Have you ever wondered why good customer service is hard to find? I have! Everytime I go into a store, the first thing I notice is how crappy customer service has become. I would say that nine times out of ten, my customer service experience is subpar.
Why? Why are so many employees just showing up to put in their hours so that they can collect their checks? Why aren’t more employees excited about their jobs? I can’t figure it out. Is it a symptom of our society or is it something else?
The other day my kids and I visited our local Dillard’s so that I could pick up some shirts for our trip. While walking around in the store, I noticed two Dillard’s employees standing in the main aisle talking. We walked by and neither of the women greeted us or even smiled at us. The only communication we had with the women was when one of them told my son to get his foot off a rolling cart. True, my son had no business putting his foot on the cart and had I noticed, I would have told him so. But, that’s not the point. The point was that neither of these employees bothered to say hello to the person who’s partly responsible for their income!
It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident but, it’s not. EVERYWHERE I go, employees act like they hate their jobs as evidenced by:
1. how slowly they walk around (of course some of them probably can’t walk faster due their incredibly baggy pants!)
2. how little they talk to customers or even look them in the eye
3. how MUCH they talk to their fellow employees while ignoring the customer
4. how little they smile
I think this is all due to the fact that so many people have so little self-esteem. They don’t value themselves and their potential so they think they are stuck in the rut of minimum wage retail forever.
I think an attitude adjustment is in order.
In his awesome book, Change Your Thinking Change Your Life
*, Brian Tracy makes the statement that we should all consider ourselves the president of our own personal services corporation. I think this is an awesome idea! Why? Because it means taking ownership in our jobs. Employees who consider themselves owners are going to act differently than employees who simply consider themselves helpless employees.
Whether they want to believe it or not, an employee’s fate lies in their own hands. It’s true! Once they figure this out, they should feel liberated! Why? Because they can begin to take the necessary steps to improve themselves. They can begin to set goals and plan for the future. They can read books on motivation, success, and anything else they want to learn about. Then, they can choose to either work their way up the ladder with their current employer or make the decision to go elsewhere.
It’s been a long time since I was employed in the retail environment but I would think that if I were a manager in a retail store, I would do all I could to help my employees get ahead. I would have training session after training session on customer service and decision-making. I would make them read lots of books like Think & Grow Rich*, Goals!*, Flight Plan*, and Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty*. I would make sure that my employees knew that they were all presidents of their very own corporations.
Heck, maybe I should go back into retail!
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