Ward’s world

Faulty SERVICE

As client expectations rise and spending tightens, Hellen Ward explores the growing disconnect in customer service standards, and why attitude and leadership are critical to business survival

t baffles me why some people decide to go into the service industry, when clearly, they take no pleasure in pleasing people. Being a people person is a prerequisite for anyone in a customer-facing role. Yet it astonishes me that for some, serving people, looking after the client, making them feel welcome – none of that is a pleasure, only a pain. Why do they bother? Why not choose a different career route?

It’s long been said that the British sensibility means that “serving people” is something to do with status or class, that it’s somehow demeaning to be the server, not the person being served. Perhaps rooted in a throwback to the days of the British empire?

Why would it make you feel subservient? I don’t understand because even as a young worker (working after school in my local corner shop/post office, eating all the chocolate white mice), I only ever found looking after people enjoyable; a pleasure not a pain.

It’s certainly something we have to contend with when it comes to our younger generation. Customer service can be an anathema to them. “Serving” someone may be perceived as demeaning, lowly or an act that could make them feel “less than”.

Cultural and societal shifts in behaviour are responsible, with the old-fashioned “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” of my youth a thing of the past. I still feel comfortable calling clients whose names I don’t know sir or madam, but I’m sure my young team find that preposterous.

Truthfully, when you are Gen X, running a customer-focused business, this isn’t easy to get your head around. Do you educate the younger team? Do you show them what good looks like’? And even if you do, will they get it? Should we accept the cultural shift and give up?

A warm welcome

I went for a business lunch recently to a new restaurant that’s opened next to the Saatchi Gallery. My first attempt at getting a midday table didn’t go well. “Do you have a reservation?” the rather haughty manager said. I replied that I didn’t, taking a quick mental scan of the plethora of empty tables before me, embarrassed in front of my guest. “We can’t fit you in – we’ve got bookings at 1.30pm”.

I left, thinking how livid I would be if I was the poor owner, knowing that some of those reservations would be late, and the failure to question whether giving the table back for 1.30pm when the deluge of customers arrived would be a problem – it wouldn’t have been, by the way. So, £100+ walked out of the door – along with a precious new customer, whose visit has taken a wealth of investment in social media and marketing.

Service struggles

However, I did end up giving it another try, through a friend who had made a reservation there. As soon as we arrived, the same attitude prevailed. We didn’t like our choice of table (near the bar servery) but moving – even though it was empty – was evidently an issue. “We’re short-staffed. We’re not opening that part of the restaurant yet.” Then the wine we chose… “We don’t have it. The supplier let us down. We should have received on Monday but….”

Do we care? No. Lemon juice? “I’ll have to ask the chef.” More salad dressing? “I’m not sure.”

In short, everything was a problem. This same guy clearly enjoyed making issues out of nothing. He appeared to get a perverse pleasure in making every request insurmountable. Nobody wants to know. Nobody cares. It’s your job to please the customer. If that job doesn’t suit you then, please, for everybody’s sakes, do something else.

My late father, who was in the department store business, would have called it “making heavy weather of it”. People don’t want an explanation, they don’t need to know the ins and outs, they just want what they want, without a song-and-dance story about why what they’re asking for is a problem, even when it clearly isn’t.

Leading by example

Saying yes instead of no is as much a mentality as a factual statement. We all know the expression “can-do” but it really is true. The reality is that a can-do mentality in a team leader is as infectious as a can’t do one. The role-model manager whose immediate instant reaction is a “not a problem” not “it’s a problem because” rubs off on everybody.

With the economic climate so challenging, nobody can afford to get it wrong. People don’t have the disposable income they once had to spend in salons or restaurants. It’s a luxury, and as such, the customer interaction has to be positive, happy, smiling and efficient. Nobody wants to feel like what they are asking is a chore, or that they are being a pain. How is that a nice experience?

Home truths

I’m tempted to try and find out who the new owners of this venture are and give them a bit of tough love, feeding back that unless they have a “can-do” front of house, their business won’t survive, let alone thrive. And to remind them of the damage that one person is doing, because everyone else in the restaurant (all the waiting staff bar none) were following his lead and making everything a big deal. And the biggest deal of all? Them losing a potential customer, and worse, her telling everybody about it – a lesson for us all.

Hellen Ward is managing director of Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa in London, vice president of The Hair & Beauty Charity and co-founder of Salon Employers Association (SEA).