Listen up, retailers and retail employees!

Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2009 by nosleepingdog

You know you can’t afford to lose customers these days. We’re having an economic situation/blip/slowdown/downturn/recession/crisis/depression, ah––cut to the end: when the train finishes pulling into the station, it’ll be “Economic Disaster”.

Businesses spend money and effort on advertising, but often are oblivious to how they treat the customers themselves. When I walk into the tiny local florist to send condolence flowers and the person greets me coolly, asks only “How much do you want to spend?”, has no prices posted on anything, and no pictures or samples to show me, does it seem likely I will return? If there’d been another similar business within 15 miles I’d have walked out and gone elsewhere.

This subject has been on my mind for a few years, because my experience at the florist is far from an isolated incident. I fantasized about making my million with a company issuing videos and doing workshops about how to treat customers. But that’s not likely, and American business needs this now, so I’m going to write a little about it. Maybe it’ll be worth more than the traditional value of free advice.

Keep in mind, much of what I will say may seem obvious. It is. But if you work with the public and you aren’t practicing this, you need to hear it. And more than just hear it; consciously work at it and get some sort of feedback on how you are doing. My plan for teaching “customer service” included video illustrations of right and wrong; role-playing; and finally videotaping “students” for them to see themselves, because in all aspects of life we need a mirror, an objective reporter, to show us what we really do and say, as opposed to what we believe we do and say. Think about how true that is of other people you know. And it is just as true of you. And me.

Attitude

If you are going to work with the public, in a gas station, a library, a restaurant, a retail store, behind any sort of service desk, accept these basic realities:

No customers, no job.
Every customer advertises you to people they know, with praise, condemnation, or silence.
Making a repeat customer is like gaining a new customer without the expense of buying ads or running special deals.
You’re “on” every minute.
Customers get to act tired, cranky, stupid, and demanding, but you do not. You must be polite, helpful, inoffensively cheerful, and competent.

These are habits of thought and action like any others, and you can learn them and make them mostly unconscious and routine. Even virtue, Aristotle said, is a habit.

If you absolutely can’t accept and act on these realities, then public service/retail is the wrong place for you. You won’t be effective or happy in your job. And eventually it may catch up to you, as your boss decides you don’t add anything to the business, or your own business fails.

Attentiveness and Greeting

If you’re otherwise engaged when a customer arrives, you must show that you know he or she is there. Maybe you’re on the phone or helping someone else when Joe walks up to the counter. Make eye contact with Joe, smile, return to what you are doing.

Don’t keep him waiting more than a couple of minutes unless it is clear to him that your current transaction has a clear end coming up, as for instance ringing up the customer ahead of him. (This doesn’t apply to a grocery checkout line, or other situations where customers know they are waiting and know their place in line. Although even there, send a smile to the customer who’s waiting behind that person sorting through a zillion coupons, and it will be appreciated.)

If your transaction may go on and on, use your judgment; probably you should say to the customer in front of you, “Excuse me just a moment,” turn to Joe, and say “Hi, can I answer a question for you?” He asks whether your store has Acme Widgets in stock, you tell him yes (and where they are) or no (adding, but if he can wait a moment, we have something very similar) then turn back to your current customer. Or if there is another employee available, get that person over to help Joe. Joe doesn’t walk out thinking you don’t care about his business, and you may have a customer.

On the other hand, don’t let attentiveness to the newly arrived customer make you abandon the one you were working with. Same with phone calls; that’s what the Hold button is for. Fairness is important to us humans, and the person who was there first can reasonably expect you to finish his or her transaction before going on to another. If Joe’s “quick question” turns into something longer, you must gently interrupt and promise to help him just as soon as you’ve finished with the other person’s business.

[Supervisors, take note: should your sales desk people really be answering all the incoming calls, too? You think you’re saving money but it means someone who is right there with money to spend has to wait while the clerk answers questions and routes calls.]

