I don’t know how often I hear people complaining about the level of courtesy and service they receive from businesses and, increasingly more often, in respect of professional services.
I enjoy receiving the brilliant Alan Weiss’s regular newsletters and in a recent one he was expressing his experience too. He said,
“I need some minor oral surgery. My dentist sent me to a periodontist who performed a difficult extraction and who would then replace it with an implant after the site was “restored” (sounds like archeology, right?). We’re ready for the implant, which is relatively expensive and not covered by my insurance (no big deal and less hassle for the doctor) but I find her office staff so infernally rude that I’ve had it. When I tried to give feedback to the receptionist about her behavior, both she and the office manager went ballistic.
I guess I touched a nerve!
So now I’m with another doctor, a great guy with a wonderful staff, who has a more sophisticated implant procedure and loves to talk about exotic cars and trains. He’s more expensive. I don’t care.
The schools still don’t teach doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals how to run a business, how to treat clients and patients, how to hire and manage the right kind of people. I don’t demand special treatment but I do demand professional treatment.
And so should you.”
You know how difficult it is to attract good quality clients and how easy it is to lose them. Often, they disappear, not because of anything you personally may have done, but rather because of poor handling by your team members.
So it is important for team members to know how to look after clients, courteously and politely. Unfortunately, to assume that today’s younger people really have skills in that area is a mistake. It therefore is important that you make sure they know what is expected of them in dealing with your clients. Courtesy and politeness should become “the way we do things around here.”
And a tip, for great thoughts, idea and commentary subscribe to Alan Weiss’s newsletter.
Working part time in a cellar door in the Hunter Valley we are constantly out up with the public who cannot talk, acknowledge our greetings upon arrival.
Together with no smiles, grunts & pure arrongrance which happens in a regular basis.
Having reached Hospitality for 17 years I now have come to to the conclusion some people have no manners what do ever.
To counteract this we are adored with many wonderful customers that makes our day.
I share your feelings Bob… some people just dont know any better! But those that are polite and acknowledge you make up for it!
And the good ones more than make up for the bad ones dont they Bob?