©Holly
Stiel 2000
In the sixteen years I spent as a hotel concierge in a large
San Francisco property, I noticed six customer attitudes that
kept repeating themselves. These attitudes were interesting
not only because they appeared consistently, but because they
represented the feelings that “push the buttons”
of front-line service providers.
Service
positions require a great deal of understanding on the part
of the service provider to get past the initial, negative
emotional triggers that customers with the following attitudes
elicit. Being aware of these customers’ attitudes is
extremely important for two reasons: (1) Because you must
first be aware of what is occurring, name what the emotion
you are feeling is, and then make a choice, separate from
the occurring emotion, to not react negatively. (2) Because
while only a small percentage of customers exhibit attitudes
that trigger negative emotions, these customers can have a
crossover effect on the customer base that is perfectly delightful
to serve.
The
following is a representation of the six attitudes that seem
to appear on a consistent basis.
Disclaimer:
Any resemblance to real people in your business is purely
coincidental and unintentional.
These attitudes are, however, so universal, many people in
my seminars call out names and say “they were just here
last week!”
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Attitude
No. 1: The Entitled
- "You
owe me."
- "I
expect you to do this."
- “I
deserve this.”
- “No
one else exists and you have nothing else
to do but to help me.”
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The
negative emotional trigger that The Entitled can elicit is resentment.
It quickly leads to the thought, “Just who exactly do you
think you are?” It can result in an unwillingness to give
of oneself to help such a customer, and it inhibits problem-solving
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Attitude
No 2: The Panicked
-
“What do you mean my order isn’t ready?”
-
“But you promised!”
- “Impossible,
the loan has to go through, escrow closes at four p.m.!”
-
“Now what am I going to do?"
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attitude screams “ME,” and it is both tense and intense.
The emotional trigger that the panicked elicits is protection.
It leads to the thought, “Oh great, now your problem is my
problem.” It can cause service providers to set up rigid
boundaries that often result in a refusal to cross the boundaries
necessary to perform problem-solving and service |
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Attitude
No 3: The High and the Mighty
- “Don’t
you know who I am?”
- “I
know more about this job than you.”
-
“This better be good because I’m an aficionado!”
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This
attitude comes with finger snapping. It says, without saying,
“I’m better than you, and I’m not going to let
you forget it.”
The emotional trigger that the High and Mighty elicits is shame
and intimidation. But to be so belittled quickly causes anger,
and it can trigger competition and/or even sabotage. It may lead
to the thought of “I’ll show you!” In such a scenario,
orders seem to get misplaced, diners end up at tables right by
the kitchen door, and hotel guests get placed in the room right
next to the ice machine. |
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Attitude
No. 4: The Bottom-Liner
- “Can
you do this for me, yes or no?”
- “Tell
me exactly when I can expect the answer.”
- “What
do you mean you’ll do your best? Either you can or you
can’t.”
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It
is all cut-to-the-chase; no schmoozing here! The emotional trigger
that the Bottom-Liner elicits is hurt and defensiveness. It
often leads to thoughts such as “Well, if you talk to me
like that, then I can talk right back at you the same way.”
It usually results in a brief but negative response that has
very little to do with quality service delivery.
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Attitude
No. 5: The Clueless
-
“Huh?”
-
“Are you sure you can do this?”
- “If
I go outside and it is raining, will I get wet?”
(I was actually asked this question.)
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The
emotional trigger that the Clueless elicits is irritation. It
brings to mind thoughts of “Why should I even bother explaining
anything to this person? "He or she won’t understand
it anyway.” It often leads to outright dismissal of the
individual who is supposed to be served.
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Attitude
No 6: The Imprisoned
- “Why
does something always go wrong here?”
- “Nothing
ever works out for me!”
- “My
whole trip has been like this, one disaster after another.”
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Imprisoned are the people who are so imprisoned by their own misery
that their only purpose in life seems to be to make other people
miserable. The negative emotion that the Imprisoned elicits is
frustration. It can quickly lead to the thought, “If you
hate doing business here so much, why don’t you take it elsewhere?”
Such an attitude prevents us from seeing the true agenda, and
makes it difficult to really serve people in a way that meets
their needs.
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One
thing is certain: these attitudes are not going to go away.
They are human nature and are here to stay. What you can change
is how you choose to respond. As service providers, your power
and your success lies in how you choose to respond to these
attitudes. This is where the true challenge of service really
lies. It’s easy to be nice to people you enjoy. It is
much more challenging, interesting, and rewarding to give
quality service experiences to that small percentage of customers
that push your buttons and may cause you to respond in a less
than stellar way.
