29. Spanners and Heroes

Here’s a great game you can play as a team to learn about and improve your customer service. You’ll need:

  • a pile of A6 cards
  • pens
  • some coloured wool
  • some pictures of spanners and superheroes.

I love the expression ‘spanner in the works’. It conjures up a very visual representation of how customer service can go so wrong: a wonderful complex piece of machinery is whirring away beautifully and then someone drops in a big ugly spanner, the machine coughs and splutters, shards of metal start to fly all around, steam and smoke burst forth and then the whole thing grinds to a halt.

I also love the expression ‘You’re a hero’. It’s often said when ...

Get Five Star Service, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.