Now, wait a minute. You are not a stage comedian or an actor. Your job is to sell something, not put on a clown act. How does humor fit into customer service?

And that's exactly why this works: Everybody thinks just like the above paragraph. Because everybody thinks that way, nobody uses humor to ease a customer transaction. This causes the business world to take on a droning, monotonous tone: "How are you?" "Would you like a receipt?" "Thank you for shopping with us." "Can I get you anything to drink with that?" "How may I assist you?'

It goes on and on, a routine that everybody sleepwalks through. Clearly, you don't have to be very funny to break up the rhythm. Even a little, tiny bit funny does very, very well in the jet stream of flowing consciousness that is the consumer's day. And they will remember it for the rest of the day.

Here is one of the best examples I've ever seen from real life. Do you like calling a business and hearing one of those droning phone menus that tell you to push a button for each option? Well, here's another one:

Welcome to International Discount Brokerage! This call may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance. For stock trading, press 1. To order a new account kit, press 2. For stock quotes, press 3. For other customer service, press 4. If you are a netware points benefits customer, press 5. To hear more about our easy-buy program, where you can secure future stock credits, press 6. If you would like to hear a duck quack, press 7. If you know your party's extension, press 8. To return to the main menu, press 9... Or stay on the line for the next available customer service representative. Thank you.

By the book, isn't it? This is a real example from a real business. When customers pressed seven, they got exactly what they asked for: a recorded sound of one, routine duck quack. Then the menu came back. Believe it or not, this simple, silly trick led to millions of additional calls and eventually a 75% increase in new accounts! No really logical reason, except that people tended to view the business favorably if they could be a serious business and yet still have the grace to make a little fun of their own menu. This also helps to alleviate the tension of customers calling, since many people report that they don't like automated phone menus.

Another co-worker had an interesting, amusing story he could tell. It was just something funny that happened to him. It took two minutes, tops, to run through, was very simple, and had no possibility of offending anyone. Those of us who worked with him heard it so many times that we got to memorize it ourselves. The handy thing was that he could bring it out to keep a customer occupied for two minutes while they were waiting for a transaction to be completed.

He could use it to break tension, lighten a customer's mood, make a new friend, and sometimes he even changed it a little in order to work it in. To those of us who heard it all the time, it sounded almost like a recording, but the first time everybody heard it, they laughed or at least smiled, because he could tell it so naturally. I never once heard a customer complain about this employee; in fact, he got bonuses and good reviews all the time. It was simple, and yet brilliant in its simplicity.

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