Life Lesson: The person at the other end of the line (or counter) is not your enemy.
I think we have all been there. We have purchased a product or service and have been unhappy about it. No, downright pissed off about it. We’ve waited for an hour for our food to arrive at a restaurant, or even worse, waited an hour to even be greeted by a waiter. Your TV broke under warranty and you spent an hour on hold with customer service and by the time a real human being speaks you unleash a barely intelligible explosion words you’d never use in front of your grandmother - unless you’re watching a Twins game with her. Or you have ever been to a DMV in a state like California where you wait in line, to wait in a different line, so that you can pick a number to loiter around in a cold-war era building with no soul where there just doesn't seem to be enough chairs for the amount floor space. After a 3 hour+ stint at my local DMV recently, I was thoroughly convinced that they were wearing me down to confess to crimes I didn’t commit.
We get angry. Sometimes, really angry.
We also like to buy stuff, we expect that it work right, and we demand that someone fix it when the system breaks down; and to do it immediately, with a smile, and without an argument. After all the customer is always right. Always? I could go on about the ‘system’ and its flaws but to stay on point, I want to focus on those poor saps who have to deal with customers returning meat to a grocery store because it went bad, complain that coffee is too hot, or who “want to see a manager” while getting quite creative with their expletives in order to get their point across. For these are the soldiers of customer service: the front lines of consumer society.
I think we have all been there. We have purchased a product or service and have been unhappy about it. No, downright pissed off about it. We’ve waited for an hour for our food to arrive at a restaurant, or even worse, waited an hour to even be greeted by a waiter. Your TV broke under warranty and you spent an hour on hold with customer service and by the time a real human being speaks you unleash a barely intelligible explosion words you’d never use in front of your grandmother - unless you’re watching a Twins game with her. Or you have ever been to a DMV in a state like California where you wait in line, to wait in a different line, so that you can pick a number to loiter around in a cold-war era building with no soul where there just doesn't seem to be enough chairs for the amount floor space. After a 3 hour+ stint at my local DMV recently, I was thoroughly convinced that they were wearing me down to confess to crimes I didn’t commit.
We get angry. Sometimes, really angry.
We also like to buy stuff, we expect that it work right, and we demand that someone fix it when the system breaks down; and to do it immediately, with a smile, and without an argument. After all the customer is always right. Always? I could go on about the ‘system’ and its flaws but to stay on point, I want to focus on those poor saps who have to deal with customers returning meat to a grocery store because it went bad, complain that coffee is too hot, or who “want to see a manager” while getting quite creative with their expletives in order to get their point across. For these are the soldiers of customer service: the front lines of consumer society.
And chances are that many of you reading this have worked a job like this and we easily forget that, for (usually) a crap wage, we agreed to take a beating, to smile, nod, apologize, and in short, take other people’s shit for a living. And chances are, you really hated it or just grew jaded and emotionless lest the job grind you to the ground. We certainly don’t forget when we are at the job, but we do forget when we change roles and become the customer. Why?
Possibly because we believe we are right and therefore have a right to be angry and of all the human emotions, anger needs to be released and doesn't really matter if the victim is deserving of it or not. We forget that pesky little rule that most of us are taught early on in life. You know the one. It’s so important that we have dubbed it “golden.” It can be expressed in one word: empathy. Separate and distinct from sympathy, empathy is your ability to place yourself into the shoes of another person and imagine the world from their perspective because you’ve been there, you’ve experienced it, and you know exactly how it feels.
I’m certainly not saying that all customer service representatives are good at their jobs, or that they are good at their jobs all the time. But they have to work with rules they didn’t create, answer to supervisors that enforce those rules, and are probably just trying to make ends meet like the rest of us. Sadly, they end up taking the brunt of the frustration that they have no control over. And in the end, they are just regular people just like us who can’t wait until the work day is over so they go home and stick their head in a bottle of whiskey.. or a banana daiquiri perhaps?
So stated another way - Life Lesson: Customer service workers are not your enemy, lack of empathy certainly is.
How we treat each other is ultimately a series of decisions we make everyday, all day. Practicing a little empathy will help remind us that we are all human and should treat each other humanely and that there are ways to express your dissatisfaction without tearing someone down. I believe this is a valuable lesson to remember as you rush out to retail outlets to do your last minute holiday shopping.
The website below has some good customer service stories from the "otherside" of the counter:
http://notalwaysright.com/
Cheers and I hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday and New Year season.
Without empathy there is no conscience.
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