Customer Service “When it rains, I let it.”

“When it rains, I let it.” This is a statement is contributed to a 113 year old man when someone ask him what was the secret to his longevity. It is a simple premise, “don’t sweat the small stuff” is a currently popular saying, followed up with “and it’s all small stuff.” But how often do we sweat the small stuff, or try and stop the rain?

We have all worried about things that are really out of our control when we stop and be honest about everything. Most of us began with worrying about little things like will he or she like me, will I find a good job, will I make a lot of money? At the time they were all valid question. But as we grow and mature we realize these things are not as important as happiness.

Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with saying “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” What a profound comment in my opinion. We chose the path of life we take when it comes to our happiness. If we chose to be a happy person it is because we stepped out in our mind and made the decision we deserved to be happy.

What does any of this have to do with customer service? Simple, if your customers see you’re happy to see them and your excitement to work for them they will come back because it made them happy! It was a pleasant experience! If you have an unhappy experience are you likely to repeat that situation? When it comes to customer service it depends on how we were treated. If you’re problem is acknowledged and dealt with a positive attitude it will turn the experience around and make it a positive one.

I was recently in a business to have service done to my vehicle. Now I was out of town so returning to this location is highly unlikely. However, I didn’t have an unfavorable experience. The customer in front of me did. He parked his vehicle and came into the lobby area and asked for the manager. He was informed the young lady behind the counter was the manager by an employee that happen to be in the lobby. This customer was dissatisfied with the attitude presented by the young lady behind the counter. This is where things went terribly wrong. The employee that happen to be in the lobby cut the customer off prior to the customer being able to express his feelings and be heard. The young man, while meaning well, stopped the gentlemen from speaking handing him a customer comment card and said just fill this out and it will be sent to the district manager. The customer wasn’t done. The employee left the lobby and the young lady behind the counter had as well left, leaving one person behind the counter, the real manager. She was there trying to paint the area behind the counter. She politely listen to the customer express his displeasure with the other young lady that he was told was the manager and assured her he would not be returning.

Now I sat there thinking of what went wrong here and how would have I handled it differently? I did not witness the young lady present a negative attitude toward the customer. But I did witness the negative reaction to the customer wanting to complain. Later as I was checking out the real manager told the young lady she wasn’t worried about that guy, he was just most likely in a bad mood. Maybe, but that discussion should have not taken place in front of me. And the employee that cut the customer off from being able to express his displeasure compounded the situation but not allowing the customer the voice to be heard.

The real manager did not offer to the customer the satisfaction of knowing the young lady would be counseled in her negative attitude. She reply was "Well, I am sorry." As I said if the young lady really had a negative attitude I don’t know. But as we have heard many times, the customer is always right.

In my mind it would have taken less effort to turn this situation around and kept the customer a customer. Allow the customer to speak and be heard. Assure the customer the situation will be handled.

Instead they tried to stop the rain when the customer complained. They put up a defensive umbrella and shielded themselves from the rain. So when you see the cloud darkening and you know it’s going to rain, let it. If you deal with it correctly it will help your plants (customers) grow.  

Did you know in Culpeper Virginia it is illegal to wash a mule on the sidewalk?

Do you understand everything you know?

I am tardy posting my blog, but I was attending a NFPA 70E training class last week and as well as learning a great deal, I was gathering information for this blog subject.

I have been in the electrical field for 30+ years and have always said and believe the day I have learned everything about this trade I would quit because that would be the day I hurt myself or someone else.

Well to suggest I didn’t learn something about this trade in my training class would be a big joke. I Learned so much!!! Also I learned about something about myself, I was never this good of a student when I was younger.

As I said, I have been in the electrical trade for over 30+ years, many times I have turned breakers on and off and always as I was taught I turned my head to the side or turned my back on the larger circuits when I turned them on. But as I learned I wasn’t protecting myself at all turning away.

In one of the training videos a mannequin was stood in front of a panel, holding a screwdriver as if the blade had slipped and was creating a short in the panel. The mannequin was wearing a hardhat, safety glasses, gloves and a long sleeve work shirt. However, no matter what the protection, it wasn’t enough. Once the power was applied the plasma explosion completely enveloped the mannequin front and back. In less than a 1/16^th of a second the temperature under the mannequin’s shirt was at 122 degrees Fahrenheit. The plasma temperature was 35000 degrees. The pressure from the explosion expanded the air 67,000 times in a fraction of a second putting over 5000 pounds of force on the mannequin which would have resulted in breaking all the ribs or a real human.

