Dealing With Unreasonable Customers

OK High performance leaders, here's a question for you: what's more important and comes first in your priorities -- customers or team members?

I've worked with many organizations that always put customers first. A few teams would also focus on team member happiness (or at least say they do).

Here's the problem. Unhappy team members create more unhappy customers. Here's another problem: really poorly behaving customers make it so rough for team members that they also become unhappy, spreading the unhappiness around. That's not the result we want.

Conversely, nice customers recognize the hard work that team members do. Polite customer realize that they may not always BE the center of the universe. Smart and reasonable customers realize that you are not entitled to something just because you demand it and that demanding it progressively louder does not increase the merits of your case.

Can't we all play well together?

As a high performance leader, I encourage you to consider the health and dignity of your team members first. Treated with respect most team members will do a wonderful job of building great relationships with customers. Allowed to be disrespected by customers, even the strong team members could lose hope and energy.

I've seen the impact of watching leadership march an unruly customer out the door and invite them to shop somewhere else. For the rest of the day (maybe the rest of the week) the team was totally energized and reached new levels of loyalty to the organization.

The world is full of nice customers. Let the rude, unreasonable ones shop someplace else.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

If you'd like to train your supervisors to build more customer happiness and team member happiness while improving your bottom-line results, contact me today about bringing our workshops to your location. A great place to start is with Supervising for Success.

doug@frontrangeleadership.com

Comments

Measures Matter

Some people measure quantify first and quality later. Some people measure money first and impact to the team later (not even second!). How you measure productivity might determine your character and your reputation. Put people first. -- doug smith

New Ideas

New ideas won't break you but they can make you bigger. -- doug smith

Your Reputation

More authority means higher levels of responsibility. More power requires more service to others, not less. What you do with your power is who you will be known as. Also, how you use the power you have creates who people will remember you as. How do you want to be remembered? -- doug smith

What You Need

Use what you've learned to become what you need. -- doug smith

For example

Get good at something that won't obsolete itself. For example: emotional intelligence creating great conversations encouraging people leadership What would you add to the list? Which ones are you developing? -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Show Up!

"You've got to be there. Big decisions are being made!" my former boss told me a long time ago. "If your voice is in the room you might be heard..." It was good advice then and it still is. Show up. When there's a goal you're working on and an opportunity appears to advance that goal -- show up. When changes are being made that will affect you -- show up! When it matters to you -- show up. You won't always get what you want by showing up, but you never will if you don't! -- doug smith

The Problem With Compromises

Think about the last time you compromised on something. Whether it was a big compromise or a little compromise, how do you feel about it now? While we often call it "meet in the middle" it seldom does. Compromises are not automatically fair, no matter how implied that fairness is. Someone usually gets more out of a compromise than the person they are "compromising" with. If the low end is you, you don't like it -- and you remember that. If the top end of the compromise is you, you probably forget all about it even though the inequity simmers in the background. Compromises must be constantly revisited because they are inevitably unfair. If you get the chance to balance things out, your relationship will prosper. If you miss that chance, the relationship will suffer. What's your choice? -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership Combination

We can rationalize anything without making it justified. Leaders should always ask: who is this good for other than me? High performance leadership does NOT mean performance at any cost. It means performance that serves a noble cause while also benefiting people. High performance leadership is a combination. Results without relationships are shallow and temporary. Take care of both, and you'll be a high performance leader. -- doug smith

Decide

What do you want? Are you getting what you want? Intention is direction. Decide. And, then go. -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

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