Godin on Attitude

Crowd Favorite – A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being one of the keynote speakers at Anytime Fitness’s national convention. While I was a hit, the real crowd favorite was my friend, Matthew Jeffers. Watch the final seconds of Matthew’s speech and see how the 2,000 audience members react to his inspiring presentation.

Ryanair voted worst for Customer service in UK- Airline Ryanair has been voted as having the worst Customer service out of Britain’s 100 biggest brands. This is no real shocker considering their Director, Michael O’Leary, has been quoted calling his Customers “idiots” (see eService CEO calls Customers stupid). Companies were given a Customer satisfaction rating and judged out of five stars in three categories – knowledge, staff attitude and dealing with issues. Ryanair was rated lowest, at 54 per cent.

You are what your satisfaction scores say you are – True to their form and pathetic attitude, a spokesman for the airline bragged that Ryanair responded within seven days to 99% of their Customer complaints and added, “Our Customer service statistics speak for themselves.” Yes they do!

Attitude Wars – In a recent blog titled, “The Truth about the War for Talent,” Author Seth Godin writes about how HR departments like to talk about engaging in a war for talent; however, it is really about finding good enough people at an acceptable rate of pay. What I like to call reactively hiring anyone, or hiring anyone with a pulse. Godin points out it shouldn’t be a search for talent — rather a search for attitude.

Fight for $3 only to lose $800– Generally employees want to do what they are taught, and many times do not do a good job of understanding when exceptions should apply. For instance, front-line employees take the word ‘policy’ literally. That is why I always replace it with the word ‘guideline.’ (see past eService No more policy) Here is another good (or bad) example of this happening at one of The DiJulius Group’s consulting client’s business. A Customer came in and got over $800 in repairs on his vehicle. While the Customer waited for his vehicle to be repaired, he purchased a cup of coffee at a café that was part of this vehicle repair shop. However, the Customer felt his coffee is was too cold and told the manager that he wanted his money back (only a few dollars). The manager said “no” because the ‘policy’ is they don’t return half-consumed beverages. The Customer demanded his money back for his coffee, and so the manager called the police. This is for a cup of coffee that costs the business a few cents and the Customer had already spent over $800. By the way, this scenario happened before The DiJulius Group started consulting with this company.

Johnism

No unhappy Customer left behind

About The Author

John DiJulius

John R. DiJulius is a best-selling author, consultant, keynote speaker and President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices.