Polished Professional Image Blog

Okay, I feel compelled to address customer service. I know, I know, this is an image blog. I promise not to stray too far and tie it in to having a professional image (somehow). Let me first tell you what prompted this diatribe. I was in my favorite McDonald’s listening to a conversation between a couple of the employees. They were lamenting about another co-worker who refused to let a regular customer “slide” for two cents. I know that you’re thinking every penny counts, and you’re right, it does. But it is the policy (according to the employees) of this particular McDonalds to make this type of allowance. Even if it wasn’t the policy, what was said next is what is appalling from a customer service standpoint. The customer was told to look on the floor to try to find the two cents! Wow! 

An hour or so later, while I was sitting at my desk at work (I work temp as I build my empire), I heard a co-worker tell another co-worker that he wrote an email to one of their vendors, telling them that while they (the vendor) is one of their largest contracts, they (the vendor) is not the only one that he (the employee) has to deal with, and that he can’t just drop what he’s doing for them. Wow, again! 

It is one thing to feel this way – in fact, if you deal with the public often enough, you will from time to time feel this way – but, it is quite another to behave this way. Trust me, no customer wants to be told to scrounge around on the floor looking for two cents and no vendor cares that they are not your only vendor. They both want to be treated as though they are the most important person in your life at that moment.

The customer may not always be right, but part of behaving professionally is to always treat the customer right. The impact of doing anything less is, at best (and this isn’t good) your professional image is diminished; at worse your company loses a valuable customer or vendor; at worst your company decides the customer or vendor is more valuable to them than you and puts your name on the list for the next group of layoffs!        

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Image, Success Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.