simplerich

I was talking to the director of the Chamber of Commerce today and we were talking about employee turn-over for some reason. It wasn’t intentional, but, in the way conversations sometimes wander it came up. He said he’d been fortunate in that he had low turnover and was glad about it as he didn’t like disappointing people.

I agreed it was sad to have to let someone go because they were providing poor service but that I tried to focus on the good I was doing for future customers rather than the situation I was putting the employee in that wasn’t willing to work with me at providing outstanding customer service.

He looked at me for a minute and said, “I meant disappointing the employee.”

I laughed at our misunderstanding. The funniest part to me was how concerned he was about the feelings of an employee that had to be let go. I’m not quick to fire at all, but by the time I get to that point I don’t tear myself up about it. By the time I get to that point with an employee I really have done my part to keeping the relationship alive. I know it’s uncomfortable to let someone go you’ve grown close to, but when the job is something like the Chamber of Commerce for a smallish town the only person to consider is the customer. The whole organization depends on the Chamber giving good customer service to their customers, the townsfolk and businesses.

As silly as it sounds the expression on his face said to me he’d not thought of the impact the bad customer was having on his customers… namely me as a local business person. Maybe I misread the expression. Surely he didn’t get where he was by ignoring the customer. It brings me up though… what part of my business am I looking at from the wrong point of view? What boat am I missing? Who would I call to ask to help me find my blind spots? I ask customers, employees, bosses, potential customers, customers who are leaving without buying. But what’m I missing? How do we evaluate our blind spots?