Customer Care from the New York Times

I was rummaging around in my brief case for a pen when I pulled out a yellowing article from the New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/opinion/27friedman.html I had clipped it several months ago on a business trip. I intended to send it to our Customer Service Teams in Maryland and Florida. It was written by Thomas Friedman for the Times’ Op-Ed page. I had forgotten to write the date on the clip so I can’t be sure when it appeared but hopefully it was over the last year or else it means I haven’t cleaned out my brief case in quite a while!

Mr. Friedman is an astute commentator on everything from Middle East politics to globalization. In this story he recounted standing in line a couple years earlier at Boston’s Logan airport. He was buying a newspaper when suddenly a woman stepped in front of him and insisted that she be served first. He was incensed, but then woman turned to him and said, “I know who you are,” and so he backed off.

“If that happened today,” he wrote, “I would have had a very different reaction. I would have said: “Miss, I’m so sorry. I am entirely in the wrong. Please, go ahead. And can I buy your magazines for you? May I buy your lunch? Can I shine yours shoes?”

Why did Mr. Friedman say he would have been so eager to please the woman? Because today the woman might have whipped out a cell phone from her purse and, when he was protesting her rudeness, filmed the entire episode and posted the clip on YouTube!

Mr. Friedman – always with an eye to the global implications of everyday events – points out that in a world with instantaneous communications, we are all constantly on stage. Our attitude, demeanor, mood and tone of voice is not ephemeral as in the past. Rather, everything we do could become a permanent part of the collective consciousness. And while sometimes the global archive might be accurate, just as often the behavior that we take for granted can suddenly appear in a sinister and unflattering light.

This is important insight for every company in a customer service business. I am delighted to report that when customers call me directly, they may have complaints but they almost never tell me that our agents were rude or abrupt. That is because we train and coach our customers to “speak with a smile.” Believe it or not, you can “hear” a smile over the phone. Courtesy is not only good business practice. It’s also playing defense. After all, suppose the call is recorded?

Emails raise a similar risk. Say something nasty and write in capitals – i.e., shout – and the email may end up forwarded to a million readers by the end of the day. My personal hangup is typos. Write to somebody: “Yank you tor your bery nice Christmas tift” and you sound like you’re drunk and out of your mind.

Fortunately my blogs have a limited shelf life and are forgotten as soon as they are read….or are they??