simplerich

I see signs in stores and on buildings that end with “Thanks, Management” or even worse, and more impersonal, “Thanks, Mgmt” and I cringe. I am a manager and have been for a lot of years and I’ve never signed a sign with my title. Now that I have managers who work for me I discourage them from it as well. “Management” isn’t a person. It may be an all consuming time-sink at times but managers are people and people have names, and while the people reading the sign may not know who you are… they don’t know who Mgmt is either.

It’s been my belief for a long time that people will mess with unnamed entities. If they feel like they’re “Sticking it to the man!” it is easier for them to commit shenanigans if “the man” they’re sticking to hasn’t got any name but is just a faceless entity. If they might well be looking across the store at the person who wrote the sign it might, in some few cases make a difference. That’s one reason, but it’s not the primary reason I sign my name and not my title to things.

The primary reason I sign my name is I want the people reading the sign to know who I am. Obviously I’m someone. I just put a sign in a place of business and the employees seem OK with that. Heck, this especially applies to employees! They know who “management” is so for me to have to remind them on a sign is almost me undermining myself. If they don’t know that “Rich is the manager and it would be a good idea if I was aware of and listened to this sign” then I’ve got a huge problem as a manager. If I think signing “Manager” to something carries more weight with my employees than signing my name… ouch. That would mean I was pretty insecure about my relationship with my employees. I see “Thanks, Management” signs as a sign of a weak manager or a posturing manager when they’re aimed at the employees. But, I digress. I was talking about my signs being bridge and relationship builders with my customers.

When the sign carries my name, some times they will ask “Who is Rich?” and that’s an opportunity for me to introduce myself and for us to start building a relationship. It’s not that I would say “The manager… and the manager is me.” That’s crazy talk. They don’t care if I’m the manager yet. They care who “Rich” is and why he put up a sign. That’s the question and the hidden question. So, I answer both, and take it as a chance to make a conversation where, at the end of it, they fell like they’re on a first name basis with a local business manager. They’ve got an “in.” They’re now able to call up the store, ask for the manager by name, and see what I can do to help them with something.

If I sign my signs “Management” they won’t know who I am or feel like they know me, or feel that connection that is so important for a sales people to make with customers, especially in small town retail. (I say small town because the store I “grew up in” has a population of around 25,000. It’s not exactly a village, but it’s no city either, there’s a definite small town feel to it, and part of that feel is when customers know their store’s managers by name.

Thanks,
A blogger

*Photo by Mike Smail on Flickr.

I’m in a store and I’m shopping and an employee asks if I need help finding anything. This is normal at every store. It’s part of the training to tell employees to notice customers and greet them that way. Where it gets different is when the training actually has a Day 2 and the employee knows to try and help the customer.

I’m in retail. I’ve been in retail for years. I notice customer service as often as I notice if vents are clean or not. It’s a curse. Rosa over at Talking Story recently brought up a retail incident involving the check-out procedure at a grocery store. I encourage you to go give it a read. It brought up the questions sales associates ask that they don’t really need or want the answer to. Questions they’re trained to ask, but then the training stops… or the trainer assumes the employee will take it from there.

I recently shopped at a Hy-Vee and the employee asked if I wanted help finding something. When I said a papaya she offered to order me some and was more concerned about having them for me on time than about what she would do with the rest of the ones she’d have to order to meet her minimum order. Later, at the same store an employee offered to order me crab fingers and assured me that the rest of the minimum order would be sold to someone, and again was more concerned that I got them on time. Hy-Vee is an employee-owned grocery store in Iowa. As you can see from the customer service they provide it’s a popular one. I’ve never had a bad experience at my Hy-Vee. The employees there are trained not just to ask questions, but to listen to the answer and help the customer get what they want.

Another store that often, but not always does a good job at this is Home Depot where when I ask where something is, often the employee will take me to the item. There are those where you can tell the manager isn’t as customer focused as others because they’ll just point or say “Aisle 23 on the right.” The ones that take me to what I want… those are the ones I go back to.

When at the cash register how often have we been asked “Did you find everything all right today?” What are they going to do if we were to say “Nope. I couldn’t find the peanut butter and jelly flavored freeze-dried astronaut food ice cream packs.” My guess is they’re going to say “Awww. I’m sorry,” and BEEP BEEP BEEP their way through the rest of the stuff on the conveyor belt. They’ve just asked me a question they had no intention of listening to the answer to.

A more frequent example is when people say “How are you?” as part of a greeting but then they don’t stop for us to answer. If there’s no intent to listen to the answer, don’t ask the question. The part of the post where I come to a radical conclusion or offer an insight or training technique to help make the world a better place is going to be woefully missing here. The thing is, the answer is easy. I’ve said it a couple times in the post and title. Employees should be trained not to just offer help, but actually follow through on the help. When an employee asks a leading question but doesn’t follow up on the answer they’re failing the customer and the store.

Here’s the scene. A lady bought a refrigerator and a stove for her new house. She called to say that she thought her thermostat wasn’t working on the oven and they tried trouble shooting the problem on the phone within the first six months. It’s a sixty dollar service call after all, even tho the work would be free – so she thought. The trouble shooting didn’t fix it. She called again a month later, got a different person who did the same things. Finally, in despair she quit trying to get the problem fixed. She never told them she’d tried this already and never told them it still wasn’t working. Fast Forward four and a half years. The oven is still not fixed. Every time she bakes and it’s not good she says “It’s that damned stove from Mongo’s!” Here’s the thing… they didn’t know they hadn’t fixed it the second time.

