The Ten Commandments of Customer Service
Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash
Happy Customer Service Week! I’ve worked in many different facets of customer service during my career; brick and mortar retail, the front desk of a hotel, restaurants, and eCommerce customer service via phone, chat, and email. You name it, I’ve talked to people who had a problem with it.
Customer service is a sector I think everyone should be required to work in at least once in their life, but ironically, I don’t think anyone should have to do it. If everyone had exposure to what it was like to be in customer service, the world might be a more kind and empathetic place. However, based on my experiences and what I’ve been treated like, I would not recommend it to anyone.
I wanted to celebrate Customer Service Week by shedding some light on the customer service experience from a representative’s point of view and proffer some rules to follow when engaging with one of us. There are millions of articles on how to provide good customer service, but I had trouble finding any resources on how to be a good customer.
The toughest part of the service industry is feeling like you are always in the wrong, feeling less than others, and being a target people throw their frustrations at. I’m an overly empathetic introvert who hates when people are mad at her, so entering the customer service world was an interesting move for me (no regrets!) I know some of my experiences are unique, but overall, most of the following commandments can be universally applied no matter what the environment. At a salon, in a hotel, on the phone; try them out wherever!
Commandments:
#1 Thou shall stop asking to speak to a manager
I’ve been on both sides of the coin here, as the representative and the manager. Trust me when I say it sucks for everyone involved. As a rep, it can be somewhat humiliating to ask your boss to speak to a customer on your behalf. It implies that you did something wrong. If you are speaking with a rep that has a close working relationship with their manager, escalating will most likely be a waste of time. They’ll just be backing the rep up and reaffirming the information you’ve already been given.
I understand some specific cases may warrant speaking to someone higher up, but it’s essential to treat everyone you’re talking with the same. In prior roles as a manager, I’ve often heard customers be nasty to my rep on the phone and then be very nice to me once I’m on the line. Don’t forget those lines are recorded! We often listen in on live conversations as well. I’ve always found this behavior to be creepy and disgusting when I had to take escalations. If you’re not nice to my rep, you’re not getting any special accommodations from me.
#2 Thou shall not roll in deep unexpectedly
If you have a party of more than 5 people and plan on dining out, call ahead to notify the restaurant. That’ll give them time to set up if they have the capacity for your group and the chance to inform you ahead of time if they don’t. A lot of restaurants will need to push tables together to accommodate large parties, I’ve done so as 10 family members stare at me while being in the way of me getting their space together and it started us all off on an awkward foot.
#3 Thou shall not order food right before the kitchen closes
We’ve all been there, it’s 9:45pm and you’re trying to find some late-night food after a long busy day. You do some googling and find that a restaurant with the cuisine you’re craving is still open and their kitchen doesn’t close until 10, perfect! Right? Not really… See, the kitchen staff will typically start to clean up towards the last 30 minutes of their shift, and in every restaurant I’ve worked at, there are usually not many tickets being run in during the last hour of service. As front-of-house, there is nothing worse than seeing a Doordash order pop up or a group of people walk into the restaurant during the very tail end of a shift when you know the kitchen is already clean and you have to deliver the bad news that they have more work to do. A good rule of thumb is to not order or dine somewhere if they are closing within the next 30 minutes. If you are in an absolute crunch and have no other options at all and do place that order, tip excessively!
#4 Thou shall tip thoughtfully and appropriately
Just as a reminder, many service workers earn their living on tips only! Yes, there is such a thing as a server wage, but when I worked in restaurants the hourly wage was $3.64 and if I earned a certain amount in recorded tips I didn’t receive that hourly.
Tip based on the total price of what you received, not the bill total.
For example, if you went out for drinks after work and got 2 cocktails that were originally $12 each but paid a nice happy hour price of 8 bucks, you tip off the total of $24, not $16. I made an infographic you can save to your phone to reference when you’re closing out:
#5 Thou shall stop saying something is free if it doesn’t have a price tag
If I had a dollar for every time I heard this joke working in retail I’d have enough money to just buy your items for you. Other things to 86 in retail:
Saying you can get a better discount somewhere else. If we don’t price match… go somewhere else then? Most often what retail workers make is a rough hourly wage that does not fluctuate based on if you make a purchase or not so.. no sweat for us if you wanna buy it somewhere else. Please note that we.do.not.control.anything.here.
#6 Thou shall not place blame where it doesn’t belongeth
Know that whatever problem you present is nine times out of ten not your service rep’s fault. I never intentionally made someone’s order get lost in the mail, served underdone meat, canceled your flights, etc. but I sure have been treated as if I were a mail carrier, chef, or airline. Think of it as you and the rep versus the problem, not you vs the rep until you get what you want.
Even if you are heated over the issue at hand, there are some magic words you can use - repeat after me - “I know it’s not your fault but…” If you start your complaint with this phrase, complain away! We’re way more likely to hear you out and empathize if we feel like we’re not in the line of fire.
#7 Thou shall use my name
If you read the last commandment and thought, “ooh I wonder how else I can make service workers feel like a human!” one simple idea is to use their name. When was the last time you went out to eat or called a customer service phone number and the server or agent didn’t introduce themself by name? Now, when was the last time you took note of that name during their intro and used it during the rest of your conversation? Speaking to customers all day long can slowly break you down and make you feel less than and detached. It was sadly rare to hear my own name but it always felt like a breath of fresh air to hear “Elyse” on the other line. It made me feel like myself again and less like a villain.
#8 Thou shall admit fault
The phrase “the customer is always right” was coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge in the early 1900s. Do you know what else people believed in the early 1900s? That cigarettes were good for you and women shouldn’t have jobs. In Germany they say "der Kunde ist König" (the customer is king) and in Japan it’s "okyakusama wa kamisama desu" (the customer is a god). This mentality is just fine if you are a business owner or a customer service rep yourself, but I think this should just be a one-way perspective. Customers who believe they are unequivocally correct are the whole reason I would not recommend a job in this industry to anyone, especially those with thin skin. The mentality throws the whole relationship off balance, there is no way for the customer and the rep to work together towards a solution if they can even meet each other in truth at the beginning of the relationship.
#9 Thou shall read
Truly a simple request; please just read the emails we send, the menu, the signage in a store, and the verbiage on the website. We don’t expect you to know terms and conditions like the back of your hand, but it does get tiring apologizing for something that has already been notated but not recognized.
#10 Thou shall treat others the way you’d like to be treated if you dealt with people all day long
Just be kind! Ask nicely and you shall receive. Don’t shake your empty glass at me to ask for a refill, don’t snap your fingers at me, don’t whistle at me, don’t bark at me (yes, all of the above happen frequently to servers in restaurants). If I were a dog like I’ve been treated, these actions would make my tail go between my legs. But since I’m a human, they just make me get your refill much slower than I originally would have. We’re not dogs, we’re not delivery drones, we’re simply humans who got in this business to make other humans happy.