Tjen’s Word
July 15, 2013
Think twice before you
talk about rules with your customers
Introduction
Becky Quick is an anchor in CNBC’s Squawk
Box. She writes columns in Fortune and
other media. If you do not know who Becky
Quick is, you just need to know that she is the anchor who could make Warren Buffett
to join her right after exiting an international conference at the interview
hot seat.
When
rules irritate not just one customer….but all…
Becky wrote in Fortune about her recent
flight experience. She came prepared
with a back-pack of tools to keep her 20-month-old boy quiet during the
journey. One of the magic tools is a DVD
player which had kept the toddler silent for over an hour but which also produced
the faint sounds of the movie’s dialogue.
Then the flight attendant passed by and
heard the faint sounds from the DVD. She
demanded Becky to either make her toddler use the headphones or shut off the
player! Becky protested then the flight
attendant insisted by citing company rules.
After protesting in vain, Becky shut off
the DVD since the toddler would never want to wear the headphones while
watching a Disney’s cartoon. Consequence…?
Lightning McQueen’s suddenly arrived, the baby cried like probably thunders!
The company representative who had
inflexibly applied the company rules make the company pay the price, both immediate
trigger of customer dissatisfaction from Becky plus all others in the cabin and
evidently negative words of mouth from the famous anchor which probably had reached
some of the most influential businesswomen in the financial world…
When
rules do not make sense to customers….
Though I am not a celebrity like Becky, I
do have interesting encounters with servicing people who have inflexibly
applied the “company rules”. Here is one
of the stories…
Three days ago, I had been waiting for a
friend at the Sun Hung Kei Centre in Wanchai when I suddenly got very
bored. So I went to the first floor to
visit Godiva Chocolate hoping to get a few pieces of candies to please myself
while I was waiting. I visit the shop
from time to time since its first opening in that building.
When I paid, I moved from the front of
the candy display racks to the side of the cashier. That is my favorite “pay” position!
Then a man staff in suit swiftly moved
towards me and told me not to stand in that position but to move back and stand
in front of the cashier counter which is almost high up to my nose (oh, by the
way, I guess I am short from THE company standard as I really find it hard to
hand money over to the cashier from that front side of the cashier counter…).
I protested and told the man that “For
years, I just stand here and pay…” His response, which was kind of funny but
sad, “The new company’s new rule is that no one can stand here….”
As simply a customer who just wanted to
pay for a package of candies, I had never thought that it was prohibited to
stand next to the cashier. So my
emotional response to him was, “Oh, so you talk about rules and regulations to
your customers!”
Seeing my emotion, the man in suit did
back-off a bit and used many words to explain the rules and regulations of the
new company. However, since my main
focus was about candies and not rules and regulations, I just walked away
without listening to any more words coming from him and started enjoying the sweeties.
Pity that such a good brand was ruined at
that moment by such a proud staff with no sense at all about customer
service. It’s the staff responsibilities
to clear the cashier desk top to ensure that no confidential information is exposed within sight of the customers instead of talking about rules to
customers especially when the transactions simply take 10 seconds to complete
and all that the customers could expect is the warm enjoyment of the sweet experience…
Anyway, more service blog next time when
interesting experience comes.
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