Also the protective clothing we wear is only meant to protect us enough to receive a survivable 2^nd degree burn.

How many times have I as a supervisor been the one to put on the arc suit direct all  the others to leave the room and energize a breaker thinking if something did fail I would be unhurt.

What do we do in our daily routines that we have done time and time again thinking we were safe in doing so, only to discover we knew nothing of the possible outcome if things did not go as planned?

I have a teenage daughter that is only a couple years from getting a drivers license, here is one I have thought about when I think about her getting her license.

Something people do everyday around us and the outcome can be deadly is texting and driving. Traveling at 70 miles per hour in 3 seconds we have traveled just over the length of a football field. How long are you not looking at the road when you look down to read or type a text, just a few seconds maybe, the length of a football field at 70 mph or at 30 miles per hour 135 feet. Scary when you think about it like that way isn’t it?

Accident prevention is not only something we need to strive for but something we need to learn about. Take a few minutes and think about things you do all the time, second nature things. Do you really understand everything you know?

Did you know in Georgia it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole?

“What we have here is a failure to communicate!”

Those words are spoken twice in the Paul Newman film “Cool Hand Luke”. The first time it is the “Captain” or warden of the prison, played by Strother Martin, then again at the end of the film by “Luke” played by Paul Newman.

Now I must admit I am guilty of failing to communicate last week entering my weekly blog. My apologizes are extended, in no way an excuse, but I was traveling working out of a different office. I should have taken the few minutes to sit down and allow my thoughts to be put to electronic type, but I failed.

But in our world of customer service communication is the key to successful customer relationships. But it doesn’t stop at dealing with our clients we have to be in a constant state of communication.

I spoke with a co-worker in another office that is also a dear friend personally. It was in our friendship relationship that this communication took place, a venting as it were about other colleagues. Finding out information about a position change for one colleague of hers and two new employees’s transferring in to her department and she is the administrative director for her department. Doesn’t it always seem like the one person that should be in the loop is the last one brought in the loop? Now I am sure we have been in situations similar to this on one side of the situation or the other. Depending on which side we are on influences our response to the situation, but should it? No lack of communication is dangerous on many levels. How would that reflect if our clients heard about it?

I returned to my office to find a voicemail from a client on my phone with a question about a piece of monitoring equipment left on his site by one of my colleagues. He was told I would be making arrangements after a few days to come to the site and remove the equipment. I would have gladly been to the site and done so except I had no clue any equipment was installed that needed to be removed. Why this simple bit of information was over looked I do not know. But it reflects a poor internal communication which is not the image we want to present.

 Communication is one of the easiest yet hardest tasks to take on it seems. Don’t think so? Drive down the highway and drive for an hour, how many speed limit signs do you pass? Now ask a law enforcement officer how many speeding tickets are written in that same stretch of highway. The speed limit was communicated, most of us know what the speed limit is when we are traveling yet we push it and try to ignore the communicated law. I remember a police officer addressing a driver improvement class made a funny yet effective communication of this very situation. He stated to the class, “I am not blind folks, I know when I take an exit on the highway it is like the green flag is dropped at the Indianapolis 500!” Funny, yet all these years ago I remember this statement.

Communication is vital to any relationship. Don’t speak to your spouse or significant other for 15 minutes when you see them next, before the 15 minutes is up I would guess you will get a comment like, “Is everything OK?” Communicate, you were just communicated to about how important you are to them and your well being.  Three little words say a mouth full doesn’t it. Yeah that phrase normally is used with three other little words, but in either situation it does speak volumes. Just don’t use it with the police officer, it doesn’t help.

Did you know in Florida if an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle, guess I better go feed the meter.

Management Blunders

I am sometimes amazed at some of the brainless moves we see from managers. And yes I said BRAINLESS!! Who told these people they had the neutrons firing in the correct order to make decisions, decisions that are some of the most blatant fumbling of the management football imaginable.

Here are a couple examples of what I feel is mismanagement decisions that make me scratch my head and wonder what are they thinking????

