Tag Archive for morale

Leaders: The Customer Isn’t Always Right

February 20, 2013 Uncategorized 7 comments

surpriseBuck up and stand up for your teammates. That was the gist of one of the points in this post and a couple comments below it. As leaders, we can’t be so quick to cower when a customer pitches a fit in our lobby, shrieking at the top of his lungs about how the customer is always right blah blah blah…

I’m not saying the customer isn’t right sometimes. Of course they’re right sometimes. And when those times come, we need to open and own up to our mistake. We’re human, after all; we’re going to make them. I’m just saying that customers aren’t always right. I mean, seriously. In what other context can any human claim with a straight face that they are literally incapable of being wrong? It’s silliness I tell you. Silliness.

I could do a whole post or twelve about that, but that’s not the point of today’s post. I think leaders have an opportunity here. It’s not like any of the parties involved actually think that customers are always right. You don’t think that. Your team doesn’t think that. Heck, the customers don’t even think that. They just know that somewhere along the way, some nincompoop coined that stupid phrase and employees have been beaten over the head with it and managers have cowered behind it ever since.

It plays out something like this:

Employee: “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t refund your insufficient funds fee. We’ve already refunded three of them and our policy only allows us three refunds per customer per year.”

Customer Who Isn’t Always Right: “Is there someone else I need to speak to that can actually do something about this for me?”

Employee: “I’d be glad to let you speak with my manager, but like I said, our policy is pretty clear and we’ve already given you refunds three different times. I’d also be glad to help you work through your budget and set you up with one of our financial planning gurus to help get you back on track.”

Customer Who Isn’t Always Right: “Obviously you can’t help me. Can you go get your manager?”

Employee: “Sure. Excuse me.” (Picks up phone, dials manager’s extension, and requests his presence at the workstation.)

Manager: “How can I help you, sir?”

Customer Who Isn’t Always Right: “Your stupid employee here won’t refund my stupid fees.”

Manager: (Looks at the employee.) “We won’t refund his fees?”

Employee: “Well, no, but only because the policy says we can refund fees three times and–”

Customer Who Isn’t Always Right: “Well you’ve refunded them before so I think you should refund them again. What’s that phrase? The customer’s always right? Apparently your genius employee didn’t go to customer service school the day they taught that.”

Manager: (Nodding thoughtfully) “Sir, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through such a hassle here today. I’m going to refund your fees. You’re right; customers are our top priority.”

customers-attitudeWe see and hear that sort of thing fairly often, don’t we? Maybe it’s not refunding fees, but it’s something else.

Employee does what she’s supposed to do, but it ticks off a customer.

Customer gets ugly with employee.

Manager pacifies customer, giving tacit approval to customer’s behavior, and inadvertently delivering subtle demoralizing blow to employee–all in one fell swoop.

While a certain amount of customer complaining and frustration is to be expected in any customer service position, I think we as leaders have an opportunity to do a better job at sticking up for our employees and teammates when a customer’s behavior is over the line. In the fictitious account above, the employee was simply doing what he/she was supposed to do according to the company’s policy.

So when the Customer Who Isn’t Always Right stepped over the line from frustrated and confused to insulting and demeaning in front of the Manager, the Manager should have politely asked the Customer Who Isn’t Always Right to refrain from insulting his employee. For bonus points, the Manager could have confirmed to the Customer Who Isn’t Always Right that the Employee was correct in stating what the policy was, but was also correct in offering the other sorts of assistance that he/she did.

The Manager is offering support on two levels there: (1) He’s sending a clear signal that he will not allow his employees to be treated a certain way, regardless of who it is; and (2) he’s confirming the employee’s operational knowledge and execution in the situation. He’s not undercutting the employee.

As leaders, sticking up for our teams can’t just be something we do when it’s easy or when there’s not much on the line. We need to be ready and willing to do it when it matters most.

Leaders: Consider Creating a Crisis

October 16, 2012 Uncategorized 6 comments

Here’s an odd organizational phenomenon that you’ll notice if you look for it: Organizations often don’t pay attention to important stuff until there’s some sort of crisis related to the aforementioned stuff. Any of the following sound familiar?

An organization will only call a strategic planning consultant after it’s obvious to 93.5% of the organization that they have nothing resembling a coherent and forward-thinking strategic plan.

