When you provide service, what does it do to you?

I've talked several times about providing world-class, unparalleled customer service. Our focus is primarily on our customers and how it affects them and, consequently, how it impacts our organization.

I'd like to take a second to look at service from the angle of its impact on the provider. What does providing service do to us? In the last sentence, I didn't write "what does providing outstanding service do FOR us", but I wrote "what does providing outstanding service do TO us". This is an important distinction.

In a sermon by my friend Aaron Wymer last week, he said that a pattern of heartfelt giving and sincere service to others changes our character. It changes the type of people we are. Where we honestly give of ourselves to others; where we genuinely serve our fellow human beings -- that's where our hearts go. Then the act of true service goes full-circle impacting the customer, the organization, and us.

So, the next time we think about outstanding customer service and how it helps others around us, let's remember what it does FOR and TO us.