Do not do personal business in front of customers. Everybody needs to make a phone call at work sometimes, or talks to other employees during a slow period about non-work stuff, but make it a rule: never when a customer is present. Tell your babysitter you’ll call right back, quit discussing the weekend, the hot new clerk in Shipping, or the prospect of layoffs. Even if the call or conversation is really work-related (informing another staff member that the new shipment of extra-large widgets hasn’t arrived yet so we don’t have any on the shelves right now), the customer needs to come first. Make eye contact (as above) and end the other matter at once.

Each customer should feel that they have been noticed, that they will have your attention soon, and that during that time they will be your primary focus.

Helpfulness

All of us have had the experience, on the customer side of the counter, of being either smothered with attention or wandering lost and alone. We want someone to pick up on our signals and act appropriately.

As a salesperson (or library assistant, waitperson, etc.) you can learn to read minds. Yes, it can be done. Offer initial assistance, then ask if you can help; if the answer is “No, I haven’t quite made up my mind,” or the old standby “I’m just looking around,” then say “Just let me know when you’re ready” or “Let me know if I can help you find something.”

And then, you don’t forget about this customer. If I sit staring at the menu for ten minutes maybe I need to be asked, “Would you like to hear about our specials today?” or “Can I tell you more about any of these lunches?”––and not in a tone of “Would you please get on with it!” Restaurant staff are usually much better at this than retail staff, since turning the tables over in restaurants is so important. In a store, people searching the shelves or aisles in vain for what they need have a certain look, which you don’t have to be a master of human expression to recognize.

Make your interchanges genuine. What you say, how you say it, body language, all can have a positive or negative effect. One of my pet peeves is the “drive-by wait-person” who asks, while rushing past our table, “Everything okay here?” And if it’s not? If my hamburger is raw inside or I need more water, do I have the impression that this person has time to care? Waiting table can be a high-stress job with a lot of things to juggle at once, but if you’re going to talk to me, please stop, face me, make eye contact, and then talk.

At the store’s cash register, as you are asking me whether everything was okay, and did I find what I needed, same thing: make eye contact, take that extra 5 seconds to see me, and then listen and respond to what I say. I like it better, and you may get valuable information: there’s no ground beef left at the meat counter, I couldn’t find what I came in for and am heading elsewhere for my main purchase, the directional signage is wrong and I’m ticked off, somebody spilled coffee all over your bin of blue widgets.

When there’s “nothing to do”

Most jobs have slow times: no customers, no calls, waiting for a part to arrive or for someone else to do something. In work that’s mentally or physically demanding you need little bits of rest. But, especially in retail or public service, there really are things to do even when––especially when––the store or restaurant is quiet and the phone isn’t ringing. This is your chance to make the coming busy times easier for yourself, and improve the service you are able to offer. Some of it’s obvious: fill the condiment containers, put away the unsold merchandise that has made its way to the counter, check your supplies, replace the cash register tape, tidy things up. That’s the kind of thing a boss will be pleased not to have to remind you about.

There’s more that’s not as obvious: you need to know a lot about whatever goods or services you are in charge of, so look over the stock, check out the new stuff, notice that you now have some of those special items someone asked about last week, ask the cook about today’s soup (or even taste it!). Find the answers to questions you haven’t been able to answer, and next time you won’t have to consult someone else or confess ignorance. Have the answer that will help the customer, and result in a sale. “I need something for a baby shower, but she already has 2 kids.” “How do you use this chutney stuff, can I use it for a marinade?” “All these dry dog foods are confusing, what are the differences?” “Can I do my taxes online here at the library?” “What’s a good flowering plant for a shady location?” “I need some left-handed scissors.” This can be an enjoyable part of your job, learning more to help people toward what they are looking for.

And if your store hasn’t got those left-handed scissors, or your restaurant doesn’t have a wide vegetarian menu, you’ll earn the customer’s gratitude by being able to suggest an alternative, or even another place that has what’s needed. I had to return a plastic lap desk (for a laptop) to an office store because it just wasn’t adequate, and nothing else they had was any better. I won’t forget that the staff person recommended a big book store to me as a good place to look; I would never have thought of going there and was getting tired of the search. I followed the tip and found what I wanted. Now, I think of that office store as a more helpful place, and I’m more likely to go there instead of to their competitor. An interchange can be very successful (in terms of your business) even if it doesn’t result in a sale.

