Service w/ Attitude!
A while ago, I went into a national retail store to make a return. There was something grossly wrong with the product I purchased. I dealt directly with a manager who proceeded to tell me that the item I was returning was one of their best sellers. Without knowing the reason for my return, she continued on, insisting there was nothing wrong with the product – because if that was the case, the company would already know about it and wouldn’t sell it. Okay – so right about then I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She wanted to make me the problem. I thought to myself just return the product and never come back…simply shop elsewhere. We’ve all been there! Substandard service, unfortunately, happens all too often.
Whether a customer complaint is justified or not, invalidating the customer’s point of view is not the way to turn a problem around. Some might say this is merely a training issue. I don’t believe this to be true. It’s a hiring issue. I further contend that training won’t fix what many interviewers miss.
> The way employees react in adverse situations has more to do with their attitude and less to do with the training they did or did not receive. A person’s attitude reacts in a split-second. This auto-response doesn’t always correspond to what is printed in the company manual either. A person with an “I can’t” attitude will make up their mind something cannot be achieved without ever trying. It matters not that their job description states they must be a problem-solver and customer-oriented. A person with an “I can” attitude, on the other hand, typically knows something can be accomplished even if they may not know how. It’s this special kind of attitude that motivates a person to find a solution simply because he or she believes one exists. Both ways of thinking, however, tend to be right.
Attitude is very powerful – but not always in a good way. It’s our attitude that determines how we react, especially in difficult situations. Some ways of reacting help us to create a good outcome while other ways inadvertently sabotage our success. In the particular customer service incident I spoke of above, it was bad enough that I had to go out of my way in the middle of a busy day to return a defective product. The manager’s attitude made matters worse. She not only missed a great opportunity to resolve a problem and build customer loyalty, she quickly escalated the problem and drove a wedge between us. There was no ‘I’m sorry for your disappointing product experience’, no empathy for my inconvenience, and in the end, this very simple situation needlessly cost the company future revenue.
When it comes to customer service staffing, I recommend you have two top priorities. First – make hiring customer contact employees with the right attitude one of the highest priorities throughout your entire organization. Second – properly train everyone who interviews job candidates.
I am convinced many organizations do not comprehend that the attitude that’s necessary to provide truly great customer service cannot be installed or reprogrammed AFTER someone is hired. When it comes to attitude – what you hire is what you get! Employees don’t leave their attitudes at home when they come to work. It goes with them everywhere they go. And don’t think it magically gets transformed during new hire orientation or by some company policy. It’s not a training problem or a supervisory shortcoming that plagues the service industry. It’s a hiring problem. People with an “I can” attitude, who are passionate about serving others are not being hired consistently. Interviewers fail to ask effective interview questions that would reveal an applicant’s attitude. Organizations often fail to properly train their interviewers or mandate that they only hire the attitude that is conducive to overcoming challenge. It’s not a corporate philosophy that turns customers into raging, loyal fans. Only hiring the right kind of attitude brings this about. When it comes to customer service staffing, I recommend you have two top priorities. First – make hiring customer contact employees with the right attitude one of the highest priorities throughout your entire organization. Second – properly train everyone who interviews job candidates.
Perhaps you already know the importance of hiring for attitude…but you aren’t quite sure how to go about it. The answer is to use the interviewing methodology called motivation-based interviewing. The beauty of motivation-based interviewing, or “MBI” for short, is it easily enables interviewers to assess an applicant’s attitude, passion and skill. It exposes how an applicant responds in the face of challenge and provides interviewers with a way to determine how effective the applicant’s attitude is for producing great results on a consistent basis.
Before your next job opening, I recommend you arrange MBI training for everyone involved in job interviews and hiring decisions. Here are several training options. One or more may be just right for your organization.
If you have a group of people, you can have the training come to you. Onsite training includes high-quality course materials (workbook) and a personalized certificate of completion.
There’s also a powerful online MBI web course. This is not some pre-recorded webinar. It’s an on-demand, high quality, interactive, self-paced online experience. It can be completed in less than 5 hours, and it includes two virtual practice interviews with expert feedback to cement your new interviewer skill. The online course also includes a personalized certificate of completion.
Then there’s the top-selling SHRM-published book I wrote called “Motivation-based Interviewing: A Revolutionary Approach to Hiring the Best“. You can order an autographed copy here, or purchase it on Amazon. This book is approved for SHRM recertification credit as well.
No matter which training route you take, your goal should be to start hiring front-line customer service employees who resolve complaints, build loyalty and create raging fans that spread a great message about your business.
One Last Note…
If you haven’t already read the book titled, The Customer Rules by Lee Cockerell (published March 2013), I highly recommend you buy this book. Lee, a retired and inspired Disney Executive who oversaw 40,000 cast members, shares 39 powerful customer service Rules in bite-size chapters. The power to grow your organization lies in your hands by always hiring the right attitude and following The Customer Rules.
This article was written by Carol Quinn.