the best stories.
• Hold storytelling sessions once a month over lunch, with your employees and/or your customers.

5) Watch for stories that happen around you. Like what happened to Sterling above, I’m convinced great stories happen all around us all the time. The two biggest indicators of a high-value story are:

• Any time you see something that elicits a genuine emotion from a customer or an employee.
• If you see someone learning an unexpected lesson, or learning it in an unexpected way.

6) Pay attention to stories other people tell. There’s only one of you. But there are lots of other people who work where you do. You can have an endless supply of stories if you just listen. Anytime you hear a great customer service story from someone else at work, remember it. It will probably impact the next person you tell just as much.

My guess is that most companies have world-class service stories like these hiding somewhere, if they just knew where to look. Try out some of these methods and you'll find them.

If you want to learn how to craft great business stories, including customer service stories, LinkedIn has a 36-minute online course called Leading with Stories, based on the same book this article is based on. (Don't let the awkward thumbnail scare you off.) You can get a free one-month trial subscription here to watch it and any other LinkedIn course you'd like.

Source: Lead with a Story: How to Craft Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, by Paul Smith

Paul Smith is one of the world's leading experts on business storytelling. He's a keynote speaker, storytelling coach, and bestselling author of the books Lead with a Story, Sell with a Story, and Parenting with a Story.

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