Personal Satisfaction

This is the part about what’s in it for you, if you change your attitude and behavior so customers leave feeling good about their experience in your workplace.

Now, it’s obvious that you are very likely to increase your own chances of success at work by doing this, whether you own your own business or are an entry-level employee someplace.

What if your boss is an SOB who only cares about the bottom line, treats customers and staff poorly, and is never going to die or retire in time for you to benefit? Sounds like a good place to move on from, and if you understand and can express good principles of customer service, you have an advantage in the coming job interviews. The surly or spaced-out shirker isn’t at the head of anyone’s hiring list.

Deciding to look for ways to be better at what you do is not equivalent to resigning yourself to being at your present job forever. Just the opposite, in fact; bad attitude and bad performance are not attractive to potential new employers. Nor are they conducive to promotion (except in the financial industry and high-level corporate management).

Beyond that though, is another realm of benefit entirely. It actually is true that if you work at doing your job well you are very likely to feel better about it. That is not a falsehood spread by the capitalist bosses, it’s a psychological fact. If you don’t think your own job is worth doing well, then you are telling yourself that every moment at work is a waste of time, something to be resented and avoided. In other words, “Over half of my waking life is worthless.” If you don’t have any sense of satisfaction except when you manage to work as little as possible, you go home feeling pretty crappy about all those hours and effort, and about yourself.

And now, a word to the “capitalist bosses”

Most of what I have written has been addressed more to employees, but it is employers who set the tone of their businesses, and they have a lot to lose if staff are providing poor customer service. If that is the case at the business you run, don’t blame your the people who work for you––train them, encourage them, and set a good example including in your behavior to the employees themselves.

This may only be possible in small businesses, since larger ones get drawn astray by greed, ego, and isolation of management from the product and customers. Management starts to think that the end product is money, and they start viewing everyone else in the world as either tools or fools. Employees are tools to be used, customers are fools to be scammed. But we always hear that small businesses generate most of the new jobs in the US, so if they can accept a model based on good products, good customer service, good treatment of employees, then that will be a significant change.

Our current economic debacle can be directly traced to poor practices on the part of those in charge, whether they were causing bad loans to be made, or failing to listen to consumers when designing cars. Greed is always a pyramid scheme: it pays off only if you bail out at the right time. A risky business model, that: it’s really just gambling (with other peoples’ money).

If you’re in business, you have customers. Act toward their greater satisfaction, strive to do what you do better than anyone else, take a long-term point of view, keep your debt down, and invest in your employees. You may not end up with the biggest widget company in the world, but you are likely to be still operating when the big guys have vanished in debt and disgrace.

Economic crisis: the farce goes on

Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 by nosleepingdog

We stopped the TV for a few minutes just now on CNBC’s “House of Cards”, a “special” about the mortgage bubble. The program is denouncing and exposing fraud and greed on the part of mortgage companies, brokers, and, yes, some homeowners.

Whew! Sure glad we’ve put all that behind us, now we just have to recover and clear up the mess.

Then there’s a commercial. Guess who one of the sponsors is? DiTech, whose obnoxious ads over the past few years lured in many a homeowner or would-be homeowner, for shady loans. They’re baaaack!

And DiTech is run by GMAC, the General Motors financing arm founded to provide loans to purchasers of their cars. Could the huge losses which DiTech/GMAC must have sustained possibly contribute to the financial pickle General Motors is now in? and for which they are asking a taxpayer bailout?

I’m shocked, do you understand, shocked!

Contagious happiness?

Posted on Sunday, December 14, 2008 by nosleepingdog

Are we so hungry for meaning in our chaotic world, that mere association is automatically assumed to be proof of a cause and effect relationship? Again and again, the media seizes upon research results (sometimes with the eager cooperation of the researchers) and touts them as proof that A causes B.

Latest in this parade of dubious connexions is the study which found that happy people tend to know a lot of other happy people, and the more happy people in your circles of acquaintance, the happier you are. Ergo, knowing happy people makes you happier!

An article about the study says:

The scientists found that a person’s happiness is most likely to boost the happiness levels in people closest to him — spouses, relatives, neighbors, and friends.

