Competing for Customers, ‘Service Olympics’ Around the World

Driven by its core value of ‘Uncompromising Customer Experience,’ LG prioritizes exceptional customer experience at every stage, from the product introduction to after-sales service.  

Since 2002, LG has held the ‘Service Olympics’ to boost the professionalism of service managers in a world of fast-changing trends in home appliances. This internal program has become an integral part of the company, providing repair and customer service professionals an opportunity to share their technical expertise. 2018 marked the global expansion of the program, and the evaluation scope widened to cover customer interaction and consultation.  

Starting in October, LG held the three-month ‘2023 LG Electronics Service Olympics’ in South Korea and at global subsidiaries including the United States, the United Arab Emirates and India. Testing their skills and abilities to improve the quality of customer service, around 4,200 employees participated in the preliminary round, with about 300 proceeding to the finals.  

Due to recent changes in home appliance trends, this year’s Service Olympics established a new competition where service managers went beyond providing consultations and repairs to closely monitor and take care of a customer’s actual product experience. Home appliance cleaning services have also become an official part of the competition in Korea while evaluation areas overseas have been expanded from major products such as refrigerators to various others including dishwashers.  

In addition, to address the growing smart home ecosystem, service managers’ software knowledge was put to the test with added evaluations utilizing LG ThinQ, the company’s smart home platform.  

The competitions were held in settings mirroring real-life living spaces to better understand and prepare for any inconveniences customers might face. This year’s Service Olympics also featured an evaluation with a judging panel that included non-LG personnel to highlight the customer’s perspective. 

The Service Olympics hosted in South Korea at LG’s Learning Center in Pyeongtaek last month has gained popularity locally, with an increase of 100 participants entering the preliminary round compared to the previous year. 

87 participants proceeded to the finals, demonstrating their ability to repair refrigerators, washers, dryers, air conditioners, TVs, PCs and small home appliances, as well as their skills in cleaning, providing customer service and offering consultations. In the repair technology and cleaning tests, service managers were presented with random malfunctions or contaminations, and problem-solving assessments accounted for time, accuracy, cleanliness and speed. Customer interaction tests encompassed all aspects of the process, ranging from the steps prior to meeting a customer to the product repair stage and post-service details.  

In the U.S., the three-day Service Olympics took place for three days at the LG Electronics Tennessee Plant, which was selected as a Lighthouse Factory by the World Economic Forum (WEF) this January. The competition in the U.S. was expanded to include participants from Canada, and countries including the UAE and India hosted the Service Olympics locally for the first time. 

Stay tuned to learn more about how LG is working to enhance the overall customer experience.  

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