copyright © 1998-2008
Durham Arts Council, Inc.
120 Morris Street
Durham, NC 27701
919.560.ARTS

CUSTOMER SERVICE:
A Staff Assessment Tool

The following diagnostic tool contains the gleaned wisdom from a range of perspectives and presentations on customer service offered by participants in the Audience Development Institute. Developed by Margaret DeMott and Georgann Eubanks, this non-scientific tool is intended to be used only as a launching point for arts organizations that aim to make customer service the focal point for brainstorming or retreat discussion or to initiate; a more rigorous program of customer service analysis and improvement.

Rather than providing a checklist of customer service do's and don’ts, this assessment tool, especially if completed anonymously by a majority of staff members and volunteers in an organization, not only can provide a glimpse of the collective assessment of the group, but may also point to particular areas of success and challenge if the group chooses to tabulate and average scores for each particular question.

We welcome your feedback and stories about how this diagnostic tool is used and the results you obtain. Feel free to photocopy the tool and use it!

You can download the diagnostic tool in pdf format by clicking here. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download) to view the document. Click here to download the Reader.

We also found the following resources useful for further study:

The Customer is CEO: How to Measure What Your Customers Want -- And Make Sure They Get It, Forler Massnick, American Management Association, 1997.

Hey, I’m The Customer, Ron Willingham, Prentice Hall, 1992.

First Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Cottman, Simon and Schuster, 1999.