Memo From The Customer

I think I missed a memo recently. I must have. The memo I missed apparently stated that if you are a cashier, a salesperson or even a “sandwich artist,” feel free to have conversations with your co-workers, your friends and other complete strangers while “serving” your current customer.

When exactly did the person with the money (the customer) become the least important part of a front-line worker’s day? Recently, it seems that almost every store I have gone into has someone at the front counter who needs to have a conversation with someone else (not work-related) that is more important than accepting my money. How can everything in a cashier’s day be more important than my willingness to exchange goods and services for money? Did I miss that memo?

In response, here is my memo.

Memo to: The front-line staff of all organizations
From: The Customer
Re: Performance review

It has come to my attention that you have been ignoring me lately. Although nothing has been said directly to me, your performance in the role of customer service has become suspect. I wish to address that here.

Your willingness to make eye-contact with me and to acknowledge that I have chosen to part with my hard-earned money has made me feel as though you really don’t care that I am in your establishment willing to purchase something. I am simply asking that, for the few minutes I am in your business, that you keep your conversations focused on what I would like and, most of all, be thankful for my willingness to frequent your work place. I feel compelled to address this issue as I have noticed it lacking of late.

I am becoming incredibly frustrated at being ignored while I am in the midst of purchasing something. I (the customer) am the revenue source for your business. I (the customer) am the guy who keeps the lights on in your business and gives you the revenue stream to pay for silly little expenses like … oh I don’t know … staff!! I (the customer), in this so-called economic downturn, am the difference between your business going down and your business thriving. Unless there is a fire, ask yourself, is there really something more important that you feel you must handle before you handle my transaction?

Do you really need to create conversations with others about how tired you are, how long the day has been or how many minutes are left before you can head to the bar to hang out with your friends? If I were your boss would you ignore me as I stood in front of you so that you could carry on meaningless conversations with friends or co-workers? Well, how about you think of me as your boss – simply in the fact that I pay you indirectly.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The secret to customer service is to simply be present in my dealing with you. I don’t want to feel like I’m imposing on you when I buy something from you. I want to hear “Thank you.” I want you to mean it when you say it. You can tell me to “have a nice day” or not – that’s really not important to me. A simple “thank you” is all I require.

For this performance review, I need you to improve in only two areas: 1) your attitude of gratitude when I choose to part with my money in your business, and 2) your focus and attention on me for the few moments I stand in front of you.

Failure to comply with these performance issues will cause me to fire you as a company I do business with. You have been warned.

Listen Up

“If you think the person behind the counter is dumber than you, you’ll go out of your way to prove it. But what if he’s not? Can you see a very frustrating day coming for you? But if you believe the person behind the counter may offer you an amusing story to tell, you’ll go looking for that. In over twelve years, since I started doing this, I’ve yet to find a day where I didn’t have an amusing story to tell at the end of it.”

That’s a direct quote from my Attitude Adjustment keynote presentation. I go looking for the amusing stories and I usually find them. This was not one of those days.

I was searching for a shirt. I don’t like ties. I don’t understand ties. In fact, I think a tie is just a fancy noose (perhaps I need to change my attitude on that one but perhaps not). So, instead of “expressing my individuality” through a tie, I wear an open-collared shirt – usually something that makes a statement and is normally one-of-a-kind. I have consulted with some very good clothiers and found a look that feels comfortable for me and yet is not what everyone else is wearing.

I entered the men's wear store where I encountered Earl, the sales clerk. Earl wore the requisite sport jacket, dress pants, patterned dress shirt and a tie. I told him I was looking for a shirt that was unique, one-of-a-kind, not boring, not white nor any shade of red or purple (I look very pink wearing reds and purples) … oh, and I don’t wear a tie.

He became indignant and began to challenge me on not looking like everyone else. He chastised me by explaining that a tie expresses my individuality.

“Not if everyone else is wearing one,” I added.

He argued with me, in a sort of polite way. In essence, he was telling me that he knew better than me what I should be wearing. His condescending attitude was beginning to become irritating.

He pulled down a pure white shirt, a purple shirt and a couple of shirts with red running through them and asked if this is what I was looking for. In my mind, I couldn’t help but think that he didn’t hear a word I said, so I reiterated my “non-negotiables.”

