I recently returned from a rather short-term trip to the US of A and was greeted by this poor flight attendant and his meltdown that has become a rather public affair. Having read the various stories surrounding this incident and even watching the video re-enactment on the PopSci front page, it reminded me of my years in the retail service industry.
For those unaware, many divisions of the service industry (in Australia at least) carry with them the paradoxical mantra: “The customer is always right.” As with trying to remember a dream, if you don’t think about it too hard it makes sense. The moral of the mantra seems to be that customers are required for the business to exist, so they are ‘right’ in that their continuing patronage keeps the business growing and alive. However, when you stop to think about it a wee bit more and throw some good ol’ fashioned empirical knowledge into the mix, it starts to fall apart.
For those who work or have worked in the service industry, the mantra should be amended as follows: “The customer is rarely right, but never let them know that you know that.” That way the corporate folk are appeased because it still requires the same treatment of customers, while the actual ground-floor workers aren’t being made to feel like complete idiots. Y’see, in my experience with customer service we were provided with countless hours’ worth of training, which included refresher courses and the like to ensure that we were at the top of our game and providing the best possible service.
In this respect, how could your average customer ever be right when disagreeing with a trained and updated service representative? In all of my disagreements with customers I was right, quite simply because I prided myself on knowing the various facets of my job/department to ensure that I could perform my role to the best of my ability. To add further insult to the perpetuated paradoxical mantra, management actively encouraged us to disagree with customers;particularly when it related to refunds and the like.
Little did many a-customer know that all they had to do was cry, “I want to talk to a manager,” whereupon we were forced to oblige and then they were generally given whatever they were asking for (within reason). My solution for this is what I like to refer to as ‘customer training’, but let’s face it – most people don’t learn so well from reading books, pamphlets or watching training videos. My solution is a little more radical.
Just as Australia used to have military conscription, so too should everyday folks be made to perform at least one year’s worth of customer service to have a better understanding of what it’s all about. My customer service years have forever affected the way that I approach customer service representatives. They can be slow, slack or downright rude and I won’t bat an eyelid at them because I know what they have to go through.
Customer abuse, idiocy or a general lack of understanding all assist with tainting, or even ruining, a customer service representative’s day. I believe that an injection of perspective—a year-long term of service—will help to make us all treat customer service representatives better which, in turn, will help to make them happier workers which should, furthermore, result in better service. Everyone wins, right?
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Oh my. Yes. I’ve done retail for so long… in a variety of industries, and it’s always the same. The customers are just so awful. They are what make it so hard. I’ve been abused, stalked and humiliated… all in the name of customer service. And the pay is never worth it. Checkout operators have it the worst I must say… ever since I did the Woolies checkout-chick thing, I am extra considerate to all checkout operators I encounter, and have trained my family to do the same. If people are required to do a small stint in retail, they might begin to understand that people who work in such jobs are not stupid, or unfeeling… and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I see the problem, but I fail to see how retail service conscription will fix it. It’s not guaranteed to raise the level of respect for service workers, but it will definitely reduce the general level of service, because a lot of conscripts will not want to be there. And imagine working alongside these people.
I’ll agree that people in the service industry need to be treated better, but this is not the way to go about it.
Every person in every industry wishes that the general public knew how hard they had to slog every day to achieve something modern society takes for granted. How often do you think about how hard it must be for a dishwasher repairman to go into other people’s houses and fix a dishwasher on the spot while he has a bank of other jobs lined up for afterwards? I think most of us would just be pissed off that we have to wait at home for him without a clear indication of time.
@ Muffin - This seems to be a common theme of people who have worked in the industry!
@ TheRealWazzar - Welcome to the blog and thanks for your comment. Yes, you’re right. It won’t guarantee that the world would suddenly change its attitude towards customer service folk, nor does it guarantee that the quality of service will be better. My theory also assumes that people would be able to learn the customer service ‘reverence’ that I have because of how much I loathed my time there.
What would you suggest as an alternative solution for how to change the way that people view customer service workers so that they will be treated better?
@ Jacob - Welcome to the blog and thanks for your thoughts. I agree. I used the retail service industry as an example because that was from my personal experience, but anyone who has to work with customers/clients doubtlessly goes through similar experiences and resultant thoughts/feelings (I’ve also worked in such industries). I actually prefer an unclear indication of a job over being told that something will happen at a certain time only to sit around twiddling my thumbs at that specific time.