Bank of America announces a $5.00 monthly fee for debit card usage. I remember thinking the same thing a few years back when another bank announced they would start charging a fee for going inside to make standard transactions like deposits or withdrawal that could be made instead using the ATM.

But I could almost justify this fee, if they could cut back on the amount of tellers they could cut costs. Cutting cost upfront should mean working more efficiently. It didn’t work that way with the banks. We all grumble and complain about the “fees” charged for low account balance that they call monthly “service” or “maintenance” charges and explain it away as a fee for the accounting effort to keep track of your money. So let me get this straight, you want me to put my money in your bank for safe keeping, you tell me up front you are going to lend out money to people and charge them interest to make money, but you also want to charge me for the privilege to keep my money in your bank? If your holding my money, wouldn’t it be your job to keep track of it? And why is it if you have a great deal of money for them to keep track of, they don’t charge you? Isn’t that backwards?

Now you want to give me a card that is tied directly to my account to use, I no longer have to write checks, so it is automated for you to handle transactions, which, in my simple way of thinking, means less people which means less cost, and now you want to charge me for this privilege. And in today’s world of electronic processing who is doing this work in the end?

What happen to the good old days when banks set examples of customer service that were good? I remember as a child going into our local bank, (not owned by big corporation people) and my Father told the Vice President “Tony” he wanted to buy a new car. Tony replied, “Mr. Cloniger, just go pick out what you want, we will take care of the paperwork afterwards.” Now “Tony” was not a family friend, he was “our” banker. “Russ” was our insurance agent, etc. They were people. They worked for us. Why, because we were customers and good customer service was normal. Thanks Bank of America, just another reason I am happy I have never “banked” with you and I never will!

Another article I came across was the most outrageous example of poor bad management decisions. This story comes out of the land down under, Australia. A bride to be was told sidestep their store by the customer service department of an up-market chain “Gasp”, after she wrote an e-mail to complain about a rude salesman.

Per the report the young lady went in the store looking for bridesmaid dress. The sales clerk “chided” her for being a size 12. The as she was leaving the sales clerk yelled, “I knew you were a joke the minute you walked in.”

The customer service management reply defended the employee’s action and said his “retail superstars” only problem is he is too good at what he does. He also stated talented people, such as his clerk, “generally do not tolerate having their time wasted, which is why you were provoked to leave our store.”  Wow, serving the customer is a waste of time. I never knew people thought like that.

The manager also commented “So if you would like to do us any favors, please do not waste our retail staff’s time, because as you have already seen they will not tolerate it.” The manager claimed in his reply the store carries clothes worn by A list celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name a few, and their clothing is worn by a select few. “Similarly these items are priced such that they remain inaccessible to the undesirable.”

I mean I am at a loss for words. Are there people out there placed in a management position that have had their frontal lobe removed completely?

I am so appalled by this story I will include a link to the article where you can read both the customer’s email and the manager’s reply. You can make your own decision. Now I cannot attest as to how the customer acted in the store as there was little mentioned about that timeframe, but have we lost the “Customer is always right” attitude completely and replaced it with, please leave, I will wait for a better customer?

Here is the link for the article:

http://www.news.com.au/national/customer-complaint-email-and-response-by-gasp-clothing-goes-viral/story

Finally, Oklahoma’s school superintendent made a statement Thursday saying that her chief of staff calling school administrators “dirt bags” in a personal twitter post a “poor choice of words” really, a poor choice of words?

It once was the manager, the level headed one that made decisions, kept the customer happy as well as the employee.

I suppose there is no test for common sense.

Interesting fact I found this week Charleston, there is a law on the books that all carriage horses must wear diapers. I love horses, but I am not going to change those babies!!!! Have a great week!

The Sky is the Limit on Customer Service

We occasionally hear stories about customer service that seems to be so over the top it makes one wonder what drives someone think to go above and beyond? Why do we consider it over the top? Why isn’t it considered standard practice? I suggest we need to be striving to make our normal everyday customer service over the top customer service.

