Customer Service: Is It a Service of the Past?
What Does Inconsistent Customer Service Cost a Company in the Age of Social Media?
Day 2 – Part 4 - Intent Does Not Always Determine Impact
An employee may never intend to make someone feel unwelcome.
They may be tired. They may be busy. They may be having a difficult day. Their communication style may be abrupt. They may not realize how their facial expressions, tone, words, or body language are being received.
Those possibilities can help explain behavior.
They do not erase its impact.
When customers from different racial, ethnic, cultural, generational, or other backgrounds enter a business, they bring their own experiences with them. Employees do as well.
That is one reason customer-service training cannot simply be about saying “please,” “thank you,” and “have a nice day.”
It should also be about awareness.
How am I speaking to this person?
Would I use this same tone with the next customer?
Am I listening?
Am I making this customer feel as though asking for reasonable assistance is an inconvenience?
Could my tone or behavior reasonably be interpreted differently than I intend?
Those are not political questions.
They are customer-service questions.
Leaders ask Yourself and provide your Thoughts as it pertains to your organization.
Are your employees trained to understand that good intentions do not automatically prevent their words, tone, or behavior from negatively affecting a customer?
When an employee says, “I didn't mean it that way,” does your organization stop there—or also ask, “Why did the customer experience it that way?”
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