Changing Service Behaviours - Part 3 - My Control

• What factors or circumstances with difficult customers make you angry?



• What factors or circumstances make it difficult for you to control your anger?



• What factors or circumstances with difficult customers make you want to say "yes" to whatever they want or apologise for whatever they say?



• What factors or circumstances make it difficult for you to calmly say what is on your mind?

• Difficult customers do not believe what you tell them (likely/unlikely).
• Difficult customers are very insistent (likely/unlikely).
• We have enough authority to solve most customer's problems (likely/unlikely).

• When my honesty is questioned I am less likely/more likely to get angry.
• Insistent customers are less likely/more likely to make me feel uncomfortable about saying no to a clearly unreasonable request.
• When I feel we do not have enough authority to accept a difficult customer's request I am more likely/less likely to blame someone else rather than solve the customer's problem.

• Communicate clearly what authority people have. Communicate verbally, by your body language and by your actions. Communicate the same level of authority as is written in the policy manual. For example, do not continually question minute detail of someone who has authority to design, expend budget and deliver on large projects. Set them some key performance indicators and milestones and allow them to get on with the job. If the detail is extremely important put a review or audit system in place. Have a performance indicator for passing the review or audit by a target date and at a target cost.
• Train your people to communicate assertively, with high levels of congruence between what they say, how they say it (tone and pace) and their body language. People who are properly assertive in their communications perceive they have, and do have, more control over most situations.
• Train people to manage their emotions. Test their emotional intelligence and build a plan with them to improve upon their weaknesses. This is particularly important in both internal and external relationships where we can expect customers to have different expectations about what is good service. Unmet expectations are a prime source of what appear to be difficult customer
• Train people to identify problems, not symptoms. People often feel they have no control because they limit their thinking to the symptoms of an unidentified cause. If they could eliminate the cause they need not have any control over the symptom. For example, recruiting five people with experience and good rapport building skills in hundred-member banquets and events team with an average age of twenty reduces poor decision making due to inexperience.
• Reward people who take control. For example, congratulate a restaurant manager who overstepped their written authority by offering a free meal to resolve a customer complaint in a positive manner for taking the initiative. Discuss why they had not escalated the complaint as a secondary issue. Make it easier for them to recognise when to escalate and to actually escalate. Use data as often as possible to determine the real power of a control belief. If the power is real, then try to engineer the factor out of the process. If the power is not real, then educate people to understand so. For example, people in the hospitality industry often believe that customers resent being up-sold or cross-sold to. A survey, particularly of customers of integrated resorts and four and five star hotels will show this is not the case. Use the data to debunk the belief. Reinforce the new belief using a measured trial period of up-selling and cross-selling.