Do you think you ever treat your customers like idiots? What do you mean, they’re all idiots? I know you don’t mean to do it, however perhaps you or your staff inadvertently make a customer feel stupid.
Let me give you and example:
I was booked into a hotel recently and I was issued with the usual key card. The card had to be used in the lift and of course, to enter my room.
This card gave all sorts of problems. It didn’t always work in the lift. I ended up going to other floors with people whose card did work. And it took all sorts of messing about to get the room door open.
So, I spoke to the young man at the reception desk. He took the card from me, stuck it in his machine, and told me, ‘It seems to be working okay sir.’
He then goes on to tell me how to insert the card and slide it slowly through the slot. At this point, I was thinking about inserting the card in his “slot”.
I spend a great deal of my life in hotels, and I’ve used key cards for years in hotels all over the world. And I certainly don’t need an instruction course on how to use them.
As you will realise, I also didn’t like being patronised by this receptionist.
Okay, so you may think he was just trying to be helpful, but he was not really listening to the customer, and all he was doing was irritating me. This young man will generate his own difficult customers.
It would have been far better to say, ‘I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a problem with the card Mr Fairweather. Allow me to issue another one and please let me know if you have any other problems.
I’m sure you can identify with this kind of treatment, and it isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. It happens a lot particularly with anything kind of technical such as a motor car. Ask any woman car owner and they’ll tell you customer service stories of how they’ve been treated like an idiot particularly by a man
Of course there are customers who are a bit slow and not familiar with key cards, or motor cars or how your plumbing system works. But if you want happy customers, who come back to your business and tell other people, then make them feel special and valued and not like a complete idiot.
About the author
Article by Alan Fairweather, International Speaker and the author of, 'How to be a Motivational Manager, ‘How to Manage Difficult People' and ‘How to Make Sales When You Don't like Selling'. Visit: www.themotivationdoctor.com, for more information.
