zaterdag 14 december 2013

Noblesse oblige

Here in the Netherlands, we have an expression: Customer is King. There's probably similar expressions around the world but they all boil down to the same thing: as a company, you have an obligation to treat your customers with utter respect.

Of course we all have had many experiences where, as a customer, we were treated with anything but respect. Especially callcenters are infamous for being full of uninterested, grumpy, often even incapable employees. And even though these days awareness of how important it is to be customer oriented, friendly and helpful is high in almost every callcenter, the bad experiences still happen. For companies, present day social media are a very real threat because of the way customers have access to large audiences if they feel the need to spread the word about how awful they were treated. Where 20 years ago "I'm writing a complaint letter to the manager"was about the worst they could do, nowadays you company name can and will be badly damaged by just one person posting a negative comment on Twitter or Facebook.

This gives customers a great deal of power. But with great power comes great responsibility and it might be time to start realising this. Here are a few helpful tips on how to be a good customer:

- If you are greeted with "good morning" by the person on the phone, try returning the favor. "Yes, I want to..." is not a nice way to start a conversation.
- If you can't get your way, don't shoot the messenger. There are limitations to what customer service employees can and can't do for you. Be reasonable, thank them for doing everything they could even if in the end it didn't work out the way you wanted it to.
- Demanding to speak to a manager won't result in getting your way after all. Rules and limitations are there for a reason, and most modern day callcenters are set up in such a way that managers are often not even around or available, because it is their job to make sure the phone lines are answered, the employees are trained etc... not to speak to you. 9 out of 10 managers at callcenters will have far less knowledge of the product and the possibilities/limitations than the employees they are managing.
- Getting personal, even nasty to the employee will cost you the one ally you have in the situation you are in. Keep in mind it is this person's job to help you and solve your problem where and if they possibly can. They are not the enemy and if you treat them as such chances at getting what you want will greatly diminish. After all, they too are human and I bet you wouldn't go out of your way for someone who is calling you names, either.
- Express your appreciation. If a problem you had was solved, a question answered in a way you were happy with, a deadline met due to the help of a customer service employee.. Tell them. "Thank you"are probably the two words most often forgotten to say.

And that brings us to the core of this article. What we as customers often forget is the simple fact that these people are working really hard to answer all our questions, solve our problems and provide service. Depending on the company they answer 20 to 200 calls a person a day, and they try to be friendly and helpful to each and every one of those customers. They have often gone through lengthy training to gain all the knowledge that is needed to do their job. They are fathers, mothers, partners, humans... not robots. They are not a verbal punching bag their company has installed for us as customers to be rude, nasty, unreasonable to or even worse: an outlet for our personal frustrations the company doesn't even have anything to do with. Service.. is not servitude. And indeed as customers we have every right to demand respect, but we have an obligation to be respectful just as well. Noblesse oblige or: royalty comes with obligations. If you want to be treated like a king (and I mean an actual king, one who is loved and respected, not the dictator type).. start acting like one.