Shirt after shirt came out, each looking just like the last with small variations. They all began to look the same. The colors were boring. The styles were boring and honestly, this experience was becoming boring. So I left.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Do you attempt to push your personal tastes on your clients or do you consult with them? If you’re a manager, do you already know more than your people or is there an opportunity for them to teach you something? How often do you actually just sit and listen to your customers’ wants, your co-workers ideas or your spouse’s dreams?

The art of listening isn’t really all that complicated. It simply requires you to clear your head of all of your pre-supposed fixes, opinions and beliefs that you know better than they. Better that you come off as compassionate more than arrogant.

Every single person you come in contact with can teach you something so long as you trash the belief that you already know everything. You don’t know everything. I don’t know everything. I especially don’t know everything about selling clothes but I do know what I like to wear. Maybe cut me some slack that I have a handle on dressing myself and keep the opinions to yourself. Maybe you’ll be more successful if you listen to what I want before you tell me what I need. Listen. Did you hear me?

Real Christmas Gifts

I will admit it. I am a hard guy to buy gifts for whenever a gift is warranted. I really don't have need of anything. If there is something I need, I am fortunate enough to be in a position to buy it.

Occasionally I will buy something I don't necessarily need but would still like to have. And then there are some times that I receive a gift that I neither needed nor thought I even wanted but once I get it, I am pleased I did. Such is the gift from my daughter this year.

We had our Christmas celebration tonight as she is having Christmas day with her mom this year. We first did the gift opening in her living room before we spent some time preparing supper together. I gave my daughter a new set of kitchen tools: pots, pans, stainless steel prep bowls and a host of kitchen utensils complete with her own Chef's jacket. (All of these items came into play as we prepared supper together).

My gift came in a medium-sized gift bag; an official NHL Calgary Flames jersey complete with "Burns" and the number "08" stitched on the back. I immediately donned my jersey with a huge smile upon my face.

I admit that I am a pretty die-hard Flames fan but had never really thought to ever buy myself a team jersey. My daughter, perhaps an even bigger fan, found something that would be meaningful yet fun. (We swap text messages during most every game regardless of where I may be traveling. She keeps me up to date when I can't get a score on the game. It's a daddy-daughter bonding thing).

The real gift though, wasn't really the hockey sweater. The gift was that my little girl (now a grown woman) was paying attention over the course of the year, gave me a real gift of thoughtfulness and the most precious gift, some quiet and quality time together making and sharing a meal.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Christmas is never really about the gifts. It's about how someone else thinks you're worthy of a gift in the first place. The real gift is that there are people in your life who love you and admire you. Anyone who has love has a lot. Adopt your "Gratitude Attitude" this year. Remember, life is about the memories you make. That's what really matters when you look back. Thirty years from now I may no longer own my Flames jersey but I will have the memory of the smiles, excitement and laughter that my daughter and I shared tonight. And at the end of life, that's what really matters anyway.

Oh, and the Flames beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-3.

The Customer Is Rarely Right

Imagine for a moment, as you serve one of your customers, that the customer begins to become belligerent and abusive towards you despite all of your best attempts to please the customer. Even though you are doing your best to diffuse this tenuous situation, the customer is just being an ass and is rejecting your offers of service. This customer just, it seems, wants to be abusive.

Now, also imagine your boss walking in on the conversation as the customer increases his abusiveness towards you and your boss sides with the customer. How would you feel? Would you feel like the rug was just pulled out from under you? Would you feel your value decreased? Would you pledge your undying loyalty to the company from that point forward? Would you give a damn about the customer anymore?

The sad truth is that this is happening all too often. Bosses, in their mistaken belief that “the customer is always right” will sometimes do whatever is necessary for the sake of keeping a customer (and his or her money) – even if that customer abuses one of his or her employees.

The customer is NOT always right. In fact, it could be argued that the customer is “rarely” right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk. Does being a jerk make a person right?

If you want to keep, not just your good people - but all of your people, working for you, then fire the customers who are insensitive, rude to or abuse your staff members - regardless of who that staff member is. Tell the customer that they are no longer welcome in your business. Refuse to take any further orders from them. Stand up for your people (hey, you trained them, paid for that training and have coached them all the way along – don’t let them down now).

