I was standing in a line waiting to order a coffee at a cafe in Sydney yesterday and the lady in front of me was having some difficulty placing her order. She wasn’t that fluent in English and the man taking her order was not helping the process. In fact he started to mutter under his breath, raise his voice at the lady and then he started complaining about her to other staff standing close by. The lady was very embarrassed and she literally ran off, visibly upset. What did the man behind the counter do – he laughed?
When I got to the counter I told him what I thought of him and his business and stormed off. But in reality if you stand around any business for long enough you will over hear one of the staff (or the business owners) complaining about their customers. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been guilty of moaning about customers that drive us crazy, but maybe we need to change our attitude because this very attitude is probably costing us a lot of business.
We are all customers at other peoples businesses and often making a purchase is not as easy as it seems. Sometimes things aren’t that clear when you walk into a shop or a restaurant. Sometimes our mind is elsewhere. Sometimes we just have no idea what we wanto and we need help. In fact that is the very fundamental meaning of customer service – offering to serve customers to give them what they want and need.
We need to make sure that we always have absolute and total respect for our customers, even when they are challenging or uncertain or indecisive. Developing a desire to really serve our customers and to be committed to helping them in any way we can is the sure fire way to build an incredible business. And best of all, very few businesses actually have this desire to serve – which makes it even easier for a business that does to stand out from the crowd and to attract a lot more very appreciative customers.
If you are a business owner, think about your own attitude towards your customers, because your staff will reflect and project your attitude.
Last but not least, next time you are faced with a customer that you find frustrating, remember that just like you, they are simply human. Cut them some slack, put your own issues and ego aside and help them. The pay off is huge.
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