Does it pay to be polite?

In August I was interested in booking a holiday for a week, but it had to be from Thursday to Thursday to fit in with other commitments. The small company that I had used before did not offer these dates but having found them very accommodating ten years ago, I decided to make an enquiry. We had a long chat and I related a couple of anecdotes about my previous visit, which had been very enjoyable. Not only did I get the dates I wanted but was offered a discount of more than 25% because I was a previous customer, even though it was eleven years ago.

Bad manners really bug me. In one of our local shops there’s a lad on the till who asks for the money without a ‘please’. When I repeat the amount with a ‘please’ at the end he looks at me like I’m an alien. I get the same when I remind him to say ‘thank you’. I’d been using one of the other local shops because of him until the other day when I had to go in there. I reported him to his manager and told her they’d been losing custom to their competitors, whose staff had better manners. I think bad manners does cost us, whether we notice it or not.

I missed this convo and it’s a good one in some ways.

Taking note of wavechange’s comment, “On the other hand, it is disgraceful that we have some rude people, and I feel sorry for those who have to handle customers’ complaints, either by phone or – worse – face to face.” and looking at it from the other side as it were, some of you may think the Dark Side where you’re on the receiving end…

People have gotten progressively more rude, abusive, arrogant and just downright unpleasant in recent years to us as a business on the phone and by email especially.

It is not at all uncommon to hear abusive people demanding this that and the other, especially when it’s a complaint or a problem with something. It used to be, a decade or more ago, unusual to have people shouting and swearing demands but these days, it’s a daily occurrence.

Staff in call centres are constantly faced with a daily barrage of unreasonable demands and tirades of abuse and why the staff turnover for many is extraordinarily high as for many people, the stress of it is unbearable. And in the UK, good call handling staff that will stick it are hard to come by as the salaries aren’t good enough to be taking the grief all day, every day.

I am astonished that there’s not more about this online but I suppose that companies probably don’t want to tell potential or existing customers about some of the more unpleasant stuff that they have to deal with in this politically correct and customer orientated climate we live in these days.

Although you can find some brilliant stories of customer service in some places. Thing is, many people think that these are unusual and not common. The reality is, many you see are daily and in some cases multiple instances a day.

So much so that in many public service areas, especially the NHS ones, you’ll see signs all the time warning about abusive behaviour will get you ejected. A polite way of saying, if you don’t behave you’re going to the back of the queue or you may not get seen at all.

Is it any wonder that some businesses choose to try to promote better behaviour also?

For people that are dealing with whatever company (or much anything really) where they are looking for support, is being aggressive or abusive really the way that they think they’ll get help or a response?

People should keep in mind that the person (yes, it’s a person!!) that they are dealing with is probably trying to do the best they can for them, not always I accept although I expect that is the exception not the rule but, giving them grief isn’t really going to help speed things along. This is so as that person will not want to call that abusive person back, have them come back or even want them as a customer most probably. Some customers are simply more bother than they’re worth, let them go to the competition and give them abuse will be the attitude of many.

And sometimes, for difficult and abusive customers, yeah they go to the back of the queue and get poorer service as they’re going to complain, post bad reviews or whatever else they threaten as leverage to get what they want so there’s no point pandering to them. Some I know in business will actively make their life harder, it’s just human nature really in just the same way as the customer chooses to be of a mind to think that being aggressive or whatever scores points.

People that are pleasant, mannered and reasonable will in almost every instance receive better service in my opinion, almost without doubt.

Or you move your call centre to India, the Philippines or somewhere that you can get staff at the drop of a hat and that also saves you money. I wouldn’t do that but I can see why it would appeal to some, especially larger businesses but then, I’m not a fan of call centres at all.

Case in point though, a contract for my own business is ending after several years and sadly some staff are moving on and this is summed up by a comment made, almost word for word by three out of four of the staff on phones…

“I’m looking for a job where I don’t have to deal with the public at all on phones etc as it’s just too stressful taking the abuse all the time”

That’s why it’s hard to get staff to deal with the public and why I suspect that many call centres are overseas now as, anyone that has done the job normally never wants to do it again.

K.