You can’t afford to keep customers who make your staff look like idiots. Money in a wallet doesn’t give a person the right to act like a jerk. And as a staff member, don’t allow yourself to be belittled in the name of job-security.

Bosses, imagine that one of your top performers witnesses a lesser performer getting dumped on by a customer and you, as a boss, do nothing to stop this from happening. You will not only likely lose the loyalty of your lesser performer but your top performer as well.

In a situation like that, everyone, regardless of the performance abilities, will see exactly what kind of company he/she works for. Jumping to the defense of a top performer in the same situation and not jumping to the defense of a poor performer shows complete insincerity. You will not keep any performers if you are not genuinely dedicated to your staff.

Managers serve their employees - not the other way around. Staff serves customers; manager serves employees; the CEO serves managers, employees and shareholders. Every one serves someone. Employee loyalty is far more important than customer loyalty. If you are going to charge your employees with serving the customer, you had better make sure they feel that you (as a manager) are loyal to them if you want them to be loyal to the customer and in turn, make the customer loyal to your business.

Attitude Adjustment: The days of dumping all over your people and the fairy-tale belief that "the customer is always right" is dead. You will never have a relationship with your customers if you don't have a manager to employee relationship that works first. Think long and hard on this one. Customer loyalty is only as strong as employee loyalty. Serve your employees well so that they may serve your customers in the same way. If you, as a boss, don’t stand up for your people, you will probably end up serving the customer directly - you’ll be the only one left in the workplace willing to work with you.

Millenials vs Baby Boomers

Question: In your experience, what are the differences in engaging the different generations?

My answer to this question may seem like a bunch of rash generalizations since one cannot lump all Baby Boomers together and claim that they all have the same value and skill sets nor can you expect that all Millenials have the same sets of values because they were simply born around the same time. Labeling workers based on the year they were born seems a little ridiculous to me.

With that being said, let me say this. As Baby Boomers, we (I am one) were taught the value of achievement. In other words, in high school, winning a gold medal in the 800 meter race was met with perhaps nothing more than a grunt from a father, whereas today, parents will throw a celebration for the child who comes home with a “participant” ribbon.

We have become a much softer society who perhaps tries to shelter our children from the realities of the world. This is the Oprah generation – the generation whose family watched Oprah just prior to supper and has a family discussion about what Oprah said today. These same kids, who are now grown, have entered the workforce with a much more pronounced spiritual side yet at the same time have had many of life’s rewards simply handed to them instead of having to earn it.

Boomers have earned everything they have; Millenials may have had most of it handed to them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Millenials don’t have a strong values set. Some do and some don’t. Some Boomers work hard and some don’t. Some Gen X’ers have learned the value of applying themselves in their pursuit of excellence and some have not.

However, there is a skill set that the average Millenial possesses that is mind-boggling to the average Boomer: the propensity to use technology. For most Baby Boomers in the workforce today, remembering back to childhood and not seeing a TV remote control in the house until they were into their teens is not uncommon. Color cable television was a celebration as a huge leap forward into new technology. I could make a comment about “Pong,” “Pac-Man” and Commodore-64’s here but suffice it to say, we’ve come a long way in a short period of time.

The Millenials, however, have never had a day that didn’t involve the use of computers, cell phones or portable entertainment devices. For Boomers, a chat was something you did over coffee. For Millenials, chatting is something you do over Java.

Boomers grew up with the notion of finding a good job that they might become proficient at. Millenials have entered the workforce searching for a good fit as opposed to a good job. Each Millenial has a skill set that they hope to be able to use. They don’t work well for organizations that happen to have a position and are just looking for a body to fill it. Millenials want the job to fit them and not the other way around. And at the end of the day, Millenials will leave the work behind whereas Boomers will take it home to finish. Boomers hope to one day achieve a decent work-life balance. Millenials are looking for a life-work balance: life comes first and work comes second.

And when you hire a Millenial, you hire their entire network of friends. MSN, Twitter, SMS and other forms of electronic hand-holding by their friends will be turned on in the workplace. The Millenial may be at work for you, but they are still connected to their network. Ask them to shut it off during work hours and you will be faced with filling a vacancy in your organization. Old school management does not work in today’s Millenial market. Give a poor performance review to a Millenial and that employee’s mother may call to ask why. Why should a job-performance review be any different than a parent-teacher meeting?

