Seven Deadly Sins of Customer Service

1. Apathy: A just don't-give-a-damn attitude on the part of the salesperson or an impression conveyed to the customer in terms of "Do I look like I give a damn?". Some people get this way when they get bored with their jobs and nobody is reminding them that their job priority is to serve their customers.

 

2. Brush-Off: Trying to get rid of the customer by either "passing the buck" or brushing-off his or her need or problem; trying to "slam-dunk" the customer with some standard procedure that doesn't solve the problem but lets the service person off the hook for doing anything special.

 

3. Coldness: A kind of chilly hostility, curtness, unfriendliness, inconsiderateness, or impatience with the customer that says, "You're a nuisance; please go away." It is amazing to find that so many restaurants carefully select the most moody, depressed, hostile person they can find for the hostess-cashier job, making sure the customer's first and last moments of truth are good ones.

 

4. Condescension: Treating the customer with a patronizing attitude, such as many health-care people do. They call the doctor "Doctor Jones," but they call you by your first name and talk to you like you're four years old.

 

5. Robotism: "Thank-you-have-a-nice-day-NEXT." The fully mechanized worker puts every customer through the same program with the same standard motion and slogans, and with no trace of warmth or individuality. A variant of this is the smiling robot who gives a permanent "star" smile, but you can tell nobody's home upstairs.

 

6. Rule Book: Putting the organizational rules above customer satisfaction, with no discretion on the part of the service person to make exceptions or use common sense. Our banks and government departments are famous for this; they usually do everything possible to eliminate all traces of human thought and judgement, with the result that no one is authorized to think. Any customer problem with more than one moving part confounds their system.

 

7. Runaround: "Sorry, you'll have to call (see) so-and-so. We don't handle that here. "Telkom" people have made this into an art; the one operator tells you to go the the Telkom store, the Telkom store tells you to log a call, the call agent tells you to.... and so the viscous circle continues. 

For more on customer service and other retail subjects, contact us at info@mretailing.co.za or visit our website at www.mretailing.co.za

Kind Regards

The Master Retailing Team