Surviving Customer Service - Do I Always Have to be Nice?

To better understand the perspective of this and my other articles on customer service I recommend you read the short introduction at Why These Articles? first.

--

What, really, am I telling you through all these articles? BE NICE. Just continue to be nice.

However, there is a big difference between being nice under protest and duress because you are worried about losing your job and being nice because you are totally comfortable in the correctness of your actions and know what you are doing. This is the difference between being a savant and a servant. If you read my article Domination and Class Distinction you will understand how this is your weapon to deal with any unpleasant or challenging customer experience. 

I’m asking you also to take ownership and responsibility for this interchange and relationship, temporary as it may be. I’m asking you to - despite any non-cooperation on the part of the customer - continue to care about this person’s customer service experience and to continue to hold an attitude of affinity and courtesy on the faith that some of it will get through to this person. If nothing else, it will serve to honor you in your execution of your responsibilities.

Here’s a story that might illustrate this for you.

We have these two regular customers at our restaurant. A couple of ladies in their fifties with two of the sourest faces you have ever seen. They are miserable human beings in their outer presentation. That I can tell you for a fact. If you overheard their conversations, they are filled with criticisms of others.

Every time they come in, which is at least once a week, they have a complaint about their meal. It’s as certain as the sunrise. They will complain as surely as they have walked through the door.

In the past, we have given them free food or a discount to make up for our “failure.” Our servers dread having to serve them and always get ruffled by the experience.

The first time I dealt with them the one lady told me, “This was the driest burger I have ever had.”

When I probed for more information, she told me that there wasn’t enough sauce. Now, her plate was covered with mayonnaise and relish. What I did next may seem to differ slightly from what I have been preaching so far, but I want to make this point also for you.

I said, “You mean that sauce that is all over your plate? We’re talking about the burger sauce, right? Was that not on the burger?”

She said, “Oh, yeah, well, um. Well it just seemed dry.” Crazy!

I still offered apologies and to fix it up for her but nothing really had to be done at that point. It may sound like I was being confrontational but really I was just willing to be in honest communication with her. That’s being truthful.

She still comes in once or twice a week and complains every time. I’m very nice to her and gracious. She always appreciates the extra attention and seems very content when I resolve her three or four complaints per visit.

It’s usually just bringing her some more onions for her burger and the like. It’s nothing that costs much or is a big problem. Nevertheless, she comes back all the time and spends money every time.

What I’m trying to show you is that you’re allowed to stick closely to the truth, and you’re allowed to be in direct communication with people. You have to learn to pick your battles, though, and you should always have as a goal that the customer will leave happy no matter what.

It’s actually a little game now for me to deal with this customer when the server tells me, “Everything seems to be going wrong and nothing will make her happy, etc.” A situation that seemed unmanageable and everyone just wanted this person to go away and never come back, has turned into a game for me. It brings a smile to my face every time. And guess what? I’m just being nice!

This happiness I wish for you.

What starts out as a temporary job in customer service can often last a decade or a lifetime. During that entire time, life is passing by. This is a day in your life. I know you may wish you were doing something else but why not find what pleasure you can in it?

As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”

How, you might ask, do I be nice when I don’t feel like it? Well, if you have read the preceding pages, you may have the idea by now that the alternative is too grisly to face. It could make you feel worse and worse.

Try for comparison what people have said about courage—courage is not the lack of fear, but is rather doing things that one may fear because they are the right thing to do. The courage comes from the doing and not from the lack of fear.

I have worked with these principles for some time now and have found that the ability to be genuinely nice to all sorts of people comes from just deciding that you’re going to be nice at all times and then doing it. You tend to warm up to it after awhile and it becomes more fun and more genuine as you go along.

Being nice is your vanguard and your last bastion.

You use it as a first foray to engage the hostile customer and hopefully quell his/her discontent. Being nice unarms the otherwise antagonistic counterpart.

You also use it as a final defense in case you were just serving Charles Manson or a freshly divorced person who just lost a house and two kids. You may not make them happy but you have done the right thing; you were nice no matter what the provocation was to be otherwise. You can answer up to any scrutiny, internal or external.

Realize also that being nice does not mean being apologetic, undeserving or worthless. You can have considerable strength of character and personal presence and still be nice. There is no benefit to being self-depreciating while saying, “May I take your coat?”

If you can’t at first be nice in earnest for the other fellow, be nice for your own sake. Make life easier for yourself.

Your genuine pleasantness will tend to melt away the more abrasive emotions you encounter as a CSR. You may never know the trouble you have averted by your kind and courteous address to the weary and haggard souls that end up in the port of your hospitality.

I hope this material has been of some service to you.