It would be very easy for me to become discouraged in the market I service and throw my hands up in disgust and proclaim I give up. Why, because as I like to refer to my world I am still pushing a rock up a hill. No, I don’t work with rocks. I am an electrician and I have been the Service Manager for many years now. However, I am the new kid on the block here in the Charleston area. I have learned two things would open doors a lot faster for me, neither of which I possess and I can’t obtain. The first one is to be born and raised in the Charleston area. Sorry folk, even though my brother-in-law built a recreation of the time machine from the first Back To The Future movie (yes he bought a DeLorean and has everything in it and on it just like the movie) it does not work so I cannot have my mother and father move to Charleston prior to my birth. Secondly, I didn’t attend the Citadel. I would have welcomed the opportunity but I chose to attend Sidewalk University, School of Hard Knocks and go to work in the electrical field for my continuing education.

So since I posses neither of the keys to quickly open doors in this area, I push the rock up the hill. It will take time for people to accept me and get accustom with me as a transplant to the area.

But I knew within a few hours after arriving here in the Charleston area I was home. When my Vice President offered me the opportunity to start up a service division here I took a giant step into the unknown. Knowing no one here, my closest family members are 3 hours away in the upstate, and never living anywhere but Virginia here I was, a little fish in this big new pond.  I love the area I think I was supposed to be here all along. Given time I will start getting a few doors to open. All I want is a chance.

My company is not originally based here in the Charleston area, but we started out 60 years ago in Virginia, just like every other company, with one man’s desire to provide for his family and be of service to his community. Mr. M.C. Dean past away earlier this year and I unfortunately never had the pleasure to meet him. His son ran the company for years and continued the tradition. His Grandson is the President now, a very innovative and motivated leader just like his Grandfather and Father before him. But as large as M.C. Dean, Inc. has become, it still comes down to the same original ideals that started this company 60 years ago, excellent customer service.  

I searched the internet the other day for “customer service” and I found two categories, customer service and excellent customer service.  In an effort to raise the bar I would like to share some of the “excellent customer service” stories I have come across and challenge you to transformer the level of customer service you read about into the “norm” for your customer service. I have paraphrased the stories somewhat to keep you from falling asleep reading my blog, but they are worth searching out and reading the full stories.

Trader Joe’s is a grocery store located in 29 states currently. A snow storm was due to hit around the holidays in the Pennsylvania area. The daughter of an 89 year old Pennsylvania gentleman contacted the store after trying multiple other stores trying to find someone that might deliver. She feared her Father didn’t have enough food to last through the holidays. The Trader Joe’s employee took her order, and even though they did not normally deliver they would in this situation. It was only about $50 worth of food that needed to be delivered and the store employee told her to have a Merry Christmas, it was on them. Within 30 minutes of the phone call the food was delivered.  

In several cities CVS operates the Samaritan Van. Among the list of free services they offer, cost free disabled vehicle repairs for stranded motorist, EMT or paramedic level Emergency medical assistance, animal rescue, open vehicles with the keys locked inside, assist lost motorists and vehicle and brush fire containment. Remember CVS is a pharmacy.

I read a story about a lady that worked in the junior’s department of a clothing store. A customer called in looking for a pair of jeans for her daughter and that all the other stores in the area did not have them in her size. The store employee found they could be ordered but it would take 3 weeks, which the customer said was to late. The employee took the ladies name and number and promised to call back. She then proceeded to call around and located them in a sister store an hour away. Now instead of calling the customer and telling them where they were, the employee put the jeans on hold, drove to the store on her own time, brought them with her to work the next day and notified the customer they were being held for her to be picked up.

Peter Shankman is a CEO and is known worldwide for his thinking about PR, Social Media, advertising, marketing, and customer service. On a recent business trip he knew he would be returning home to late to stop for dinner short of fast food at the airport which he decided against. Now it seems he is an avid customer of Morton’s Steakhouse and just prior to takeoff on his way home he tweeted as a joke, “Hey @Mortons – can you meet me at the Newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks. J” Well to his surprise someone at Morton’s corporate office saw his tweet, obviously they knew who Peter Shankman was, got permission to make this happen contacted the nearest Morton’s to the Newark Airport. When he arrived a gentleman from Morton’s in Hackensack was standing there with a 24oz. Porterhouse, shrimp, potatoes, bread, napkins, and silverware.

Wouldn’t be nice if we lived in a world where stories like this weren’t news worthy, they were any everyday occurrence?

