Whole generations have grown up reading anecdotes in The Reader’s Digest under the same heading (except for the added word “truly”) that I’m using for this week’s contribution. So I duly acknowledge the source of this heading. On the other hand, I am very mindful to keep this week’s contribution as light as possible without losing out on the economic and business dimension.
There are some who consider this time of the year as the silly season. Others take themselves too seriously and consider laughter as inappropriate human behaviour. In any case the mood today is likely to be a holiday mood as most of us have either just ended their vacation period, or are in the middle of it or are about to start it. Therefore my contribution will take the form of some real life stories that I have directly witnessed and which can be described as both tragic and comic.
Volunteering information
A couple was checking in at a city centre hotel of one of the five-star international chains. The receptionist did the required paperwork and gave them the key card to their room. He then did what he must have been asked to do by his manager and volunteered some information about the health spa in the hotel, in the hope that these clients would make use of one of the services. The clients then moved off to find the elevator to go to their room. Meanwhile, the receptionist started attending to other customers.
Around five minutes later the couple returned to the reception desk carrying their luggage and looking very flustered. The receptionist recognised them and asked them how the room was. They answered that they never got to the room. The receptionist dutifully asked why and the couple recounted how the elevator had taken them to all the floors except to the one they wanted. Each time the elevator stopped in a floor, there would be someone who would come into the lift and take them to some other floor.
At that point the couple asked the receptionist how the elevator worked and his clinical answer was, “Obviously you put in your room key card into the slot and then you press the number of the floor you want to go to.” The male told the receptionist that he had not explained to them how the elevator worked but gave them information on the hotel spa instead.
This after all was a key element of customer care – volunteering information that the clients need. This couple never needed to know about the hotel spa but did need to know how the elevator worked to get to their room. Unfortunately, customer relations personnel take the customer for granted and volunteer unnecessary information, ignoring what the client really needs to know.
All men are not born equal
We tend to believe generally that all men are born equal. History proves time and time again that this is not so. Last week a contractor of one of Malta’s utilities was doing some work which involved the uprooting of poles. In order to facilitate the work there were two workmen, supposedly helping each other. In order to uproot these poles, one of the workers was using a jackhammer. The other was wearing ear plugs to protect himself from the excessive noise.
This all sounds fine, until I noticed that the other workman had no ear plugs. I wondered whether it was a case of the other workman not being bothered by the noise. After all we encounter many persons at their place of work who ignore health and safety rules. However, I decided that this was not such a case. I decided that one workman was given ear plugs, while the other one was not. And it so happened that the workman without the ear plugs was dark skinned, looking very much like an illegal immigrant. And illegal immigrants are not equal to us mortals!
Customers are inconvenient
We are again at the reception of a five-star hotel, in yet another city centre. A non-European looking client was checking in. She had two young girls with her. The receptionist correctly pointed out that the reservation was for two adults, while now there were one adult and two children. The receptionist was evidently not empowered to take a decision, in terms of whether to charge her more for the fact that instead of one adult, there were now two children. So she decided to call the reservations office.
The answer comes back that the persons working in reservations office were all at an internal meeting and that they could not be disturbed. The receptionist realised that it was useless advising the client to wait for about an hour until they finished the meeting. She looked at her watch and must have thought that since it was soon the lunch hour, it was more likely that the reservations staff would want to go for lunch after the meeting. So she told the client to come back after three hours. After all, the customer is only a customer and could wait until employees have their internal meetings and their lunch. It is not the employees’ fault if customers come at an inconvenient time.
The lessons to be learnt from these three real life stories is that we all tend to forget that, for businesses to thrive, they need to train their employees to look after their customers and their fellow employees. Does a crisis have to strike before a business understands this basic fact of life?