But, if one person is happy, that increases the chances of happiness in a friend living within a mile by 25 percent. The “cascade” effect, as the researchers put it, continues: a friend of the friend has almost a 10 percent higher likelihood of being happy, and a friend of that friend has a 5.6 percent increased chance.

In the other words, one person’s happiness can spread outward through three degrees of separation. Those at the center of such circles may be people that “you have never met. But their mood can have a profound effect on your own mood,” Fowler said.

Fig 1 Happiness clusters in the Framingham social network. Graphs show largest component of friends, spouses, and siblings at exam 6 (centred on year 1996, showing 1181 individuals) and exam 7 (year 2000, showing 1020 individuals). Each node represents one person (circles are female, squares are male). Lines between nodes indicate relationship (black for siblings, red for friends and spouses). Node colour denotes mean happiness of ego [individual being studied] and all directly connected (distance 1) alters [alters are persons connected to the ego, potentially influencing the behaviour of the ego], with blue shades indicating least happy and yellow shades indicating most happy (shades of green are intermediate).

Figure (reduced here) and caption are from the full article, in the British Medical Journal.

The original article’s abstract says in part,

Results Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25% (95% confidence interval 1% to 57%). Similar effects are seen in coresident spouses (8%, 0.2% to 16%), siblings who live within a mile (14%, 1% to 28%), and next door neighbours (34%, 7% to 70%). Effects are not seen between coworkers. The effect decays with time and with geographical separation.

Conclusions People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

So that’s clear: happiness is somehow “contagious”! By this line of reasoning, we could investigate the contagious effects of race, profession, sports fanaticism, and most anything else. I must have become white (and stayed that way) because nearly all my friends are white; a lawyer is a lawyer because he or she knows so many lawyers, and so on.

On a certain level, I have no argument with the direct “contagiousness” of positive emotion: it certainly cheers one up to be around smiling ebullient people. I still remember a dark rainy day, decades ago, when I was walking gloomily across my college campus and passed someone smiling and carrying a bright bouquet of flowers. It actually did change my mood, I smiled back and was bumped out of my self-absorbed thoughts. But then, the same effect might well have resulted from other stimuli that are enjoyable to me: seeing a horse running in a field, reading something that introduced a new idea, even coming in out of the rain into a warm inviting place. And if I do things often enough that elevate my mood, I will probably be in fact be happier than if I do the opposite: but these are choices, not influences beyond my control.

When it comes to a person’s close associates, surely Pollyanna chooses to hang around mostly with other cheerful folks, rather than letting Cassandra or Gloomy Gus bring her down. Perhaps really unhappy people are hard to be around and don’t share the interests and types of conversations that are common to happy people. Some people have truly terrible experiences dealt them by fate, and are unhappy; with others you feel like a good kick in the pants to get them out of being so self-centered would go along way toward changing their mood; either way, it seems entirely reasonable that the positive happy busy people tend to associate more with others of their own “type”. What was that result of an ancient sociological study? Oh yes: “Birds of a feather flock together”. The data has been lost but the conclusion has survived.

Some of the dots on the graph are family, who may be viewed as unchosen associates. Or are they? Do we know if the researchers counted that grumpy cousin I don’t like and never see (though she lives only five miles away)? And other studies have shown that there are genetic factors influencing traits such as agreeableness and extroversion which may be associated with degree of happiness. So, if happy people tend to have happy sibs and cousins, this could be caused more by shared genetically-influenced traits than by their “contagious” influence on one another.

And, in a long-term study of human behavior like this one (twenty years), some less happy people who are around happier people may indeed benefit from the activities, the “vibes”, may even learn better behavior or learn how to fake it…but those who don’t will tend to drop away from the setting where they feel out of place. Or won’t be invited so often because they “just don’t seem to enjoy our dinners or outings”. So over time people settle out into groups they feel comfortable with. This can’t be really big news. Animal-study researchers don’t count many fervid PETA members among their circles of friends and close acquaintances, and vice versa. There’s a cause and effect here all right but it may not be the one being alleged in this study.