Employee Relations, Steps to Success

In today’s fast paced world it is easy to make mistakes in the little things. Hopefully one of the things you don’t consider little is employee relations. However there are common mistakes that can be very detrimental to our overall success as managers.

Lacking in the communications department is in my opinion the biggest mistake managers make in the work place today. Do your team members know you appreciate them other than at review time? Thank them for their efforts and reward them. If they are successful so are you!  

Do they know what you expect from them on a daily basis? Give them a clear understanding of what is expected of them. It is impossible to reach a goal if you don’t know what that goal is or where it is and how to reach it. Clear directions on what is expected can be often over looked.

Don’t keep them in the dark. Let them in on the big picture, follows along with them knowing what their goals and expectations are, but let them know how that fits in the bigger picture of the company’s goals and direction.

Do you play favorites at work? It is difficult for us as managers not to become friends with some of our team members. But if you do that, are you seen as favoring one person over another? Perhaps you bowl or play softball with one or more of your team members. You stop for a beer and the conversation is carried over back into the office. Do your other team members now see you as playing favorites? Allowing this situation to happen you will create an environment of resentment and full of jealousy. You must treat everyone equally.

In conflicts that arise does your staff view you as taking sides? This will go hand in hand with the playing favorite’s situations. Make sure in conflict resolution you view both sides and make you’re decisions based on the company policies and procedures.

In conflict resolution don’t make snap decisions, take your time, listen to both sides, and do some investigation yourself if need be to get all the facts. Your team members will appreciate the time you take especially if you communicate with them during the process.

Give them a platform to offer suggestions to improve the work place. If you give your team members a voice, a way to express their idea’s they will be happier and more productive. But it is one easy way to improve the attitudes in the work place that is often over looked.

Show your team members you trust them. Not trusting your staff creates a negative work environment. If you think you have to be over their shoulder they will harbor resentment towards you and be less than productive.

Most managers believe that money is the biggest reason people change jobs, but it is not really. In some situations it is a factor and for a small percentage of people it is the biggest reason, but for almost 90% of people depart because of issues with their “Job, work environment, or believe it or not, their MANAGER!” Working on the area’s above might just help you to become a better manager and more successful. Look for the red flags that your employee’s are not happy.

Avoid the pitfalls to being a bad manager, don’t be a boss, be a team leader, be a coach to your team and watch your team members start to work together and you all succeed!!! 

9/11 Remembered: 10 Years Ago

Hard to believe but it has been 10 years this Sunday since the terror attacks of 9/11.

Rather than write my normal blog, I felt compelled to write a short reminder for us all to take a few minutes out this Sunday and remember the thousands of lost loved ones from that day. They may have not all been on a plane but their lives were lost that day due to a plane crash.

And as we remember those that lost their lives, remember those effected in other ways as well. The person that still has nightmares about the events, the person left wondering why was I spared, the people that inhaled the dust, debris, chemicals and still suffer. Or the family members left behind to try and heal and move forward with their lives. Maybe still wishing they could look up and see that husband, wife, mother, father, daughter, son, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, or grandparent come through the door, call on the phone, etc.

All the first responders, including our four legged friends that along with their handlers day in and day out worked to search for the last one.

Now 10 years later there are children that have no clue how every TV station, radio station reported live that day. To them it may be as remote in their thoughts as World War I and II is for some of us that were not alive while those events happened.

Does it make the events any less vivid to those that did live through the horror? No, it doesn’t, but we have to understand, for some in school today it may be just a part of history just as the civil war or the market crash in 1929. Help them understand what happened that day.

Here are the times for the events that took place that sad day. Can you spend a few minutes in prayer for the families, survivors, victims and the United States as well?

8:46 AM Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

9:03 AM Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

9:38 AM Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.

9:59 AM The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

10:10 AM Flight 93 crashes into the field in Pennsylvania.

10:28 AM The north tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

5:20 PM Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapses.

As this Sunday approaches take some time to say a little prayer,

A prayer for those that are not here today,

A prayer for those that are still suffering,

A prayer for those that are still feeling the pain,

A prayer for the child missing the parent,

A prayer for the parent missing the child,

A prayer for God to keep us safe and give us peace,

A prayer for God to Bless America.