I find that most CEOs and top management believe their organization delivers awesome customer service. But if you asked all 330 million people in the U.S. to identify five customer service leaders, most would not be able to come up with them.

I started developing Feelings, the world’s first customer service program, in 1979. It was released in January 1980. It was all based on a simple concept: When you provide awesome customer service, customers come back, they spend more money, and they bring their friends. When you have awful or poor customer service, customers don’t buy, and they don’t recommend you to their friends. I think customer service is worse today than in 1979. The pandemic gave everyone an excuse to give up on customer service.

The economy is probably going to tighten up and become more difficult. The easiest way to combat this is with highly trained employees who deliver great customer service. There are no educational institutions anywhere in the world that teach customer service. There’s little chance a previous employer will have trained your employees on customer service. The customer-service course that employees took 5–10 years ago is out of sight and out of mind.

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