It so happened that the day before I had been in another similar store and the assistant – noticing my brolly I thought – said “Is it raining?”….because I am polite I entered into a conversation that yes, indeed it was and wasn’t it a pity because the day before had been so lovely. Then, as  I moved away from the counter I stopped to put my receipt away and I heard the assistant ask the next customer “Is it raining?… That customer had been standing only few feet from me when I had had the conversation with the assistant.I didn’t wait round to hear how they responded.

On the bus this morning the lady behind me was ( loudly) bemoaning the fact that she is having to contact a call centre regularly for something at the moment . She mentioned to her companion that she wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t go through the rigmarole of asking her how her day has been, thanking her for her interest in the company and her custom etc before they get down to sorting out her issue.

I understand that interacting with customers is really important . It’s a theme I come back to in this blog regularly. But is it really the case that companies have to script what their staff do to start a conversation? Whatever happened to spontaneous chat? Maybe it is something that needs to be taught – I don’t know but the weather is always a good reliable opener . If the  the assistant mentioned above said “The woman before me just told me it’s raining…”  instead it would have surely meant more to the customer.

When I am working with people in their career transition or job search I ask them to tell me what they are good at. As a start most will tell me about being able to work as part of a team but still be able to work on their own. That they are reliable and flexible and keen to learn.

EVERYBODY says that!

What is often missed and probably undervalued is the ability to start a conversation and be able to ask questions and listen to the answers to take away the information gleaned to include in what they do next. This applies as much to the new entrant to the job market as the most senior, experienced folk.

I would really like to hear from people whose organisations teach them what to say  – why the business thinks that’s important and how they feel about having to do it.

But in the meantime  – thank you for coming by and have a nice day !

Get in touch if you would like to explore what you are good at to ensure that what you put on your CV  and say in an interview does you justice. More information about what I offer here

So why this post today?

Well I placed an order online with UK department store Marks & Spencer at the beginning of last week for a couple of Christmas presents.  According to the website they had the items in stock and that was plenty of time for delivery ahead of Christmas. By 21st December I was concerned and realised that I could track my package with Royal Mail which I duly did and a garbled difficult to understand message seemed to indicate that it had been delivered on the 19th.

Maybe it has – but not to me. And usually if Royal Mail try to deliver to you but have to leave it with a neighbour or what they call a “safe place” ( which is the past has included my rubbish bin!!) they put a card through the letterbox to say that’s what they have done. But there was no such card.

The lady from M&S went off to see what she could do and called me back to tell me that Royal Mail say that it has been delivered.

So she said that she would send the items out again but – and here’s the crunch – there was no way of me getting them before Christmas!

You know I had kind of resigned myself that being the case and had a Plan B  – that I would have to take myself to the shops again today and find alternatives and I told her that. She was most apologetic and proceeded to cancel the order and make an immediate refund.

And here comes the good part..

I said that if the package did turn up I would just send it back – but she said that there was no need and that if that happens I should keep it with M&S’s compliments and make them an extra present for the people they were ordered for.

How do I feel about M&S? At this point I love them – and I am very impressed with the lovely lady I spoke to who took total responsibility for trying to find a solution for me whilst really listening to my concerns and sympathising with my plight. ( I feel a little less charitable about Royal Mail though..)

Mary Portas  writing in the Daily Telegraph about the Early Learning Centre  last Saturday made this comment

“…..my last review of 2009 ends on far too recurrent a theme: great brand, great business, but where the hell is the service? So, readers, when you’re finishing off your Christmas shopping, do me a favour: demand it!”

I will do this – and I will also give credit where due. So well done M&S.

Read the full article by Mary here – and actually she is worth reading regularly for her common sense advice on how to be a successful retailer!

My wife and I have been working on this lately, for customer service problems we run into throughout our lives. We tend to write letters and have had good results so far. It is a hard thing to get out of to not “let things go” and address issues you may have with strangers. Especially since, by nature, we tend to be pretty subdued. We never ask for anything in the letters we just state how we would like to see things improve. I have found that practicing giving feedback has made me more receptive in receiving it.

Now I won’t bore you with the details – because there is more than one post in the history of this blog about the awful customer service I have had from a bank I  invested with. Suffice to say that when I went to the branch to close both accounts I had they delivered the usual quality.

What I like about Dan’s ( and his wife’s) actions is that it allows them to take control of the situation – to benefit others. As he says they are not asking for anything but offering advice on how to improve. And I am going to take a leaf out of their book and write to the bank – not a letter of complaint ( though goodness knows it would be justified) but a letter of suggestions about how to be better next time – albeit with a different customer.

And indeed they are. Nicely boxed, folded so that they don’t need ironed and with clear instructions for hanging them.

And – and this is why I am so chuffed – with 2 packs of hooks to hang them.

Now I know that those hooks don’t cost much to buy – and cost even less for JL to supply – but what a great touch! The curtains I am taking down already have hooks but they did not take that for granted.

Isn’t it nice when you get something more than you thought you were getting.

Applies in the workplace just as much as it does to customer service.

How about delivering more than you promised today!

