Vlad’s School of Customer Service: Productivity or Courtesy?

Here is another in the series of customer service tips I’d like to share with you: Do your customers expect productivity or courtesy from you? I’d imagine its a little bit of both but it depends on your profession. If your chosen occupation involves a uniform of clear heels and a gstring, you should perhaps be more concerned about courtesy than about productivity. But if you’re not a stripper or a massage therapist then this rule applies to you: smile and do what I’m paying you for. Quickly. 

This applies to everything and everyone. If you’re checking people in at a hotel I would have a far more magical day if you just smiled and hurried up instead of wasting my time with show specials. If you’re making my sandwich I would rather you hurry up than ask me to try your special of the day. If you’re cutting my hair, if you’re changing my oil, if you’re bagging my groceries, if you’re checking in a flight, if you’re selling insurance, if you’re taking deposits, if you have any kind of a job where you provide a good or a service to a customer, I am going to give you this huge, giant, enormous, megalithic tip:

Your customers are not there to see you.

Your customers are there for a product or service.

Shut up, do your job, and let me get to something I’d rather be doing.

There, simple enough? I’m buying a sub, I am not here to hear about your day. I am shipping a package, I don’t care that the lady in the back has a garden. I am getting my oil changed, I don’t care which bolt screws into which nut and what the differences are.

You have no idea how many people confuse customer service for overwhelming personal courtesy and joy. Customer SERVICE is a process of product/service delivery. It is a means by which you, in the most efficient and effective manner, provide that service. If your focus is not on doing a good job, quickly, you’re screwed.

For example, how do you think 15 other people are feeling as they wait for you to finish your casual chat with the customer. What do you think is going through their mind? is it:

A. Wow, I love what they have done with the bank lobby. The clerk certainly had an interesting weekend, I can’t wait for my turn so I can find out what he’ll be doing this weekend. The suspense is killing me, I sure have nothing better to do with my life and I come to this place as a social excursion, not business.

B. Get me the f’ out of here.

If you answered A you’re an idiot. I hope you have a body for a stripper because thats about the only good you are to the world of business efficiency.

If you answered B, good for you! I’d love to be your client. I am sure most other people would, too. At the end of the day your customers are doing business with you because you do a good and efficient job, they are not paying you to be their BFF.

This rant brought to you courtesy of US Postal Service.