Ryan Ba­choo

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go has long had a top­sy turvy re­la­tion­ship with this thing called cus­tomer ser­vice.

It re­al­ly de­pends on one’s ex­pe­ri­ence which can some­times be good, fair­ly de­cent or pret­ty aw­ful. The rep­u­ta­tion of cus­tomer ser­vice across the coun­try may dif­fer but if it’s one thing for sure there’s a lot of work that needs to be done lo­cal­ly.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Zena Tuck­er, a Trin­bag­on­ian woman, has been show­ing the world how to do cus­tomer ser­vice right. Though she’s now based in Los An­ge­les, her busi­ness, coached, has re­mained com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing cus­tomer ser­vice through­out the Caribbean.

On a short vis­it home last week, Tuck­er sat down with Women’s Em­pow­er­ment of­fer­ing a frank as­sess­ment of cus­tomer ser­vice in T&T, “I think we’re yet to un­der­stand the se­ri­ous­ness of this very im­por­tant part of the way we in­ter­act with peo­ple.”

As fa­cil­i­ta­tor, founder and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of coached, Tuck­er has spread her wings across the re­gion name­ly Turks and Caicos, Bar­ba­dos and Aru­ba and with the suc­cess­ful launch of her new web­site, she’s now mak­ing se­ri­ous in­roads in the Amer­i­can mar­ket.

Phi­los­o­phy of coached

She told us why she chose this ven­ture as an en­tre­pre­neur, “I got in­to this busi­ness be­cause I be­lieve that every­one is unique­ly dif­fer­ent and as Caribbean peo­ple we need to be au­then­ti­cal­ly el­e­vat­ed through learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment based on our unique­ness. This is the phi­los­o­phy that serves as the foun­da­tion of coached.”

It’s a tes­ta­ment that not every com­pa­ny has got­ten cus­tomer ser­vice right and they’re will­ing to change that. How­ev­er, she ad­mits get­ting the hi­er­ar­chy of com­pa­nies to see in­vest­ing in cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing as ex­act­ly that, an in­vest­ment, as op­posed to an ex­pen­di­ture can some­times be chal­leng­ing.

Tuck­er told us, “It’s a ques­tion of whether com­pa­nies want to in­vest in these peo­ple that give ser­vice every day and in­vest in them­selves, most im­por­tant­ly, be­cause lead­er­ship plays an im­por­tant role in cus­tomer ser­vice. I don’t think that’s the gen­er­al per­cep­tion of cus­tomer ser­vice but hav­ing worked across the Caribbean I can de­duce that lead­er­ship plays an in­te­gral role in cus­tomer ser­vice.”

Cus­tomer ser­vice is the new Mar­ket­ing

She added that more com­pa­nies are now see­ing the ben­e­fits, and im­por­tance, of hav­ing good cus­tomer ser­vice. “I’ve seen some sort of evo­lu­tion with cus­tomer ser­vice be­cause there are more busi­ness­es that take cus­tomer ser­vice se­ri­ous­ly. They know that cus­tomer ser­vice is the new mar­ket­ing, and so, they take it more se­ri­ous­ly. They in­vest in their staff. In some in­stances, there are coun­tries across the Caribbean which in­vest in their peo­ple as it re­lates to them giv­ing bet­ter ser­vice so I have seen some im­prove­ment,” Tuck­er said.

Across the re­gion, where cus­tomer ser­vice can some­times seem a sec­ondary thought, Tuck­er has of­ten come face to face with trainees that don’t see what she’s do­ing as im­por­tant. She told us, “The biggest chal­lenge I have faced in my ca­reer is sat­is­fy­ing my most chal­leng­ing trainees, the ones who per­ceive train­ing and de­vel­op­ment as dis­ci­pline rather than a ben­e­fit that ad­vances their ca­reer. The skills I have ac­quired from across the Caribbean have pre­pared me to ad­dress this mis­con­cep­tion, and I have been able to ad­just my ap­proach to en­sure that I make a mean­ing­ful im­pact, even on my most chal­leng­ing trainees.”

The el­e­vat­ed Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ence

She be­lieves it be­comes even more im­per­a­tive when the tourism talk be­gins. With T&T sell­ing sun, sea and sand to the world in a bid to push its tourism in­dus­try and di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my, Tuck­er says lead­ers must look in­to what as­pects of T&T cul­ture can be pack­aged as a na­tion, pro­vid­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence to peo­ple who vis­it, and ul­ti­mate­ly sold to the world.

The Bournemouth Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate added, “I think it’s very im­por­tant to un­der­stand that peo­ple are not com­ing here for the palm trees. You can see palm trees in Los An­ge­les. Peo­ple are not com­ing here to see moun­tains. You can see moun­tains in Ari­zona. I think it’s more about the ex­pe­ri­ence that we pro­vide as a Caribbean na­tion. We’re very dif­fer­ent from the Unit­ed States. We speak dif­fer­ent­ly, dance dif­fer­ent­ly, en­gage dif­fer­ent­ly with peo­ple and that has to be sold as an ex­pe­ri­ence. That’s a pack­age in it­self.”

Quest to lift stan­dards

We sat down in the ex­ec­u­tive club of the Hy­att Re­gency in Port of Spain, the place she once worked in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties be­fore tak­ing her ca­reer in­ter­na­tion­al. Yet, Tuck­er has re­mained deep-root­ed in her quest to lift the stan­dard of the Caribbean. She ex­plained what her rise has meant to her, say­ing, “It means that I’m in a very unique po­si­tion to be able to el­e­vate us as Caribbean peo­ple and it does not mat­ter where you’ve come from. It does not mat­ter the city, the town or the home, or what your life looks like. What mat­ters is the im­pact you’re able to make, the pos­i­tive changes you’re able to make be­cause the truth is there are not a lot of peo­ple pour­ing in­to us the way they’re sup­posed to pour in­to us.”

In­spir­ing Women En­tre­pre­neurs

She has be­come an in­spi­ra­tion for women who now em­bark on their own jour­neys as en­tre­pre­neurs. Tuck­er says women must be will­ing to stay the course though there will be dif­fi­cult pe­ri­ods to over­come. “I would ad­vise that the path to en­tre­pre­neur­ship first re­quires per­se­ver­ance, re­silience and an au­then­tic pas­sion for your brand and your work. To de­vel­op and scale glob­al­ly, you must op­er­ate with in­tegri­ty and should nev­er take any­thing per­son­al­ly as the jour­ney presents its own set of chal­lenges to over­come,” she added.

She’s be­gun scal­ing her brand hir­ing her first em­ploy­ee based here in T&T - a ma­jor move for a woman who has large­ly de­pend­ed on her own cus­tomer ser­vice to build her com­pa­ny. Yet, Tuck­er is adamant that cus­tomer ser­vice is not on­ly be­tween an em­ploy­ee and client, but can on­ly ex­ist in­ter­nal­ly as well.

“While lead­ers in­vest in their team by pro­vid­ing cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing and de­vel­op­ment, it is im­por­tant for them to al­so in­vest in them­selves with lead­er­ship train­ing. Every­thing ris­es and falls with lead­er­ship and there is a con­nec­tion we have to ex­plore be­tween lead­er­ship and cus­tomer ser­vice,” she con­clud­ed.

To con­nect fur­ther with Zena Tuck­er:

in­fo@coached­world.com

https://coached­world.com/con­tact/