Food service sucks because it’s mostly young people that haven’t learned to work over a dickhead customer. Been there, done that.
First tech-support/customer-service job learned me quick. Always bullied as a kid, and I mean ass-beating kinda bullied, not mean names of FB bullied. Learned to walk tall and bow up late in high school. That mostly solved it.
Got my first real job getting the occasional ass chewing. Fuck me, I’m just trying to help! Found some knowledge in a hurry:
Customers are like dogs, they smell fear. Never come off apologetic or subservient.
Treat customers like an acquaintance that just called or walked in for help. Treat them like equals.
“Yes sir!”, “No sir!”, “Immediately sir!”, shit gets you eaten.
Polite and firm, that’s the ticket.
They got screwed over? If you did it, apologize sincerely. If someone else did it? Apologize for the hassle. But don’t take the responsibility on yourself.
I could go on for ages, but those are the highlights. Sometimes you have to stand up.
Had a dude start in on me, wasn’t my fault but it certainly looked like my company could have done better. Stopped him mid-rant, “Wait. Wait. Are you mad at me personally?” Cut off like a light switch. “Well… no… of course not… but…” “I get it. This is a hell of a frustrating situation, but my job is to help you. Let’s get to the bottom of this thing. fix it.”
When I worked customer service, our policy was to always apologize for any issue that lead to the call. One day I read some HBR article about a study where problem-solving focused language, v. the standard apologetic approach, lead to higher reported levels of customer satisfaction even if the issue ultimately wasn’t resolved.
Tried it - it really did seem to work. Had a few discussions with the call quality person about it and made my arguments - they didn’t agree, but couldn’t help noticing I was the one getting positive feedback v/ms left with management and service quality surveys about.
YMMV, could easily see an environment where you’d get written up for just 100% ignoring the policy and doing something more effective. At the time I had a “I’m going to do exactly what I think is right, until I get fired over it” mentality, and and in many respects was very lucky I didn’t.
Food service sucks because it’s mostly young people that haven’t learned to work over a dickhead customer. Been there, done that.
First tech-support/customer-service job learned me quick. Always bullied as a kid, and I mean ass-beating kinda bullied, not mean names of FB bullied. Learned to walk tall and bow up late in high school. That mostly solved it.
Got my first real job getting the occasional ass chewing. Fuck me, I’m just trying to help! Found some knowledge in a hurry:
I could go on for ages, but those are the highlights. Sometimes you have to stand up.
Had a dude start in on me, wasn’t my fault but it certainly looked like my company could have done better. Stopped him mid-rant, “Wait. Wait. Are you mad at me personally?” Cut off like a light switch. “Well… no… of course not… but…” “I get it. This is a hell of a frustrating situation, but my job is to help you. Let’s get to the bottom of this thing. fix it.”
When I worked customer service, our policy was to always apologize for any issue that lead to the call. One day I read some HBR article about a study where problem-solving focused language, v. the standard apologetic approach, lead to higher reported levels of customer satisfaction even if the issue ultimately wasn’t resolved.
Tried it - it really did seem to work. Had a few discussions with the call quality person about it and made my arguments - they didn’t agree, but couldn’t help noticing I was the one getting positive feedback v/ms left with management and service quality surveys about.
YMMV, could easily see an environment where you’d get written up for just 100% ignoring the policy and doing something more effective. At the time I had a “I’m going to do exactly what I think is right, until I get fired over it” mentality, and and in many respects was very lucky I didn’t.