Attitude Adjustment: How do you engage the opposite ends of the workforce spectrum? For Boomers, it’s a matter of laying out the project parameters clearly: time frame, responsibilities, expectations and hierarchy within the project. Then, step out of the way and let the Boomer get it done. Oh, and if you expect it will take the whole day to get it done, expect it to be worked on overnight.

As for a Millenial, ask for input on how the project should come together. Give them the responsibility to make the decisions, don’t make them climb a ladder of hierarchy to ask a question, loosen the time frame (4‘ish?) and offer the opportunity to address key areas you’d like explored as well as anything they might feel is of value to the project. If you would expect the project to take all day, don’t. In fact, expect it in your email Inbox completed by noon that same day.

As for praise, give a Boomer an “attaboy,” privately with a handshake and heartfelt thanks. As for Millenials, you guessed it, a very public celebration.

Die, Conference Dinner

I ran across this article recently in Meeting Planners International magazine. I thought it was brilliant, so much so that I felt compelled to share it with you. If you are a Meeting Planner, pay attention. If you have attended one of these events, well, enjoy. It was written by Tony Carey, CMP.

It would be difficult to invent an occasion better designed for social discomfort than the end-of-convention dinner with its incompatible mix of stale etiquette, corporate protocol, culinary sensitivities, age, gender and cultural frictions all squeezed into a few short hours that, for many participants, seem like an eternity.

Pity the poor association meeting planner (for it is in this field that the tradition survives in its purest form), required to devise a social activity in which the preordained ingredients leave scope for nothing more creative than changing the colour of the table linen.

The evening’s schedule must include a drinks reception, a dinner of at least four courses, a speech by the chairman, another by the principal guest, a series of toasts, the presentation of awards, dancing and then—to show that the organisation isn’t as old-fashioned as the previous four hours have conclusively proved—a disco.

Given the diversity of delegates at most association conventions, few of them will enjoy all these ingredients. For the younger attendees, the reception and the disco fail to compensate for the dinner discomfort and the tedium of the speeches. For the older ones, failing digestion, hearing and prostate glands make the meal an ordeal. Women (who are promoted to “ladies” for the occasion) are invariably disappointed by the men whom they are placed next to, but at least they have the pleasure of putting on a party frock. Generally speaking, men do not share women’s enthusiasm for dressing up. This may be because dress shirts shrink two sizes between uses.

Protocol demands that men and women should be seated alternately at the dinner table. This is arguably the most ridiculous piece of social etiquette since the invention of the fish knife and, fortunately, is increasingly ignored. Any good host will tell you that compatibility and mutual interests should determine a seating plan—not gender.

Would any half-professional meeting planner dare to inflict on delegates, in an auditorium, the levels of discomfort that are deemed acceptable at a banquet? No. Ten guests to a round table ensures that some can’t see the speakers and, as if the room wasn’t hot enough, everyone stokes up on calorific food eaten off warm plates. To further challenge the air conditioning, each table has a candle.

It is a physiological fact that women feel the cold more than men, so, of course, the ladies appear in backless, strapless, insubstantial little numbers (invariably black) which attract welcome attention and an unwelcome chill—while conformity demands that the gentlemen perspire in tuxedos. But I digress.

So the meal has ground to an indigestible conclusion, toasts have been drunk and the awards presented. The chairman has finally sat down to lethargic applause, so it is time for the band to strike up with a tune that only 25 percent of those present will recognise as music and to which no one will dance.

By this time (midnight), the ambient noise has reached battlefield level ensuring that conversations with foreigners—especially Virginians—have become impossible.

Most of the men would rather talk than dance, and most of the women would rather dance than talk. But the single girls have a problem: since most of the younger generation is propping up the bar, their choice of dancing partners is limited. They can choose from another woman, a septuagenarian, a drunk, their own handbag or the Greek they were sitting next to at dinner. (It’s a particularly bad evening if all they can find is a drunk old Greek with a handbag.)

But it is at this point that the group—which has been held together all evening by the glue of conformity—really splits up. The very old and the married couples go to bed, the very young escape to joust, sweatily, in the disco, while the middle-aged singles bribe the barman to remain at his post so they can rearrange the world.

Ironically, because everyone ends the evening doing what they enjoy, the event will be regarded as a considerable success. Such is the amnesic power of alcohol.

TONY CAREY, CMP, CMM, is a speaker and consultant. He can be reached at tonycarey@psilink.co.je or via his Web site, www.tonycarey.info.

$1000 Quit-Now Bonus

“You’ve been on the job for a week now, and we’d like to offer you $1000.00 if you quit today.”

How would you like to be greeted on your seventh day at work by that statement? Does that statement even seem possible? Well it’s real. And the company that is doing it is called Zappos – an on-line retailer of shoes. It’s called their “quit now” bonus.

Zappos will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. The employee will be paid for the amount of time they’ve worked, plus they are offered another $1,000 bonus if they quit immediately.

Why does Zappos do this? As it turns out, Zappos wants to ensure that the employee they have hired has the same sense of commitment that Zappos is looking for in all of their employees. The Zappos culture is clearly defined and they want to ensure that the employee engagement of the new hire is up to par with the other employees.

Zappos would rather pay now than pay later for weeding out the deadwood. They also want to ensure that the employee is committed to the company the same way Zappos would like them to be before they invest any more money in the employee. The work is not necessarily glamorous. The work is in a call centre. It’s not for everyone and the percentage of new hires taking Zappos up on their offer is about ten percent.

Zappos has figured out a way to not be saddled with a “dud” employee and are willing to pay one thousand dollars early so they don’t have to pay many more thousands later in finding a way to terminate an employee who isn’t working out, to keep the morale high and to stop the cancerous spread of negativity before it gets a chance to take root. It’s also another way to test commitment levels of the new employee to the job.

Attitude Adjustment: If more businesses would be willing to adapt the Zappos example of weeding out problem employees in their own businesses, there would be fewer problems with customer service and employee engagement down the road. It may seem like a lot of money for some smaller businesses but not really when you consider how much could be lost to customer dissatisfaction, whining and complaining on the job and by actively disengaged employees working against good productivity. This may not be the only way to weed out prospective problem employees but it’s got to be better than the way things are working now. The real learning from Zappos is that they are willing to think of creative ways to eliminate problems before they become problems that affect the bottom-line. So, what’s it worth to your organization to get rid of some of the problem employees that you may have right now? If you’re the problem employee, would you take the thousand bucks to make you go away?

Boss Tip #8 - The Credit Score

Is this column about financial background checks and credit scores? Well, not in the way you might think. This column is about credit scores but not about qualifying for credit as a consumer. It’s about how much credit you give as a boss.

Take a survey of your people and ask them what they want from their work and their boss and you will find this answer in the Top 5 every single time: recognition. People want to be acknowledged for the work they do – not just when they need to be raked over the coals for a screw-up.

People want to be recognized for their contribution, their diligence and the quality of their work. If the only time you talk to your people about the quality of their work is when you dump on them, well then you’re the village idiot aren’t you? Don’t believe me? Just ask your people. No better yet, secretly listen to what they’re saying about you in the coffee room.

Just because you’re the boss, don’t believe for one second that your people are doing everything in their power to make you look good. That’s just not true. People are doing a great job likely because of the personal satisfaction they get from doing a great job. If you overlook this fact, and regularly steal the credit for a job well done, you will be spending more of your time training new people to replace the people who left than you will on having the spotlight shone on you.

If you want the spotlight and the credit, then take the credit for attrition numbers being on the rise, training budgets being escalated because you have to train more new people and also poor morale.

Nothing knocks the morale out of people faster than stealing the credit from them after they poured their heart out on a project. People want a reason to take personal pride in their work and if you’re going to steal it when they do go above and beyond for you, or at the very least not acknowledge their effort, you are going to be a very lonely boss working by yourself.

If you work by yourself, well then you’re really not the boss are you? You’re just an employee who no one wants to work with. And that would be no surprise either. You brought it on yourself.

Are you giving someone credit for their work daily? I’m not referring to just a “Good job” in the hallway, but something public and heartfelt. The more you let your people know they will get the credit for a job well done, the more you will have a job well done from your people. What goes around comes around.

Publicly acknowledge and privately criticize. Make sure the rest of the staff know when someone has done a good job. Don’t play favorites and don’t blame someone else for a shortcoming in your department. More on that next time.