Lessons from the Field: Focus on Great Service

This blog post continues a series of lessons from the field for a new event business. See: Lessons from the Field: Be Open for Business

Lesson 2: Focus on Great Service.
Being in the event business means you are in the people business. Whether it is your employees, your clients, or their guests, it is always our job to be hospitable. While there are many definitions of great service, my mantra is that our business is not to only give clients what they ask for nor tell them what they need, but to be their guide to what they want. Yes, clients want and need to be listened too. Yes, often clients need to be told what they should do - we as event professionals are the experts after all. But beyond that, being the expert is not about spewing your vision or verbatim taking theirs, but instead being the guide who can facilitate what they say with what you know to eventually give them what they want, even if they cannot articulate that.

To do that ego cannot be a player in the game. There is no room in service providing for superiority, passivity, or the demeaning of anyone on the team or project. In ego’s place, find confidence in a sense of creative curiosity stemming from a constant willingness to think and an appetite to try. I firmly believe that the ROI of events is located in retention of the created experience by those who participate, and those memories are derived by implementing creativity and innovation. And the you can only be creative and innovate if you constantly foster a willingness to think and an appetite to try in the delivery of great service for your client.