We’ve all had the experience. The best ones. The ones that get remembered.

Someone helping you—a retail salesperson, a restaurant server, the technician who shows up to fix your furnace—absolutely blows you away with their professionalism, their commitment to helping you, the extraordinary effort they take to make sure you’re happy.

This has not been written to comment on the importance of customer service. You already know that. Volumes have been written on the contribution great customer service makes on a business, to the loyalty of customers, to the invaluable word-of-mouth that it creates.

What you don’t read much about is how that company you called to fix your furnace found, trained, motivated and then empowered that technician to dazzle you with such thoughtful, genuine, heart-felt service that actually makes your life easier, that went above what you expected and that you genuinely feel deserves to be recognized. Because so many times, it’s not.

Being in the service business, it’s something we understand, whole-heartedly. So when we learn that one of our team has just pulled out all the stops to deliver the eleventh-hour magic that makes a project absolutely sing, that surprises and delights our clients—and our clients’ clients—we think about that secret sauce.

Where did our teammate learn about the importance of service? Where did the motivation come from? And how do we preserve and perpetuate that ethic? How do we make providing extraordinary client service second nature? How do you bottle that secret sauce?

Some think it starts with the hiring process. Indeed, a candidate’s work history might be a hint. Coming from an organization we know and respect certainly helps. There’s the references, of course. But that seldom uncovers the hidden gems, those new hires who immediately surprise you with their initiative and sense of ownership. Where do they come from?

Identifying the great client service folks in the interview process is, frankly, unscientific. There are folks who talk the talk but who never quite walk the walk. And the people with the required technical or creative skills you need may have not reached the high bar for client service. Clearly, hiring is only part of the picture.

The bigger contribution, we believe, comes from the business culture. When you join an organization that has a high-performance service ethic as the foundation of the business, the best candidates get swept up in the enthusiasm of the people around them. As much as any prescribed business process, the bar set by your peers and the expectation that you’ll clear it motivates the really great service people to excel and the ones who trail behind to pick up their game — or leave.

To be sure, putting in place a set of clear waypoints on projects that allows us to measure progress and find deficiencies is essential. As we’ve said multiple times over the years, the team needs to know the plays before they start the game. In our case, creating those process checkpoints when designing a new program or campaign is as normal as breathing. Checking in with the team and the client regularly on progress and challenges is not just good business practice; it’s the foundation of good client service. But that’s the minimum we expect. We strive for something more.

Individual work ethic is one good indicator of a team member’s dedication to client service. Great work habits stand out and delivering the project components, on time and without drama, is noticed. So is the ability to anticipate problems and head them off before a critical stage. To think through the experience as though you were the client or the customer yourself, a no-detail-overlooked field of view is not taught in school. These are picked up in the work environment by the best client service people. These are remembered, rehearsed and repeated. Before the experience even starts.

But more than any other factor, it’s often the actions of leadership that, we believe, counts most in the creation of a great client service culture. When the boss has done the same junior job as everyone else, when he sweats every detail, when she works longer and harder than the client she serves, when good enough is never good enough, that permeates the building and lives in every meeting. When the tales at the coffee machine are about some kind of heroic weekend effort made by the senior staff that saved the day, it reaches every corner of the organization. And you know you’re successful when members of the team celebrate each other’s individual client service victories like it was the Monday after Super Bowl.

That’s when you taste the secret sauce. Those are the moments we strive for. The extra effort to make someone, anyone’s day a little more exceptionally exceptional.

Our talented, imaginative, generous, phenomenal group of originals at 7 Communications are here to help as needed. Contact us here if you would like to continue the conversation.