by Jeff Mowatt, BComm, CSP
I’ll just come out and say it. I believe trying to treat customers fairly and equally is a mistake. It’s unprofitable. It belittles customers and employees. And it’s unethical.
Certainly, we should treat people fairly. I’m not advocating an Orwellian decree that “some animals are more equal than others”. This has nothing to do with somebody’s value as a person. It has to do with bending so-called rules to give exceptional customers the service they deserve.
In my many years as a consultant and trainer with dozens of companies and bureaucracies, it’s unfortunate that I continue to encounter employees who buy into the idea of treating all customers equally.
Sometimes it’s okay to bend the rules
Imagine that as part of your daily routine, you stop into your local convenience store to buy a coffee and newspaper. The employees know you by sight. One day you find yourself needing to change a $100-bill. You stop in, pick up a couple of items and pay for them with the hundred. The store has a policy that it doesn’t accept hundreds, so the cashier refuses. You are fully aware that they make more than that much change every 15 minutes. You also know that when added up, you’ve given them hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of business over the years. Yet they refuse to grant you this slight favour. How’s your customer loyalty now?
Fair or not, rigid rules treat everyone uniformly, without regard for customer loyalty.
Refusing the $100-bill could have been an incredibly bad decision on the part of the cashier as well as the management who created the rule.
Make room for common sense
Imagine the consequences of a parent treating their six-year-old and seventeen-year-old equally. That would mean telling the younger child, “Make sure you are home from grade one by midnight!” Most people appreciate that it makes sense to treat children fairly. It would, however, be a mistake to treat them all equally, and apply the same rules regardless of their ages. That’s more than just a mistake; we might even call it immoral.
There’s a certain irony in taking this approach to the workplace. The same individuals who assume that all customers should be treated equally, often have no objection to offering preferential parking and restroom facilities to customers with disabilities. Yet, that’s a blatant example of treating customers fairly but not equally.
Pitfall #2Every day we hear inane statements like, “If I did that for you, I’d have to do it for everyone.”
The challenge for business owners and managers is providing the training and authority that front-line employees need, so they can make more appropriate on-the-spot decisions.
Understand the truth about word-of-mouth
“What happens when customers talk to each other?” That’s one of the most common concerns I hear from employees in my training sessions. They are afraid that if they accommodate one customer’s special request, then that customer will talk to other customers, and the employee will be pressured to do the same for everyone, which, of course, they can’t. In other words, they’re going to have a lot of unhappy people out there if they accommodate special requests. This is the kind of logic that stems from the underlying folly of treating everyone equally.
“If I provide extra service for one customer, I’m going to disappoint others whose circumstances don’t warrant it.”
To avoid letting down some people, we make rules that let down everyone, including customers whose unique situation deserves special consideration.
Customers get it
Customers understand the concept of fairness. If I’ve never been to a particular convenience store and suddenly walk in just to change a $100 bill, I’m not likely to get outraged when the employee explains they can’t help me because they don’t have enough change in the register. If, on the other hand, I’m doing business there every day, I’m more likely to be upset if my store won’t make change for me when I know they make that much change every fifteen minutes. If they do make an exception for me because I’m a good customer, I’m not going to rush out, phone all my friends, and tell them, “Hey, my convenience store made change for me, and they don’t usually accept hundreds!”
Customers rarely go out of their way to talk about good service. They do share information when service is bad. Bottom line: employees needn’t worry about the ramifications of taking extra care of good customers. What they should be concerned about is the negative impact of treating all customers the same.
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Based on Becoming a Service Icon in 90 Minutes a Month by customer service strategist and professional speaker, Jeff Mowatt. For a copy of the book, more tips, self-study resources, and training services, click here. |
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