Please Respect Our Staff (WT526)

Please Respect Our Staff (WT526)

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by Shirley Dalton | 24 Jul, 2020 | Blog, Customer Service

WT526 Please Respect Our Staff

In these unique circumstances, I’m sure you would have seen signs in shops reminding us to be respectful to the staff. I totally agree with this and wouldn’t stop there. I think we should be respectful to everyone, including customers.

Before I share this little story, I want to put my hand up and say the situation is my fault. I created it and I take responsibility for that. What I don’t take responsibility for is the disrespectful manner in which I was treated by an Australia Post worker.

Many months ago, I purchased a book to support my friend who had written it, published it and launched it.  The book was coming from the US. It was going to take a few weeks to a few months to arrive. At the time I was in lockdown in Tasmania so I entered the address for the local post office. My mistake was that I forgot that I did that.

A few months passed. The book didn’t arrive. My friend followed it up. I still didn’t remember I had used the Post Office address. We left the area where we had been staying.

A few days later, I received an abrupt call from the postal worker. “You have a parcel here and it’s been here for weeks and you need to come and collect it.” By this time I was on the other side of the state. I was expecting to be back in the area within a few weeks and basically pleaded with the worker to hold the parcel until then.

“It was sent to you here. You must have given them the address,” admonished the worker.

Of course I had forgotten that I had used the post office address.

“Yes, I must have. I apologise that’s my fault.”

“You must have given out this address. You got it sent here and now you need to pick it up,” she repeated sternly.

In the end she agreed to hold the parcel.

About two weeks later, I missed a call from an “Unknown Caller”. They left a message.

“You haven’t picked up your parcel and it’s going to be sent back to sender. If you’ve got any problems with that, call 131 318.”

“Wow!” 

As usual, there was no contact number for the post office so I called the 1300 number. Luckily for me, I chanced upon a really helpful and understanding assistant. I explained my situation and asked if they could send the parcel (if it hadn’t been sent already) to the local caravan park where I could pick it up.

“No!” they wouldn’t do that.

It had to be sent to another post office.

Oh boy! Here we are back to the same situation.  I now have to travel to get the parcel before the next timeframe runs out.

Like I said, I take full responsibility for the situation. I don’t agree with the attitude and the lack of respect. In these unusual times, I would have thought we could be a little kinder and more flexible to each other.

Am I being unreasonable?

What would happen in your business?

What’s Your Pillow Talk? (WT516)

What’s Your Pillow Talk? (WT516)

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by Shirley Dalton | 8 May, 2020 | Blog, Customer Service

WT516 What’s Your Pillow Talk?

The past few weeks, I’ve been focussing on my business and digging deeper into who it is I serve and how I can help, and of course, that means digging into the language I use to help my ideal customers identify themselves. 

I was first introduced to the concept of Pillow Talk by Lisa Sasevich.

Pillow talk is different to marketing speak from marketers and copywriters. 

Pillow Talk is the language your customers speak.

It’s what they say to each other when they are laying in bed talking to each other.

For example, “Honey, I don’t know how we’re going to pay the mortgage this month. I don’t know where the money’s coming from for the school fees. I’m really worried.” 

Compare this to marketing speak, “Would you like to save x% on your mortgage?” “Are you paying too much for your mortgage?” 

Pillow talk speaks to your customer using their language.

It shows them that you know them; that you get them; that you know the conversations they are having with others and in their head. 

It also speaks to their limiting beliefs. 

When you study copy, you can easily pick the ones that resonate with the customers.

Ryan Levesque, creator of The Ask Method, is a huge AFOL – Adult Fan of Lego. Ryan’s genius is in asking your customers what they think, feel and want. Why? Because that’s where we learn our customer’s language. As an AFOL, Ryan gives the example of people who are Lego fans know that it’s spelt and pronounced LEGO, not LEGOS. According to Ryan, anyone who uses the term LEGOS is not really a dedicated LEGO customer because they would never use that term. It’s fascinating to see the difference. In fact, I recently read an article entitled, “Give Away Your Legos”. The article was about business growth, delegation and leadership. I instantly knew the author was not an AFOL. 

Back to you, do you know what your customers are saying when they’re laying awake in bed at night, stressed out and worried about things?

If not, that’s your homework. Go find out.

It’s on my To Do list for the next few weeks, so thank you in advance if I contact you and ask you.

How to Lose $75 in Income in Less than 2 Minutes (WT506)

How to Lose $75 in Income in Less than 2 Minutes (WT506)

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by Shirley Dalton | 6 Mar, 2020 | Blog, Customer Service

WT506 How to lose $75 in less than 2 minutes

As we’ve been travelling around Tasmania, we wanted to learn about and see some Tasmanian Devils. Ross searched the internet to find out opening hours and prices for a Tasmanian Devil attraction near where we were staying.

We arrived at the venue. After greeting us and asking if we wanted to enter, the salesperson said, “Your contribution is $37.50 per adult, which includes a donation to further research, etc.”

“Oh, that’s more than we read on the website”, I said.

“Was it our website?” she asked, as she proceeded to look it up, telling us that we were wrong and here it was to prove it.

Ross showed her what he had found on the internet and she continued to prove herself right.

“You did a Google search. We can’t control that. That was written by someone in 2014”, she said in a condescending manner.

