well, how's this for a story?
we were made to go to a "boot camp" for service training... (i'm
sure a lot of people know what i'm talking about) and it was bloody
expensive!
due to recall manning, i was delayed and went with people who were
not from my organisation...
the trainers kept harping on "delighting the customers" and "going
the extra mile" and all that...
i countered.. asking if we should delight EVERY customer (yes) and
we should keep going the extra mile for each one (yes)
then i dropped it on them.. so, we train all the customers to
expect better than necessary service and we go out of our way to
serve them all.. in the meantime, the staff is doing a LOT of
things, cutting into their margin, wasting time doing unnecessary
things for customers... ultimately, the customer will expect that
and anything less will not be delightful anymore.. the extra mile
becomes the expected...
if you step down back to your normal service, the customers will
not be happy... and you will LOSE that customer.. and worse, your
people will not be happy being made to do all these things while
the performance and productivity drops...
give them sufficient friendly service.. be professional.. and
that's enough!!
they don't expect you delight them.. they're happy enough to be
served efficiently.. that's what you do!!
the trainers were not happy, and LAPSED.. they started being
terrible to us as the class started to rebel and question all the
"delight" they tried to teach us... ultimately, the whole class
rejected their teachings and said that to be polite, professional
and efficient is the best service to their customers...
a couple of them actually said they would recommend their
organisation never send anyone to the class again...
that's Singapore Customer Service in a nutshell..
those who usually teach it, don't know what the hell it truly is..
they teach stupid sycophancy... and all we want is polite
professionalism..
