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In my first career life, I was in some form of department store management. Everything from managing particular departments, operations manager and store manager. I’ve spent countless hours helping my associates deal with every customer type known to mankind. At one point in my career journey, as a store manager, I asked my associates to never tell a customer “no”. If a customer asked for something the sales associate knew they couldn’t grant, they were to apologize and say “I’m sorry, I can’t authorize that, but I’ll call a manager”.
It’s amazing how customers change their confrontational tone, most of the time, when a manager is involved. It’s even more amazing to witness other customers becoming involved, in a nonconfrontational way, to bring a positive light to a situation.
I’ve always wanted to teach a college course on how to be a customer. We place a lot of emphasis on customer service training from the associates’ perspective, but equally important is how to be the kind of customer associates would bend over backwards to serve.
I recently saw a video that highlights my point perfectly. Take three minutes and listen in to this incredible interaction.
