Are your supervisors creating service problems?

"Praise in public, reprimand in private" is a business maxim that almost everyone has heard of. I witnessed a prime example of why this is true while enjoying a light breakfast in a bakery last week.

My morning serenity was shattered by a loud, piercing voice coming from behind the bakery counter. It caught my attention and I looked up to see a woman who appeared to be a supervisor addressing three other employees.

“This is the second ticket mess-up! Ladies, this ticket has been sitting here for five minutes! Please be careful!”

Her words, tone, and demeanor were all unpleasant and all the customers in the bakery were staring as her employees shirked away from her verbal tirade.

My breakfast was suddenly much less enjoyable. 

The obvious point to this story is it is never a good idea to reprimand an employee in public unless someone is in immediate physical danger. However, I’m willing to bet that even the screeching supervisor would know this if you removed her from the heat of the moment.

So, why did she do it anyway?

It's hard to know her specific motivations, but if I owned the bakery I certainly wouldn't want to see this type of behavior from one of my supervisors. 

Business leaders and owners need to do three things to make sure their supervisors are effectively representing the business and not becoming the source of poor customer service.

Assess job fit. People often get promoted because they are really good at their job, but leading others is a completely different skill set. Business leaders need to make sure their supervisors have what it takes to effectively lead other people. If the bakery owner hired a supervisor who doesn't have the make-up to do that job then I blame the bakery owner, not the supervisor.

Reduce pressure. Supervisors are expected to handle pressure, but everybody has their breaking point. When business owners cut costs, they can sometimes leave their supervisors feeling like they are trying to put out a blazing house fire with a squirt bottle. Business leaders need to make sure they provide the resources necessary to get the job done. 

Supervise the supervisor. Supervisors are entrusted with a lot of responsibility, but they are employees too. They need coaching, guidance, and support like everyone else. If the bakery owner is never around to see and correct poor behavior, it’s likely that the supervisor will make a habit of yelling at employees in front of customers.

Resorting to extorting isn't good service

You can call it what you want, but extortion is extortion. Telling your customer, "that's how our system works" doesn't mean you can charge for additional services in return for fixing what your customer has already paid for.

Last weekend, I experienced an extortion attempt when I called a 1-800 number for customer service. I don't want to name the company in case their goons try to track me down, so let's just say it was a major satellite radio provider.

Here's a short video re-enactment of my customer service experience. (View it here if it doesn't appear on your screen.)

This may sound cliche, but I really don't blame the six employees I spoke to. I blame the system. Specifically, there are four major problems I identified during my ordeal. Hopefully, your company doesn't have any of them but it would be wise to double-check.

Problem #1: Interactive Voice Response
Interactive voice response, or IVR, is that annoying feature that allows you to speak commands or questions rather than pushing buttons on your phone for various options. It's annoying because it rarely works. Nothing tells a customer you hate them like making them deal with an incompetent robot before they get to speak with a real person.

Problem #2: Service silos
If you are a regular reader, you already know how I feel about service silos. No customer wants to interact with an employee who has a bad case of that's-not-my-jobitis. It usually means you get passed along to someone else who may or may not be able to help you. In my case, I had to speak with six different employees before I could get a solution.

Problem #3: Blind transfers
A blind transfer is when a call center agent transfers your call to another department's phone queue rather than directly to another person. This means the person who answers the phone doesn't know what you are calling about and you have to re-explain the problem. Speaking to six different agents means I had to repeat the problem six times. The more you talk about it the more frustrating it becomes.

Problem #4: Extortion
They really did try to extort money from me. I was told by two separate employees that they could fix the problem and restore my traffic updates if I paid for a year of service. I had already paid for a year of satellite radio service in March, so paying for another year two months later seemed ridiculous. The traffic update service is an extra add-on, but I had just paid for that on May 1. That didn't stop this company from trying to tell me the only way to fix my service was to charge me for another year.

Don't worry, my service has been restored. And, I didn't have to spend much time this week dreaming up blog topics. In that sense, I guess I win.

Why customer service isn't always obvious

The video below contains a simple observation exercise. I encourage you to watch the short video before reading the rest of this post (it's less than 90 seconds long). (For my email readers, here's a link.)

Researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons found that only 50% of people notice the gorilla in the video the first time they watch it. Why? A strange phenomenon called inattentional blindness where our focus on one thing causes us to miss something that would otherwise be obvious.

