I know a young woman who recently flew back to the States on a “well-known” airline, after an extended trip to Europe. She is entering her senior year at Purdue University, where she is majoring in Hospitality and Travel Management. Just prior to returning to school for the fall, she told me of her disappointment in the “service” she received from nearly all the airline’s people she came in contact with. She shared a depressingly familiar tale of screwed-up gate assignments, unclear security requirements, conflicting boarding instructions, lack of clear signage, inattentive flight attendants, clueless, uninformed connections “consultants”, lost luggage, and uncaring baggage personnel.
“I was told repeatedly by this airline I was an idiot,” she exclaimed. “All I heard from them the whole trip was “No”, “You’re in the wrong line”, “Go back”, “I don’t know, go ask them”, “I’m collecting cans, not your trash”, “We can’t find your bags.” Basically, it was she, the customer, who had been made to conform with the airline’s vague procedures, accommodate their inefficiencies, and tolerate their lack of concern for their customers.
“They’re right, you know,” she explained. “I was an idiot for flying with them.”
As I listened to this sorry tale unfold, I felt myself giving in to a certain smug pity for this young, eager student of service and hospitality. “Ah, how cute,” I thought. “She’s just learning the way things REALLY are in her industry.” Being the battle-scarred veteran of way too many such flights, I couldn’t help feeling that she was simply being naive to expect anything other than what she got.
Then she woke me up.
“I wrote to tell their CEO ‘I’d be embarrassed to work for your company.'”
That’s when I saw that she was entirely, completely, 100% right. Her naivete crashed into my cynicism, and she won!
“At school I know a bunch of kids, myself included, who have interned for great companies, large and small. What’s the one thing that they have in common? They CARE. They really care about delivering great customer SERVICE. Underneath the rhetoric of the stated mission are the processes supporting people who take pride in their work; who see colleagues doing the same thing, and take pride in them. It’s a question of team pride and prestige. No one I know wants to work for some clueless company that treats their customers like idiots; customers who end up wondering what kind of person would be associated with such a company. We’d be embarrassed to work there.”
Wow. Out of the mouths of babes…
Do you want people who wouldn’t stand for crappy service working for you? Or are the “clueless and content” good enough?
Do you care?
As the leader, are you “going first?” How are you showing your team that you DO care?
Are you yourself a good example of great “customer service?” How would your front-line managers answer that?
Are you hiring for the characteristics of great service? Do you screen for compassion? Are you looking at resumes for evidence of caring? Do you ask job candidates for their stories of when they showed someone a little love in the context of their prior jobs?
Are you willing to subject yourself to the same service experience your customers get? Or do you “travel by the corporate jet?” Keeping your shoes clean by sailing above it all?
Do you care? Really?
Then tell me about it. Let’s share some cool service practices. Show a little love…
BUILT TO LEAD 