IT was way back in July when I sat down around a table at Richard Kemp’s delightful Eschalot Restaurant in Berrima with the rest of the judges in the 2009 Southern Highlands Business Awards for the first meeting in a long process to determine the winners in the various award categories that were announced last Friday night.
Since then it has been a bit cloak and dagger as we slinked around the Southern Highlands clandestinely observing the performance of the various businesses nominated for awards.
The judge’s names were kept secret for good reason, but now our cover has been blown, and the winners announced, I can talk freely.
IT was an enlightening exercise judging the quality of service delivery around the towns and villages. Each of us was allocated various nominees and then, as the contenders were narrowed down, other judges would do reconnaissance missions until we came up with the winners.
Richard Kemp had poached eggs and coffee for breakfast during one week at six different cafes and Susie Reynolds nearly came home with an $800 push-bike, while popular Burrawang butcher John Mauger went close to purchasing his very first book in half a century and I now own a bottle of Vietnamese mint and coconut dressing.
FORMER Wingecarribee Shire Mayor Gordon Lewis volunteered to check out all of the funeral operators.
“They won’t suspect an old bloke like me making enquires,” he reasoned.
Gordon has been to countless funerals over the years, both in his official capacity and also as gentleman who actually cares for people, so he already knew the undertaking business pretty well.
And speaking of funerals, I worked closely with Gordon when he was Mayor and was in his office when he received an annual report from the Illawarra Football Association containing a list of life members with his name on top of the list. When he first received life membership his name appeared on the bottom of the list, but as the years rolled on and the older life members died, Gordon had worked his way up to the top.
“I hope that doesn’t mean I’m the next to drop off,” he mused with a cheeky grin, recalling his days on the old Bowral Municipal Council when the Aldermen would stay back for a cool drink after council meetings. Bowral funeral director Sel Dunkerley was also an Alderman and he would sometimes offer Gordon a lift home in the work van after those late nights. Not sure what Gordon’s good wife Bette thought when she would peek out the window and see an undertaker’s van pulled up outside their house at midnight.
ANYWAY I congratulate the various winners recognised on Friday night. We were really impressed by so many local businesses where the staff really do try hard to provide outstanding customer service.
Apart from the winners, there are three stand-out established local businesses that set the standard for service. For anyone wanting to show their staff how it should be done I recommend you send them along to Mittagong Garden Centre, Berrima District Credit Union or Whytes, who have been consistently setting the benchmark in service for 114 years.
We sometimes take the recognised quality service at award-winning places like these for granted, but we shouldn’t, because they work at it, are consistently outstanding, and deserve all the business they get.
LET me finish with a tale of some legendary customer service.
A work colleague was going through Chicago airport, where loss of luggage is common because of the huge volume of traffic moving through one of the busiest airports in the world. So it wasn’t surprising when our friend lost his bag and joined the queue.
He watched the lady handling the complaints and says she was a master, suggesting he would have learned all the customer service tricks in the book if he had stayed longer in the queue.
Just ahead of him was a pushy American businessman, reading the riot act to the poor airlines lady about his lost bag. She listened, listened and listened some more, as his tirade of abuse continued.
Then this masterful clerk quietly interrupted.
“Sir at this moment, there are just two people on this entire planet who are concerned about your lost bag,” she calmly said, “and right now one of those two people is rapidly losing interest in it.”
*Geoff Goodfellow has lived his life in the Southern Highlands, works for Wingecarribee Council and is well known in local sporting and social circles.
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