So, four and a half years later I walk onto the show room and explain what had happened to the owner of the local business. I explained she felt like she was bothering them and didn’t want to upset anybody, but she’d been using a counter top toaster oven for four years and complaining to everybody who would listen about how bad they were and I knew that wasn’t true and wanted to help. I too had a local business on the same street and we’d seen enough businesses on that street go out of business to big box stores. Couldn’t lose another one. An empty street hurts all of us. So, I bought a part, one of two things that could cause the problem. I asked him to lie if she called, say he’d just given it to her to make it better. He said, “But that makes us look like the good guy and we weren’t!”

I grinned and said “We both know that but she won’t and you need image repair in her eyes.” The thing is, THEY didn’t know they had a problem. She hadn’t made it clear to them in a way they understood that there was something wrong. She just ran around telling everybody how bad they were. I think she dropped the ball by not letting them know it was still broken. I thought they dropped the ball too, but not following up, but so did she… also by not following up. I wanted to fix it. I was tired of undercooked fish, and feared undercooked pork would kill me one day if she used the oven.

The part didn’t fix it so I went back. The next part was expensive. She said she’d buy another stove first, and not from them. I explained this to them. Asked what could we do to fix it because I really didn’t want them to lose a customer and every customer whose shopping she influenced because I KNEW they were better than this.

The owner’s wife was working the counter that day and got me free service calls. The part at cost, and an apology. This is four and a half years after the thing was bought, well outside of warranty. She wanted to make sure her customers were taken care of.  The owner did as well, and both of those people were doing what they could to take care of the situation once they found out about it. The family and she were happy with the resolution. I hope the owners are happy with it. I’m glad they stepped up. They had a chance to lose a lot of face with a lot of people. There were lots of eyes on them for this thing.

If a customer doesn’t complain we, as customer service people, salesmen, never have a chance to make sure they’re happy. “Service after the sale” is more than a saying on a banner. I think Ted Porter gets it too. I heard him recently on The Story on NPR. He talks about how his Employee & Customer Service focus is what’s keeping him going strong through these troubled economic times (take a drink). Listen to his story on TheStory.org.

One of the things I like about Ted Porter’s story is when he talks about how important it is to him, how his job satisfaction is based on having happy customers. That sort of person WILL have happy customers. In my business we are pretty small, we don’t have everything our customers want, but I’ve trained my employees when possible to help the employee find who DOES have the thing they’re looking for. If the customer leaves us happy, but without what they want that’s better than them leaving us disappointed in us without what they want. If we don’t have it they’re going to leave empty handed. I’d rather they left happy than not. When I bought my car my salesman called two days later to ask how I was liking it and if there was anything he could do for me about the car, any concerns I had. He gets it. He knows it’s about the customer. Not just because it’s a feel good thing… but because happy customers come back.

A friend of mine has a survey about Customer Service and how it has or has not changed in recent months. If you have a minute or two, it really is short and quick, give it a look. I’ll let you know when the results are posted.

An employee was complaining to me about our “Greet the customer” policy. I was trying to convince them that it was a good thing because, well… it’s a good thing. They didn’t want to do it because being friendly and helpful has gone out of vogue and is just no longer cool. It’s a cultural hurdle I’m having to work harder and harder to get kids over these days, but I find it to be true. Aloof and standoffish= teh cool! Sadly… that also equals sadly underemployed if you are trying to work for me. I don’t happen to believe I can beat someone into good customer service so I try and bring them around to my way of thinking.

Customer comes in and makes a bee-line to the counter. It’s maybe 4 steps. He flings his money on the counter and mumbles something. We know what it is he’s mumbled and it’s not a greeting. The clerk and I both say, “Good morning!” The customer looks at us as if we’re imbeciles because we are greeting him instead of just serving him. What he didn’t know was that the geegaws he wanted right then were, at that very moment completely inaccessible and we were stalling for time. Put a gun to our heads and you’re just going to have to shoot because they are not something we can give him. So, I try the small talk while new clerk watches. “It was snowing earlier, has that mess stopped yet?” Winningest smile as I monkey with the register as if I’m processing the sale. I’m not. I’m readying the change. He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me like I’m gibbering at him in Greek.

I turn to the watching sullen clerk. “See. I don’t require the customers to be polite because I can’t. But the way you feel right now when he’s being rude… If you make my customers feel like that I’ll be angry. So you HAVE to be polite.” I turned to the man who seemed to be figuring out I was talking about him. “We strive to always be polite and welcoming to our customers because we appreciate your business,” as I aim my winningest smile at him and give him a slight nod as if letting him in on something. The light came on, releasing the geegaws for sale and I gave them to the man with his change. He continued to stare at me as the lights slowly came on in beady little eyes. “Thank you sir. Have a nice day,” says I.

He mumbled “Thank you” as he left.

I really should have handled it better. The clerk figured out it could be a game though to use smiles and cheerfulness as a shield against the sullen grumpy customers so their bad day doesn’t stick to us behind the counter and pollute our atmosphere. We keep our area sunny and positive. Let them take their clouds with them and not leave any trace of it in our store with us. It’s a choice WE make about how we react to their treatment of us, and as someone who has worked with the customer a lot of years… sometimes they’re an ornery, disgruntled, not-fit-to-be-around-animal that should just be put down. But that’s a minority. And if we let the minority rub their psychic stink off on us we have only ourselves to blame when we can’t get the stank out of our hair.

The jerks who we most don’t want to greet. if we ignore them or react to them in the sullen pouty unfriendly way they treat us… we can start to feel that way, and we can be seen treating them that way by other customers who will rightly assume we’re not really all that friendly apparently. If we are great to the jerks out there they’ll see that too and the contrast makes the jerk look MORE like a jerk, and us look even better. By out-nicing a jerk the company will always win. At least I think so.