When it gets busy, do you help out?

DouglasFebruary 04, 2009Behind the Scenes, Culture, Little Things, Big Differences 4 Comments

From what I have heard, seen, and experienced, most of the people who read my blog are customer service or business managers or executives. I also know there are also frontline customer service representatives who read my blog (thus explaining why I write posts that try to appeal to one or both groups and not just one exclusively), but a majority of my readership seems to consists of people who don’t actually answer the phones or reply to emails or do whatever for a majority of their day.

And I have a question for those people: when things get busy, do you find yourself jumping in and helping out?

Leaders who jump in and help have always impressed me. You surely have read about one super rich, super powerful executive or another who won’t hesitate to bend down and pick up a piece of trash he sees in his retail store or his supermarket or in his company’s parking lot. That is just their nature. But what about customer service managers who will jump in and help get the phone queue down or help reply to emails when there are a lot in the inbox? How common is this?

I wouldn’t say that managers jumping in to help is especially uncommon, but I also don’t think it is the norm. I’ve spoken to managers who will jump in and help out without a moment’s hesitation and I’ve also spoken to managers who wouldn’t pick up the phone themselves if the president was the waiting in the hold queue. Different companies have different cultures and different managers have different management styles.

What are your thoughts on this type of situation? Do you think it is better for a manager or supervisor to continue to manage and supervise when things get really busy or do you think it is better for a manager or supervisor to get in there and help out when things get overwhelmingly busy? I’ve always preferred and have tried to be the latter, but everyone is different. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?


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4 Responses to “When it gets busy, do you help out?”

  1. Marie Adams said:

    Feb 06, 09 at 3:59 am

    When things get overwhelmingly busy at our company, everyone lends a hand from top executives down. Periodically our warehouse is hit with heavy product orders and those who work on the office side sign up for shifts helping to get orders out the door.

    It’s a great way to build morale and put everything in perspective. During normal times, marketers are mainly focused on their own marketing bubble. But when they’re asked to help physically get the product ready to ship, it gives the marketer a hands-on connection with the product they work to sell everyday.

    Helping out is a good thing for employees at any level. Supervisors should look at it in a positive light.

  2. Julia said:

    Feb 10, 09 at 8:04 am

    At our company, the answer undoubtedly is “yes”, and not only for the Support Department which I’m at the head of. Whenever the load on the department gets heavy due to promo campaigns or some other reasons, I get involved into answering the clients’ requests, whether it be email, online chat, or phone.

    Frankly speaking, it was even a surprise to see an article dedicated to this question, as helping out in high load times is so an absolutely natural thing for us that it’s hard for me to imagine a supervisor who act differently.

  3. Trey said:

    Feb 11, 09 at 2:39 pm

    I’m definately of the mindset that jumping in and helping out is the best way to handle busy times. The obvious benefit is you are doing what you’re supposed to do and that’s provide service to your customers. The less obvious benefit, from a manager’s perpective, is that it shows your employees that you are part of the team and that you truly care for their sanity. Also, if you’ve been a good manager up unitl that point you won’t have to supervise your employees as you help them out.

  4. Service Untitled said:

    Feb 11, 09 at 9:02 pm

    Great points. Ideally, you won’t have to actively supervise your employees and you will have the time to get “down in the trenches” when things get busy. To some companies, this comes very naturally while it is unimaginable to others.

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