I recently saw an example of this first hand when dining at one of my favorite local restaurants with my wife and her parents. The restaurant was very crowded so the only open table was tucked into a corner in the back of the restaurant. Unfortunately, we hardly saw our server after she took our orders. Our water glasses sat empty, we finished our meals before we had a chance to order a few cocktails, and she took a long time to bring our check. From our perspective, it was obvious that she should have paid more attention to us.

So, what could have gotten in the way? I observed a few things that may have caused her to unintentionally neglect our table.

• Our table was tucked away behind a wall and out of sight from the rest of her section.
• A large group was seated in her section just after we arrived and it was quite a production to take their orders, bring them drinks, etc.
• Our server carried only one plate at a time in each hand, even when picking up dirty dishes, hinting at a lack of experience in restaurant service.

If you imagine we were out of sight on a busy evening with an inexperienced server who was trying to keep all her tables straight, you can understand why we might have been forgotten in the frenzy.

A great question to ask about your own employees is what might be distracting them from seeing obvious customer service opportunities?

Laptop hostage crisis resolved, suspects still at large

On March 4 I sent my new Lenovo laptop computer back to the manufacturer for a warranty repair.

What followed was a grueling test of patience as Lenovo took my computer hostage for nearly a month. There was no ransom request. They never warned me not to go to the police or my computer would “get it”. They just stalled and stalled. I even developed a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome for the friendly, yet un-empowered customer service agents who took my 10+ phone calls.

My computer was finally returned unharmed and in good working condition on March 28, but I still would like to see the executives responsible brought to social media justice.

The backstory
I bought the Lenovo laptop in December to use as my primary work computer. In February, it developed a problem where the display would suddenly crash. I made several attempts to fix it but the problem only got worse so I finally called tech support.

The only option I was given to repair the computer under warranty was to ship it to Lenovo’s Memphis repair depot. Once there, Lenovo sent me an email stating that the part required to fix my computer was backordered. No expected repair date was given, so I called. And called. And called. I made at least 10 phone calls to get an update on the status of the repair or try to get an alternative option such as a replacement computer.

Every representative I spoke with was polite, friendly, and professional. It was also clear they had very little information to work with. I kept getting a version of the same answer, “We’re looking into it, but we don’t know when your part will be in.” And, “There are no other options.”

Unresolved problems
My primary problem has been resolved. My computer is now back in my hands and appears to be working fine.

However, Lenovo never addressed any of the other problems this situation created.

• The disappointment of having a new purchase fail to work properly.
• The loss of time and productivity due to my attempts to fix the problem.
• The loss of time and productivity from being without my computer from March 4 to March 28.
• The loss of time and productivity from making at least 10 calls to try to resolve the problem or at least get a status updated.
• The frustration of having to deal with this whole mess!

If Lenovo keeps any records on customer service, I’d wager they’d check this one off as “resolved”. I definitely beg to differ as I take Lenovo off my company's “approved vendor” list.

Why is that sign so angry?

I went into a small convenience store last weekend to buy a sandwich and was confronted with this sign hanging above their self-serve coffee station.

I felt chastised and I wasn’t even buying coffee! 

Wendi Brick, author of The Science of Service, summed it up nicely:

This sign says to me "I'm sick of my darn customers taking advantage of me, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"  If I saw this sign, I'd never go back.

Still, people do take advantage of companies.  Perhaps the store decided to hang the sign after one-too-many customers abused the self-serve concept.  It can't be fun to face a hoard of agitated caffeine zombies whenever those carafes run out of coffee because some freeloader decided to overindulge. The store has to do something, right?

My new friend at Write the Company, a hilarious website that contains a “candid collection of crazy correspondence” with companies' customer service departments, hit the nail on the head with this observation:

Whoever wrote this should take a sign anger management class and stick strictly to decaf.  If this is how they talk to customers, I wouldn't be surprised if they displayed another sign soon that says "Under New Management."

The problem wasn’t the need for a sign, it was that the sign seemed so angry!

So, what’s the solution?  Patrick Maguire, author of the terrific blog "I’m your server, not your servant,” suggested that companies like this strive for a “Yes” culture that focuses on what customers can do. In those rare cases where a "No" message is warranted, companies should try to lighten it up with a bit of humor. 

He was kind enough to send me this terrific example:

Photo courtesy of Patrick Maguire

As Maguire suggests, a little humor can make the sign seem more agreeable. Brick had another great suggestion - try to positively influence customer behavior by offering a promotion. For example, the store could offer a discount on refills that might even encourage more sales.

If your business has signs to educate, inform, or direct your customers, make sure they aren't angry signs. (Please.)