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The
first thing to recognize is that all customers, especially
the six previously described, wear a sign on them that says
ME! Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics says all customers
wear a sign that says "make me feel important."
No matter what their personality or their attitude is, all
human beings are wired the same way. We all want to be Remembered,
Respected, Acknowledged, and Heard. One reason so many people
holler at service providers is that they feel they haven’t
been heard. Service providers need to stop and notice the
true agenda being put forward, and focus on the customer’s
human need to be Respected, Acknowledged, Remembered, and
Heard.
To choose to do this requires that in each situation you ask
yourself, “What does this customer really need and how
can I provide it?” What is the human need that can be
addressed as opposed to just going through the motions and
providing the business need? I have a method for achieving
this. I call it putting on the turtle hat of service. A turtle
might not be what many people think of when contemplating
customer service, but the turtle is a wonderful reminder that
service is a verb and requires:
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That we stick our necks out.
- That
we learn to have a hard shell, and not take everything so
personally.
- That
we have to slow down and not react as quickly to the negative
emotional triggers and traps.
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To choose a more positive and service-oriented response, we
must understand the elements involved in choice. All of this
can happen in 10 seconds.
THE
ELEMENTS OF CHOICE:
(1)
NOTICE:
•Notice that you are having an emotional reaction (Clues=changes
in breathing, tension, voice.)
(2) NAME IT:
•Name the initial gut reaction that feels bad.
•Track how it may change to feelings, of hurt, anger,
or resentment.
•Observe your thoughts that result from the changed feeling.
(i.e., hurt to anger)
•Observe the possible behaviors you might feel the urge
to do out of anger, annoyance, dismissal, etc.
(3) CHOOSE:
•After observing the “low road,” the automatic
tendency where everyone loses, choose differently.
•Choose the “high road” response that leads
to service and satisfied customers. The place where everyone
wins.
When service providers master such a triumph over their initial
negative responses, companies’ service levels escalate,
and so does the self-esteem of service providers.
If service providers would respond by choosing to provide
a quality service experience beyond their own personal preferences,
then.... The Entitled would be made to feel important and
the center of attention. The Panicked would be helped to feel
assured and comfortable. The Imprisoned would experience empathy,
The High and Mighty would be showered with compliments, the
Bottom Liners would experience clarity, and the Clueless would
be handled with patience.
Instead, most service providers would rather BE RIGHT!
By responding to their immediate negative emotion, they may
get to be right, but being right is the booby prize.
(This goes way beyond the old adage of the customer is always
right. This is about the human need to be right, which gets
in the way of providing good service.)
Usually, being right is played out in subtle ways. For the
most part, being right is expressed in an unconscious manner.
We don’t even know we are doing it.
A woman in one of my seminars relayed a story about a man
that insisted on an apology, when she was obviously very busy
and couldn’t help him. In her mind, she believed she’d
apologized when she said “I’m sorry, sir, that we
are so busy.” Try as I might, I could not get her to
see that her response was most definitely not an apology,
it was a way to be right! Other methods of being right include
blame, complaining to the customer, making the customer feel
demeaned, giving more information than is necessary, or out
and out arguing.
This is not an easy concept to grasp, as being right feels
good, plus, it is extremely difficult to resist the temptation
of teaching people how they should behave. Imagine how good
it would feel if we could give up our need to be right. It
really would have a domino effect.
If we could pay attention to, and be aware of the customer
behaviors that push our buttons and propel us to be right,
we could think of those buttons as alarm buttons and learn
how to avoid pushing them. We can Notice what is happening,
Name the emotion that is occurring, and Choose
(This can happen in mere seconds.)
Approaching service from this level of awareness increases
our possibilities of having a much more interesting and rewarding
job.
Holly
Stiel is an author of two books, “Ultimate Service”
the Complete Handbook to the World of the Concierge, and “Thank
You Very Much” A Book for Anyone Who Has Ever Said May
I Help You. Stiel is a speaker and seminarist in the area
of customer service.
Click here for more information.
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Holly
Stiel ©
2001 - 2004
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information on this site contact
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Contact
Holly Stiel at:
Phone: 415.383.4220
Fax: 415.383.1503
email: thankyouinc@aol.com
Holly
Stiel, internationally renowned concierge consultant, professional
speaker, delivering keynotes on customer service. Stiel also
does concierge training for the hospitality industry, as well
as customer service training.
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