I would like to meet Mr McMillan and shake his hand. For a while now I have been trying to work out why some customer service situations feel better than others. You know when you have had bad customer service. But sometimes the feeling of having what – on the face of it – is good customer service is not great. And I think it will be because some people don’t know the difference between being polite and being nice.

I was watching one of the TV programmes based in an airport and wondering at the way a young lady handled a passenger who was being denied travel because he was drunk. She told him that she was not letting him travel because he “appeared to be ” under the influence of alcohol. She did not sound or “appear to be ” judgemental . She was stating a fact. She has a difficult job but the safety and comfort  of passengers in the air  was her primary concern. And she was nice about it. She cared about this man and the state he was in.  Sadly he became abusive and the police had to intervene.

In that same programme a young man’s elderly mum had missed her flight. We never saw her but as far as I could make out the son had dropped her at the airport in good time and left her to check in but somehow she didn’t make it before check-in closed and was denied travel. She then called her son and he came back to the airport ranting about the treatment she had had.  The representative from the airline explained the conditions of flight were that she checked in within the time required and the lady had not done so. The son did not seem to know this and the rep printed off the terms and conditions to show him. He caved in , sheepishly took his mum home and brought her back the next day accompanying her through the check-in process. That situation was handled equally as politely as the first but it did not feel so good. There had clearly been some confusions, the son wanted to protect his mum and probably felt a bit of a fool for not taking her as far as he could through the process but the airline rep did her job but did nothing to make him feel better.

I know it is hard to deal with customers in a bright and smiley way all of the time just as I know that customers are sometimes deliberately difficult.  Andrew McMillan said  ” You can usually tell very quickly if people are suitable for customer facing jobs. They have a natural warmth about them, an interest in other people, an enjoyment in interacting with customers” I am wondering how their recruitment process works. I expect that training their recruiters will be just as important to allow them to spot those core qualities.

On a personal note I recently spoke with my cellphone provider to change my handset and contract. The lady I spoke with chatted to me throughout the whole process. I had expected it to be straightforward if a bit tedious. But it was not so. By the end of our conversation we had learned what each of us were doing over the weekend and she had helped me choose a better (and by the way cheaper) contract for the type of usage I had.

What we need now is for other companies to follow the John Lewis example.

So before I tell my story let me explain.

In his book “Emotional Intelligence at Work” Daniel Goleman describes the amygdala as “the brain’s emotional memory bank” – of triumphs and failure etc. At any point he says the amygdala  is checking to match  ”what is happening now to the stored templates of our past experiences”. So if you are having a bad experience this may be made worse by equating it to something that happened in the past which has lingering bad memories associated too.

Clear? Well maybe it will be when I tell this story.

Regular readers will know that I have been taking part in an Emotional Intelligence in Leadership programme at Napier University here in Edinburgh. After the first 2 days we were given a workbook – and challenged to use what we had learned so that we can review this when we get together for day 3 next week. I have found it very helpful already.

The story.

I need to go to my bank to do some transactions and open a new account.  Edinburgh is having a tram system installed right now and the traffic disruption is dreadful. I had been at a meeting what should have been a short bus ride away from the bank but it took a bit longer. It had started to rain and was windy so I was a bit bedraggled. The branch is in the most beautiful old building in the City Centre. I stood in the queue in this glorious old banking hall admiring the wonderful ceiling and the marble pillars and patiently waiting my turn. I was called forward. All of the banking advisors are sitting behind desks – no glass barriers – very civilised. I sit down, tell the young man what I want to do and he tells me that I will have to see a specialist to do that and I will have to make an appointment to do so.

Now…….on my previous visit to this branch I  had a major fall out with the staff when they would not do anything I needed them to do – for a whole load of reasons that seemed to me to be for their benefit and not mine. I ended up storming out and going back to my desk where I did everything by phone. I had made a special trip into town for no good reason. I vowed that when I decided what I was going to do with my money they were not getting it!

So you can see what my amygdala was doing this morning can’t you?

But – I took a deep breath and calmly explained that I was not willing to make another trip to keep an appointment and could I speak to the manager. A very nice lady came over and explained why the young man could not help me ( he was not at the right level) but I did not need to see the person for whom I needed and appointment ( that was a misunderstanding between me and him – no blame) and she would find someone to help me as soon as possible. Five minutes later another very nice lady took me over to her desk and within 20 minutes I was done and dusted with her direct number to call for any future enquiries. I told her that they young man had actually handled a potentially irate customer very well and wanted her to tell him ( and his boss) that.

So there’s the proof. With a wee bit of practice you can stop an amygdala hijack. I kept cool. I told myself that there was no need to accept what had happened before. I also told myself that that was not what was happening anyway.  I calmly explained to someone who could do something about it what I wanted and why. And let me tell you it is a very good feeling.

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4 days later and there is a footnote to this story. When I checked my bank book over the weekend it had been made up wrongly.  I called the lady who gave me the card but she was not available. The lady I spoke to asked if she could help and I told her what had happened. On her advice I visited another more accesible branch where the mistake was rectified and I got an apology from both. Still staying cool – but for goodness sake how many mistakes with one customer can a bank make??!?!?!?

