Customer Service - Who Said it’s Okay To Be Rude? By Charles D. Dorn, CCM. Tuesday, 5th August 2008

We’ve all heard it ourselves, the “customer service representative” who is rude to us, does not care or is poorly trained. Consider the following incidents…

We request a year-end printed summary from one of our credit card companies because our first one never arrived. We are told six weeks for delivery. At some point after six weeks it has not arrived and is holding up filing our taxes. We call again and are told they will order another one.

We are not willing to wait another six months. We request it be faxed and are told, “I am sorry but we do not have access to that type of equipment.” No access to a fax? OK, how about sending it via FedEx? Of course we learn the person we are speaking with is in another part of the world.  We request a supervisor. After 45 minutes of arguing, she reluctantly agrees to email it to us.  So we received it after hours of wasted time.

Fast Food – I admit it, I do not eat at many fast food restaurants, rarely in fact, but I like the fries at one chain in particular. So when my kids were young we could take them to a local drive through. This particular property is not their newest but is always clean. The staff? Not nearly that good…

During a 2 year period, they would make mistakes at least quarterly.  At a certain point we began calling the corporate “customer service” department. Each time we received a form letter from the franchisee and a few coupons. When did we stop calling and going there? One night when we received a hamburger which had a bite taken out of it. This time I called and told them I did not want a form letter or coupons, I wanted to speak with a representative of the franchise company. Needless to say, no one called us back and we followed up with a call a week later... still no call and therefore no business from us.

A friend who worked in the hospitality industry as a General Manager for years, trained the “old school” way wrote me recently to discuss the demise of “customer service”. He noticed at his local supermarket (a well respected national chain) how no one uses the phrase "you're welcome" to customers' most frequent comment to staff (“thank you”).  The current answer the staff favors seems to be: "no problem".  Amazing how no line or district managers seem to have a problem with the answer.

It’s time … time to put the service back into customer service, time to stop accepting mediocrity from our staff and our managers and to begin to show our customers why our establishments are better then the rest.

It’s time … time to review those training programs, policies and procedures and  make sure your staff has the resources needed to be the best they can be.

It’s time … time to look at how your operation does things, asking if there is a better way to them. Does your competition do them better then you? Steal their ideas; find better ways to get the job done.

It’s time … time to re-evaluate your core competencies and make sure everything you are doing is what you do best.

What are you waiting for? Every day you delay, you may be losing customers, alienating employees and as a result losing opportunities to make money…. Now is the time!!

To learn more about what you can do now, please contact Charles D. Dorn, CCM at charles@thedorngroup.com or via phone at (914) 921-3150. Dorn believes growth and change are a necessity. See how he can help you and your business move to the next level.