Blame the customers
February 23rd, 2010 | by Shaun |So, the Scary Comment of the Week goes to a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) bus driver in Eye Weekly who defends their reputation for substandard customer service by blaming customers! http://tinyurl.com/yj76uca. He cites irate passengers who yell at TTC staff and spit on them as justification for delivering poor service.
There is a mountain of research that shows how “Negative Critical Incidents” (NCIs) such as the one’s he described are most often triggered by the service provider. Customers don’t get angry at the issues quite as much as they get upset at how we respondto the issues. For example, imagine going to a restaurant and the food you order is under-prepared. You bring it to the attention of your waiter who apologizes profusely, and promises to bring you a fresh plate right away. Moments later the chef comes out to personally apologize. Now imagine the exact same scenario, but instead of the waiter apologizing, he rolls his eyes, says “whatever,” and begrudgingly and slowly takes the plate back to the kitchen.
Would you, the customer, respond the same way in both situations? Probably not. In which scenario would you be most likely to want to complain to the manager? The answer is obvious.
But what about those customers who want unreasonable things, you might ask. What about those people who want something for nothing, or want you to bend the rules? Fair question. Again, the solution lies not so much in what you say, but how you say it. In the article cited above, the driver talks about people who are twenty cents short of the bus fare who want drivers to ‘give them a break.’ How should the driver respond? Well, you could stare the customer down and say, “You’ll have to get off if you don’t have the full fare.” Or, you could soften your tone of voice, gently smile and say, “Aw, I really wish I could, but I’m really going to need that twenty cents.” In both cases you’re communicating the same thing, but the second approach is a little less of a “sucks to be you” message.
Are there customers out there who are abusive? Yes. Are there crazies out there? Absolutely. But it’s not an accident that there are some service providers who very rarely experience NCIs, and some who get way more than their share. For more tips on how to deal with difficult customers, see Winning with the Customer from Hell - a survival guide.