I have a new hairstyle – I no longer look much like my pic at the top of this blog. Here is how I look now!

I have been visiting my current hairdresser for 23 years ! Wow!  She and I have sort of grown up ( old?) together. She runs her own salon and in the time I have been visiting her her staff of up to 5 stylists has barely changed.

The reason this came to mind today was that I old her that my husband and my 25th anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks and she styled both mums hair for the wedding (at that point  I was still using a selection of random city centre sylists at great expense!).

So why have I stuck with her? Well I guess it is that

• I have often arrived with a photograph of some glamorous model saying I want my hair like hers and she tells me that my hair is the wrong texture for that so she will adapt it ( have fine hair – all models seem to have thick luxurious locks)
• she will regularly check with me that it is going the way I expect – so that at the end I don’t dash screaming from the salon
• we chat about the usual stuff like holidays – which means that we know what is going on in each other’s life- and which fosters trust
• sometimes her appointment system goes a bit awry and when this happens she makes a cup of coffee for the ladies who are being a bit held up and gives them a magazine to read. I have never heard anyone complain.
• when I am in the chair she makes me feel like the most important customer she has

So by listening to what I want and managing my expectations, checking in with me regularly during the process, taking an interest in what I am doing, taking care of me during the time I am with her and treating me like a princess she has had a loyal customer for 23 years.

Not a bad lesson for any business really is it?

1. Arrive to seal a shower with no sealant.
2. Call to collect cash for cleaning windows with no ability to give change.
3. As a computer guy engaged to help install new software telling the customer that their new computer purchase was a bad one.
4. Be late for an agreed appointment time ( when the booker was told that the client has to be somewhere else later and although tight it is possible to be around while the work is done) – and then say that they need to go to a retail park out of town to get supplies.
5. Say -after they started the job – that there can be no guarantees for how long it will last.
6. Swear -under any circumstances.
7. Smoke cigarettes( or any other substance for that matter!?) when working on the premises.
8. Ask for a cup of tea/coffee ( 4 sugars…) 10 minutes after arriving – and at regular intervals thereafter.
9. Spin a story about why work can’t be done -the way it was previously agreed- which is full of holes.
10. Damage work just completed by another tradesman when installing theirs.

Of course these all happened to me. There must be more. Making up this list has amused me no end. 

On a similar theme I arrived home last week to find a card posted through the door saying that the lawn treatment company had called but had not been able to get access to my garden because the gate was locked. They would call to arrange another time.

Now this was a problem – I had not booked any lawn treatment. There was no number to call on the card so I had to look them up, call a central number and ask what was going on. The phone adviser said that she would get someone to call me. The guy who called said that indeed I had not booked them and they should have gone to a house in the next street. I asked what I would have come back to had my gate not been locked and he said that they were there to scarify the lawn. Imagine what it would have been like to come back to find my lawn had been ravaged as the start of some major programme of work over the spring which I had not commissioned! I have to agree it could do with some care and attention – but I’ll decide when and by whom.

We awoke to stong winds and torrential rain yesterday so that clinched it. We packed our bags and headed to the airport – looking forward to when we might be able to make another trip to paradise.

The queues at the airport alerted us that something was up.

British Airways’ “computers were down” . I don’t know what that meant in technical terms but it really caused disruption for us humans. All of the check-in process had to be done by hand. With pens and paper. And phone calls for each passenger to check what seats we should be in….. It took 4 hours to check all of the passengers onto our flight. Of course that meant we left late – and that also meant that we missed our connecting flight in London this morning and had a further 4 hour delay waiting for the next one.

Regular readers will know that I get cross about bad customer service. I started off feeling sorry for the staff dealing with this “crisis” yesterday until I realised that they did not seem to be doing any such thing. They were under attack of course – but a smile and an explanation would have gone a long way to settling people. Some information would have helped too. What did we get ? A photocopy of a letter from the Customer Services Manager ( handed out in the queue by someone who could have just passed on the message verbally) telling us that – wait for it – the computers were down. No kidding…

Now my husband had just read his annual book ( he only reads books on the beach) – the last Harry Potter book this time. He told me that the Dementers in the book could be overcome by positive thoughts – and encouraged me to overcome the dementers in the form of the uncommunicative staff and the irritating passengers right in front of me. One – a guy – who said that this always happened when he flew with British Airways and he had only made this trip with them in sufferance ( yeah right). The other was a lady who regaled anyone who would listen to tales about plane journeys she had been on that had gone wrong. And we were trapped. So I tried positive thinking – I really did – but even I ran out of positive thoughts.

One of the joys of being in the Caribbean is that everything is done in “Caribbean Time”. This really slows you down. Maybe that was why the BA staff at Grantley Adams Airport found it hard to step it up when they needed to.

Now I sound like a grumpy old “dementer” myself. Barbados is beautiful. We had a wonderful holiday.

And she told me about an experience in a Scottish hotel where she was having coffee and meeting a client where a member of staff insisted that he hang her coat up – which was beside her on a chair – as it was making the place untidy.

Why, oh why, oh why?