Being direct... AdVantage May 2002
The other side of the CRM coin?
My daughter runs a very successful restaurant in Durban. Her husband is a well-known chef in that city, and so far during his career - spanning some twenty-odd years - has designed, developed and run some six or so restaurants, and consulted on probably a dozen more. So what, you might say! Well, the point of bringing this up - is to comment on the somewhat 'strange' behaviour of a few customers at their restaurant, and to pose the question whether or not there is a worrying negative side to this whole customer-focus thing?
Ever since Peters and Waterman published their seminal work 'In Search of Excellence' way back in 1982, many businesses have evolved strategies that include a direct focus on their customers, and many have spent lots of money striving to improve the service that is delivered to those customers. Obviously, nobody will take issue with the principle of being customer focussed, and even with orienting the attitude of servers towards that end. But it is becoming more and more apparent that the other side of the coin - when customers demand their perception of customer service as some sort of devine right - is a potential source of bigger problems.
My daughter has a wonderful and unique talent for handling people, but sometimes finds it increasingly difficult to keep a smile on her face when confronted with customers who are rude, selfish, and appear only to be concerned with themselves. As an example, the restaurant was extremely busy during the last festive period, and the number of people who booked large tables for staff functions, was obviously very good for business. On more than one occasion however, various restaurant management were verbally (fortunately only verbally) abused, when they requested the revellers to call it a day - fifteen minutes before the evening opening time - when these customers had been there since around 12.30, ostensibly for 'lunch'.
On another occasion a customer 'slipped' on some condensation on the floor of the restaurant, which had not been noticed. Fortunately he did not fall or hurt himself, but twisted in his attempt to avoid hitting the deck. He was very threatening to my son-in-law, and wanted to know 'what was going to be done about it?' He also insisted that any future medical bills would be sent to the restaurant. Obviously, the restaurant has public liability insurance, but also has a sign saying that customers enter at their own risk. The fact that the customer considered himself to have all the rights, and the restaurant - none, is rather worrying. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to enter the premises.
Where does one draw the line? And is the issue not more about human relationships and the balance between self and society, than it is about these perhaps isolated incidents. Some people seem to have lost sight of the fact that we all share the world with others. Sure, we have rights, but we also have to exercise those rights in a spirit of sharing with others. There is no doubt in my mind that the widespread communication focus on customer service, has had the side-effect of creating increased expectations and therefore, more demanding customers. But the tragedy is that the perceived 'non-delivery' of expected service can turn into a form of service-rage. To explain this point a little further, I'd like to comment on feeling just that way myself recently.
I was on a flight to Boston from London Heathrow (on my favourite airline), and there were a few problems with the entertainment system. It was reset a couple of times before us mere mortals in the back were able to get any pictures on our seatback screens. Except me. Mine (in 27H), just simply wouldn't work. I sat working up a bit of steam for a while because there were a couple of movies that I really wanted to watch - but eventually decided to sit in seat 26H (which was fortunately empty). So I asked 'permission' from the couple occupying the other two seats, and changed rows. I was really unhappy to discover that that one didn't work either. Later I took a walk around the aircraft and found to my consternation, that the only two screens in the entire aircraft that appeared not work, were 'my' two. The feelings of anger were almost indescribable. Why was I being singled out for this bad customer service? Unfortunately, my expectations had been built up over many years of air travel, and the first thing that I did when I boarded, was to check out what movies were being featured on the nearly eight hour flight across the Atlantic…until I thought about it, and realised that it was simply the luck of the draw, and could not in any way, have been aimed at me personally.
Having had that experience, one can almost understand how people get wound up about these seemingly 'small and insignificant' things. The difference is: what may be small and perhaps insignificant to the servers in the business (because they do what they do over and over again - almost relentlessly) could be quite a big deal to the customer (who may have been looking forward to the trip or restaurant meal for ages).
I do think that customers would probably be less prone to expressions of rage, if businesses were perhaps a little more sensitive towards regularly reminding their customer-interfacing staff about the difference between the repetitiveness of their jobs, and the once-in-a-while nature of the customer's experience thereof. As with most human interaction, people usually only get disturbed when they feel out of control, that nobody is paying them any heed, or that they have to 'fight back' in order to be heard. The one exception to this is blind arrogance, and unfortunately the world has its fair share of these kinds of people.
When you sit most rational people down and discuss the issues with them, they will usually agree with doing what is 'right' for customers. Truly great service-providers really know how to anticipate customer needs rather than just react to them. But just as importantly, there is a complimentary need for customers to demonstrate mutual respect for the people who serve them. Too many customers confuse serving with servitude, where the person doing the serving is somehow thought to be subservient. The last thing that a person who waits on customers is - is a servant, merely there to do the customer's bidding, and be treated with casual contempt or disrespect. True relationships therefore, can only be built on mutual concern and respect!!