"Sloppy staff left waiting for training"
This was the headline of an article written by Kathleen Donaghey in the Gold Coast Bulletin on the 6th August 2009 which described the lack of customer service on the Gold Coast and how it had slipped in the past 20 years. The article asked readers about service on the Gold Coast and the results were unanimous that the bad service experiences they had overwhelmingly outweighed the good (Donaghey 2009).
The most common responses were:
- Staff not trained
- Rude staff
- Bad attitude of staff
- Unhappy staff
- No Pride in staff
- Staff don’t care
- No genuine smiles from staff
- Lack of eye contact from staff
- Customers are not felt welcome
- No one smiles anymore
At the time of reading the article Jane Renata, College Coordinator for CRC mentioned to Anne Stovin, CEO Currumbin RSL that training and recruitment were critical for improving customer service and that CRC should develop a training program to improve customer service. These sentiments were reinforced when Anne Stovin attended a Connecting Southern Gold Coast Educational Forum where other participants in the workshop expressed an overwhelming concern for the lack of service culture and the importance that customer service plays in attracting and retaining customers. It was at that point that "Boomerang Smiles" concept was born.