I should admit the obvious, that I don’t understand regression analysis and the other statistical tools that are used to verify the significance of associations in studies like this one. However, I don’t think it matters. We’re not talking about whether the associations exist, but about what they mean.

This is, of course, the weakness with observational studies as opposed to experimental ones. All the observer can say is what was observed; cause and effect relationships are speculative in all but the simplest of situations (dropping things off a tower, for example: Yes! they fall because they were dropped!). In this case, an experimental study might try to find a way to cause happy and unhappy people to hang around together for months or years and see what the results are. But how can this be done without denying people freedom of association, which is a factor in happiness? We could pay them to gather together, but what about those for whom no money is enough to make tolerable the company of such damnably cheerful/such oppressively dismal folks? Individuals have even been known to change jobs because they couldn’t stand the people they worked with.

Figuring out complicated things just can’t be as easy as the media, and perhaps some scientists, would wish. And in this discussion, we haven’t even gotten to evaluating the definition of “happiness”!

Country roads, country people

Posted on Sunday, December 7, 2008 by nosleepingdog

I was driving home the other night, down our rural road, in the lull between those who go right home after work in town, and those who stop at the tavern; it was moonless, very dark, and there was no traffic. Nonetheless, there are still deer who suddenly appear in the road, so I keep my speed down. Tonight I was to be reminded that there are dumber mammals on the road than deer.

I came around a long curve with a short straightaway ahead before a narrow bridge and another curve. All was darkness. Suddenly I thought I saw a tiny flash of white light––not headlights by any means, just a small quick chip of light like a shard of glass well above ground level. I began to brake and then, as my headlights lit up the straightaway, I saw people in the left lane, and something big and white completely occupying my lane and very close. More pressure on the brakes, thankful for the anti-lock brakes on our new used car, huge white wall ahead closer with people to the left of it, nowhere to go, brake harder, harder. Stop. Two feet max between me and a big old RV parked in my lane.

Three men are in the left lane with flashlights on now, though not all of them could have been on and none pointed up the road when I came around the curve. Even now they are milling about, talking, not pointing the flashlights so as to warn oncoming traffic in either direction.

One walks over to me. I put the hazard lights on, open the car door, and say angrily “You got flares?” I assumed this event, whatever it was, had just happened, no flares out yet, and I carry flares.

“Oh,” says the guy, “uh, I just picked them up, we’ve got it fixed.” Right, I believe you had flares out.

“Then why isn’t it running and showing some lights?”

“The battery was dead, we had to jump it.”

“Why isn’t it running then?”

He turns to a middle-aged woman standing passively near the motor home and tells her to start it up. She doesn’t move, so he tells her again. The other men with flashlights still are not warning traffic. A car rounds the bend behind me, sees my hazard lights, slows down quickly. It occurs to me that I may be the only functioning adult present, though all these people are over 30, and rather than driving on, I get in and back up a few feet so as not to be smashed into the RV if a chain reaction rear-end collision occurs.

The RV starts up. It has only one brake light working and the tail lights are dim. I get out and inform them of this. Throughout the entire time I am there, none of these people seems at all concerned about the danger of this situation. My car could have fishtailed in a panic stop, flailed into the other lane and taken out all three of the guys there. Two cars or trucks could have arrived at once, one around each bend, and been unable to stop safely. These people aren’t just unconcerned, they are unengaged. If they were deer they’d be long dead.

Eventually the RV sputters off, and one of the helper vehicles actually follows it, perhaps to compensate for its inadequate tail lights. I drive off too, keeping my distance, until I turn off and they continue on, perhaps to one of the two very low-end trailer parks a few miles up the road.