We were originally okay with the increase in price. It was $2.50 per person. No big deal.

We were not okay with her manner, nor her seeming desire to prove us wrong.

“It’s okay”, I said. “We’ll pay the correct price.”

“I just wanted to check for myself,” she lied as she turned the computer screen towards us to show us, when we were not at all interested.

“No you didn’t,” I retorted, this time completely exasperated by her. “You just wanted to make us wrong.”

Next came the information that there would be a surcharge for paying by credit card. This did it for me.

“You know what? We won’t worry about it.”

With that she gave me back my card. I told her she could improve her customer service skills and we walked out.

As I write this, it’s hard to describe the manner in which she spoke and gestured. It was totally uncomfortable and off putting.

As I was driving away, I reminded myself that it was only an experience. There is no suffering in any experience; only the meaning we give it.

I also considered how I would have handled the situation differently.

Knowing that people get things wrong and that there was little resistance on our part to the increased price, I would have chosen to be kind rather than right.

I would have replied with something like, “Oh, thank you for telling me [about the difference in price]. I’m sorry the price wasn’t correct. The current price is $37.50 if you’d still like to come in.”

Wow! How to lose the business $75 in income in less than 2 minutes.

What would you have done from a number of different perspectives:

  1. The customer
  1. The salesperson
  1. The business owner?

Be Generous (WT502)

Be Generous (WT502)

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by Shirley Dalton | 7 Feb, 2020 | Blog, Customer Service

WT502 Be Generous

Still travelling, this week we sailed from Port Melbourne to Devonport in Tasmania. We stayed overnight not far from the harbour, overlooking the ocean before heading to Launceston for the city’s annual Festivale. 

Festivale is like an expo of local food and wine, located in City Park, right in the middle of town. It rained almost as soon as we arrived and continued for the most part over the 3 day festival. Having dodged the fires on the south coast of NSW we didn’t mind the rain, even though we were travelling on the motorbike. 

Now to the point of the story. As we walked around, sampling the local food and wine, chatting to various visitors and sharing our table with others who were also doing their best to escape the rain, sitting under an enormous tree, we noticed the effect that stall holders had on the number of customers they attracted. 

To sample the wine, we first had to buy a plastic wine tumbler, which the stallholders would fill (for a fee, of course). 

The server at the first stall I went to was “stingy” with her sampling. Inwardly raising my eyebrows, I wasn’t surprised at all to see Ross’ reaction when I gave him his glass and told him what I paid. Later that night, one of our new friends came back from the same stallholder and complained how little wine she poured. Unlike me, she mentioned it to the server when she noticed another customer had received almost double in his tumbler, to which the server grudgingly poured a little extra. We all agreed, it didn’t matter whether the wine was the best there was, we wouldn’t return to that stall. 

When it was Ross’ turn to choose a sample, he had the exact opposite experience. His server, who also happened to be the winemaker chatted with him and was extremely generous and gracious with his sample.  

As a result, Ross told lots of people about the stall and the generosity of the winemaker, referring people to this stall. We also went back to sample some of the different wines they produced and ended up buying a bottle of wine to celebrate our upcoming 30th wedding anniversary. 

Being generous is easy to do. It’s also good for business. The hospitality industry requires workers to be hospitable. Being generous is a major factor. 

Now to you. Whether or not you are in the hospitality industry, would your customers say you are generous? Are they referring others to you because of your hospitality or gracious way of serving them?  

Remember the Law of Reciprocity; in other words what you give, you get (although not necessarily from the same person).

It’s Reception (WT482)

It’s Reception (WT482)

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by Shirley Dalton | 20 Sep, 2019 | Blog, Customer Service

WT482 It's Reception

The phone rang.

“Hi Shirley, it’s Reception. Are you guys extending over the long weekend?”

I had no idea who Reception was, nor to what she was referring. 

I had to ask her, “Reception. Reception from where?” 

She didn’t give me the answer I was looking for. 

“Are you guys extending over the long weekend?” she repeated.

My mind was racing.

What reception? What about the long weekend?

Then it suddenly dawned on me. She was the receptionist at the caravan park we were staying at.

I was working onsite at a client’s premises and normally wouldn’t have even answered the phone, however I had forgotten to turn it to silent.

I realised she must have thought that I was sitting around in the caravan park and of course I would know who and what Reception was.

Wow! Talk about lack of communication and automatic listening. I was making up all sorts of things in my mind to explain this situation.

I couldn’t help but think that a little (or a lot) of phone technique or scripting was needed.

How about something like, “Good morning, I’m Julia calling from Your Favourite Caravan Park. I’m ringing to confirm whether you are planning on extending your stay to include the long weekend.”

If she had introduced herself, the company and reason for the call, it would have prevented my negative reaction, anxiety, confusion and anger.

Your customer doesn’t always know who you are or why you are calling. Your customer doesn’t always understand what you’re talking about or trying to communicate.

Here’s your action for this week: 

  1. Discuss how you would have reacted if you received the introduction I did from Reception?
  1. Discuss how your Receptionist would have handled the call?
  1. Review your policies and procedures and make sure you have your standard scripts documented. 
  1. Train and support your people.

Your business’ reputation is far more valuable than simply being referred to as  “Reception”. 

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