RightToLead.com

This past weekend my husband and I found ourselves telling someone to “keep the change.” The situation was sending a message that the recipient didn’t get. Could this be happening in your business without your awareness?

Here is our experience….

I want to share with you today a customer service experience that really made me appreciate the value of every contact you have with your customers. The experience put me back in touch with the fact that no matter how many customer service ‘credits’ you might have accumulated over the course of building your business, it only takes one negative moment to spend nearly all of them.

My husband and I were in search of a pizza after the super bowl last Sunday. We found one in a shopping center near by, it was a “take and bake” parlor. The shopping center parking lot was nearly vacant, so we were concerned the pizza place wasn’t open. But, it was only 8:00PM , the doors were open, all the lights were on, and there were several people in the shop including a plain dressed individual who may have been a friend of one of the employees, or another customer. That didn’t matter, we assumed the place was eager and open for business.

We entered the shop to find at least five employees all instantly turning their heads to avoid eye contact with us, as if to non-verbally communicate that “It’s not my job to talk to them.” Yet one employee who appeared to be in charge stepped up and said, “So you’re here to pick up a pizza that you ordered over the phone?” to which my husband replied, ” No, we’re here to order one to take with us.”

With that, the employee gave us the ol’ rolling of the eyes and said, “Well, we’re closed”. Keep in mind, now, that all the rest of the employees were watching and listening to the exchange with great anticipation and all the mixings were still out, nothing had been put away.

So we turned to each other, smiled, then turned back to the employee in charge, and my husband humorously said, “So we can’t even get a pepperoni pizza?” The leader of the group again rolled his eyes and sighed, looked around the shop, then said as if to be doing us a favor, “Well, alright, if all you want is a pepperoni pizza, I’ll go ahead and take your order.”

We were relieved, but at the same time, we felt as though we were being reprimanded at some level! The fellow then directed his employees to get started on our pizza, turned to us and asked for $10.99. We quickly responded by giving him $11.00.

Finally, he processed the transaction through the cash register, looked up at us and said, “Do you want your change?” My husband looked him straight in the eyes and said with a smile, ” keep the change!” The fellow nodded with approval and went quietly back to work absolutely oblivious to the negative impact this experience had on us, on the owner of the shop, and the rest of the employees working there. Mind you, this entire transaction took 15 minutes of their time.

The Bottom line to this story is simple. We probably won’t go back to that shop for at least a generation! We’ll remember the negativity we encountered and will tell every one of our friends as well as anyone who will listen to us. That one negative experience cost the owner of that business way, way more than it would have to select and train his/her employees to respect and care for the business of providing excellent customer service.