Educating Your Customers

My life’s passion is educating and inspiring service providers, as well as those who manage them. Philosophically, excellent service boils down to a combination of the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule, which is, ”Do unto others as they would like to have it done unto them.” In other words, be thoughtful and personalize each interaction. We put our own cares aside for the moment and demonstrate genuine kindness and empathy, along with the willingness to help those we serve.

I’ve often wished I could turn the tables. How great would it be to educate and inspire our customers to treat service providers with the same courtesy, compassion and respect? I recently came across this photo, which prompted me to imagine what service might look like if we could actually tell customers how we’d like them to behave.

(I’ve also seen signs advising parents that disruptive children will be rewarded with a puppy and double espresso.)

While the signs are posted in jest, there’s an underlying message, and it can be tempting to articulate it in no uncertain terms, e.g., “If you’d stop screaming your head off and treat me a little nicer, I might actually want to help you!” or “If you reach the tipping point on the ‘grouchometer,’ you’re out of here.”

Ahhh…it’s a fantasy in which many of us indulge, but it would be as destructive as the negative behavior that prompted it. To quote another old aphorism, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Because we can’t post signs and speak our minds, service providers need to find other ways of reaching rude, hostile and otherwise unpleasant customers. Bottom line, the responsibility for the success of the interaction and the outcome are on us.

The first strategy that comes to mind is demonstrating by example. By responding to a grouch with kindness, caring and a solution-based approach, there’s a good chance we can “flip” the situation to a win/win, where everyone leaves feeling good.

Another strategy is to tell customers how much we appreciate their kindness, patience, understanding, or whatever quality makes it a pleasure to help you help them. We all want to feel appreciated, and a great way to reinforce positive behavior is to let people know how much we genuinely appreciate it. Try these two simple strategies and watch what happens; and if you have any proven tips of your own, I’d love to hear about them.

Now, back to the Golden and Platinum Rules. They constitute a simple and powerful way of life, but putting it into practice throughout an organization becomes a bit more complicated. In my next post, I will talk about how hiring, training and inspirational practices can consistently turn complaints into compliments. *

* Turning Complaints Into Compliments is the title of a chapter of my book, “The Art and Science of the Hotel Concierge.”  While the text is targeted to concierges and hotel management, this chapter, and several others, can be applied to improving service levels in any industry.

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