An organization will only put together anything resembling a legit leadership development philosophy after realizing that for all their talk about “developing the future leaders” of the organization, they really haven’t done anything significant and tangible toward that end.

An organization will only start giving a flying flip about employee engagement after it becomes clear that a significant chunk of the humans that trudge through the employee entrance are increasingly miserable every day.

An organization will only give a rat’s derriere about employees being innovative after they sense that they’re not simply a bit behind the curve–they’re woefully behind the curve.

An organization will start using “culture” and/or “core values” in substantive ways only after they realize that employee morale has dipped so low that they’d view being laid-off as a welcome respite from the not-so-friendly confines of your building.

So what if we take a new strategy in our organizations? What if we decided to create a crisis mindset in our employees sometimes instead of waiting for actual crisis? What if we adopted a survival mindset on an ongoing basis rather than trying to turn it on only after the feces hits the fan?

Crisis has this way of sharpening our focus, doesn’t it? It has the effect of forcing us to spend time only on important things instead of the meaningless nonsense that we tend to get sucked into sometimes.

Think about an ER, for example. When a patient is lifted off the back of an ambulance and rushed to the operating table, there aren’t a lot of politics at that point, are there? Not a lot of turf wars. Not much stupid bickering between colleagues. And gossip? How could they? They don’t have time. To invest in any of those things would seem really, really dumb in light of the situation in which they find themselves.

So how ’bout it? Should we try to cultivate a crisis-mindset in our people so that we’ll rid ourselves of some of the negativity that’s sprung up? Perhaps trying to think of our organizations as organisms fighting for survival in a Darwinian-dog-eat-dog world would motivate us to traverse that gap between surviving and thriving. Maybe we’d spend less time whining and complaining and more time trying to make each other and our organization better. Maybe it would force employees who for too long have been allowed to be a cancer to the organization to do one of two things: either buck up, work hard, and be positive and awesome to their teammates; or pack up their horrible attitude and take it somewhere else where it would fit right in.

Why is it that only in a time of crisis will we focus on the important stuff and rid ourselves of dumb workplace nonsense? It’s a shame it has to come to that.

Stop the Madness!

July 23, 2012 Uncategorized 4 comments

Stop the madness!

Please. I mean it. Stop. I’m trying to help you out here.

It starts with an email or announcement in a meeting. Good so far, right? The organization is going to survey its employees to determine how engaged they are, or what their ideas for products and services are, or what they need most from their leaders, or something else along those lines. Now, is there anything wrong with asking those types of questions? No, of course not. I’m a big believer in doing what it takes to engage employees in a lot of different ways, including those mentioned above; although I’m not sure why we have to wait for a survey to ask those sorts of things.

But here’s where the madness begins, and I bet if you ask your employees they’d back me on this one. What on God’s green earth happens to all of that information? And if the first thought that popped into your mind was that it was safely saved in a file somewhere on your computer so you can reference it, then you’re already missing the point, because that’s exactly where your employees know it is too.

The problem is that that’s where it tends to stay. Oh, sure, appropriate lip service is paid to “processing the information,” and “circling back” around to their ideas. The organization probably thanks them for “reaching out” with such great ideas, and there are assurances made that soon there will be action taken on some of their thoughts.

And then…

Nothing.

At least nothing of any real significance.

Believe me–the employees know the drill by now. Morale dips. Survey goes out. Assurances are made. Nothing meaningful happens. Seed of cynicism is sown. Morale dips further. Consultant comes in. He/She suggests cultural change or adjustment. Executive heads nod. Assurances are made again. Nothing meaningful happens. Aforementioned seed of cynicism grows. Morale dips yet again. Executives host town hall meeting. Employees present complaints and ideas. Executive heads nod, this time with thoughtful expressions on their faces. Assurances? Check. Then? Nothing. At least nothing substantive. And that cynicism? It’s alive and well now, fed by a cycle of experiences that have driven employees to believe certain things about the organization.

So here’s my suggestion: stop. Unless you’re ready to commit to the sort of change your employees are clamoring and longing for, just stop. If you’re not really, truly prepared to invest the emotional and mental energy into cultivating an engaged workplace, then don’t even pay it lip service. I’d be willing to wager that employees would respect executives and managers a lot more if they didn’t get the feeling that those surveys and town hall meetings were little more than something a leadership team does to temporarily assuage their consciences and allow them to sleep better at night because they’ve “engaged” their employees on some level.

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