I’ve grown to realize, in the 12 years we’ve lived out here, that there are many folks in this area who are not only marginal economically, but mentally and empathetically as well. For them such events as this are the stuff of stories to be told over beer or while fueling the chainsaw or leaning on the fence, along with stories about arrests, fights, narrow scrapes with the law, somebody who totaled their car missing a curve. Even when injury is involved there’s no awareness of consequences or responsibility. A neighbor’s son wrecked three trucks within 2 years; two were single-car accidents but in one he rear-ended someone in town and crippled a woman. No sweat, just something that happened. Alcohol and meth were involved, but to accept that as an explanation is a cop-out. The question to be asked has to do with why, with boredom, and lack of education, and lack of parenting skills. The young man in question now has two children with a young woman from whom he is now separated (both were meth users) and our neighbor’s wife, who finally left her husband because of his irresponsibility and “anger problems” is now raising the children. She has been gathered unto Jesus, acquiring an instant pattern for life, support group, and promise that the next life will be better than this one. But it would have been much better if she had been able to leave earlier before her two sons followed their father’s pattern.

In a positive development relative to this, a representative from the women’s shelter in town (21 miles away) came to the local Food Pantry the last two weeks, doing something new: rural outreach. She’s spreading the word about their shelter and other services including a 24-hour hotline which handles not just domestic abuse calls but suicide and all other forms of distress where someone needs immediate response. The shelter folks will arrange to pick up domestic abuse victims fleeing home, as long as a safe public place can be arranged to meet. This, the hotline, and the publicity, are all very valuable for rural areas where some people are very isolated and transportation is a big issue.

Rural areas don’t exactly have different social problems from those in urban or suburban areas but the setting can really intensify them. The isolation can reduce social contact, remove options, and conceal problems from neighbors, relatives, and law enforcement. It’s legal to fire guns out here, any time. There are fewer options for kids: no neighborhood kids, no places for organized activities within walking or biking distance, schools that struggle to maintain their very existence due to enrollment that is small to begin with and fluctuates. Our area is experiencing a boom in births but a decline in kids 5-8 years old; there may not be a K-8 school closer than 20 miles by the time this year’s babies get to school.

When gas prices go up and town is 20 miles away, the impact is severe on families, school budgets (long bus runs), and the few small local stores and businesses. A couple who run a business installing gutters showed up at the food pantry during the summer; the costs of their materials had gone up so much, while construction and remodelling plummeted, that for the first time in their lives they could not feed their kids without help. We’re seeing a lot of new faces at the food pantry; they’re new to us, and new to the idea of having to ask for help.

And, when somebody parks a disabled vehicle in the road without lights or flares, they can do so in confidence that no sheriff’s deputy will happen on it and no one will see it and report it in time for the understaffed sheriff’s department to respond (no cell phone coverage for miles). It’s just there, and you deal with it. Not long ago my husband came around a sharp turn in the road (this was on the highway) to find two cars facing opposite directions stopped to chat out the driver’s side windows, completely blocking a road that is heavily used by log trucks and delivery trucks as well as by regular traffic. He was quick-witted and lucky, able to squeeze past on the shoulder. A car coming the other way could have hit him or one of the other cars and a four-car pileup would have resulted.

The stupid and careless, like the poor, are believed to be always with us. In fact some of them are “created,” when babies are malnourished, toddlers are neglected, children are uncared for and discouraged from learning and from being responsible. We can have a society with fewer poor people and fewer stupid or ignorant people, if we work at it.

Rural problems are out of sight and therefore out of mind, for most people. These areas may need extra support to keep the institutions critical to their well-being; they may need not just outreach but more decentralization of services: part-time clinics, places that offer parenting classes, bus service to job training, and so on. Some services others take for granted don’t exist here, like cell phone service, cable tv, broadband Internet access, meals on wheels. I know people who’ve had to move to town for the broadband, in order to telecommute or perform high-tech work.

With our economy nationwide staggering from the parasitism of the very rich, it is not likely that rural areas will see much of this sort of investment; indeed, most rural counties today consider themselves lucky to be maintaining minimum levels of law enforcement, road and bridge work, and health services. But what the rural parts of this country need is a national initiative, a new Tennessee Valley Project which would, for example, upgrade schools, provide clinics, and add wireless net access to benefit schools, businesses, and families. Otherwise the current population tendencies will become more pronounced: rural residents are more and more composed of these groups: retirees; those raised here who would leave if they had the education and the gumption; a smattering of “cultural creatives” from elsewhere; and those who move/stay here because they can live under the radar of law enforcement. It doesn’t have to be this way.