As the first decade of the 21 century is about to become part of our history, it seems that the VIP concept, the rara avis of the 1990s and early 2000 (at least in Ukraine), has become firmly established on the corporate front. A cursory glance is sufficient to notice that VIP clients are much talked about and appreciated across the board. To be fully armed to please this frequently hard-to-please stock companies try hard to forge a must-be crack force – VIP managers.
Talking to a bank officer the other day I was thrilled to find out how they were handpicking their staff, capable of properly serving VIP customers. Apart from other things, promising candidates are given a general knowledge test to fathom the depth and width of the information they know: countries and capitals, film stars and writers, historical facts and contemporary cultural phenomena. And, possibly less surprisingly, hopeful VIP-managers are expected to be able do calculations in their minds, without resorting to a device, culpable of weakening our mental arithmetic powers, the calculator.
But why bother and assess how knowledgeable our personnel is? For one thing, a VIP manager has to be able to tell apart Libya and Lebanon in order not to send their client on a journey they have never pondered over. But, maybe more intriguingly, while servicing a high-heeled person, managers need to be, banal as it might sound, interesting communicators. And because the interests of contemporary high-fliers are diverse indeed, one should be ready to talk about a number of things, be that football or opera, a classic book or a latest Oscar-winning actress or actor. Thus the pressing need to have all-rounders to service the VIP sector.
It all leads us to an interesting, and, I will say that in parentheses, challenging conclusion. Maybe, some people are unable to offer top-notch customer service because they are not knowledgeable or well-read enough? And if it is the case, what are we going to do about it? By the way, do you know what the capital of Lebanon is? And that of Libya? How many paws are there if we have 4 ducks and 2 rabbits? And how many times do we need to randomly take a sock from a box containing 12 red and 12 black socks to get a pair of the same colour? No, not 13. Just 3.
If you responded to all of these questions correctly, you may stand a fair chance to be the right person for high quality customer service, at least with the bank I mentioned earlier. But even if you didn’t, it’s never too late to start brainboosting our customer service potential.
