We’ve all heard the saying that customers are always right. However, many client-facing and customer service roles would agree that the customer’s not always right. In fact, sometimes they’re just dead wrong. There can even be a danger with this saying that can tolerate or allow poor customer behaviour. This can, in turn, become emotionally abusive for frontline staff and create hostile or psychologically or physically unsafe working environments.
So why is ‘the customer is always right’ such a strong sentiment? The message in this phrase is not in its words, but in its inferred meaning and understanding. What we’re trying to convey is that the customer is important. They are the lifeblood of any business or organisation that provides a service or product, so they need to be treated with a high level of respect and value. So perhaps a better reengineering of that statement is: the customer’s not always right, but must always be managed right.
An excellent customer service organisation understands that great customer service is just as much about the wellbeing of the employees as it is about the customer’s needs and demands. Sometimes, in the desire to meet customers’ needs, the care of the staff may be overlooked or perhaps even ignored. When employees do not feel like they’re getting the correct support and care, particularly over time, it can quickly accelerate to retention risk. So what can we do when the customer’s not right and can even be mistreating or abusing frontline staff? Here’s a simple three-point staff care strategy.
Protect
An effective customer service charter helps everyone’s confidence, sets expectations, and clarifies the dos and don’t. This should include an easy-to-apply escalation policy that is behaviourally-focused (versus some difficult-to-apply policy mumbo jumbo). Display elements of this policy publicly for customers, so they know what behaviour is expected of them. Where applicable, these signs can also flag the consequence for non-compliance.
You’ve probably seen examples of this in bars and restaurants, where a sign near the bar lets you know that abuse of staff is not tolerated. Staff have the right to refuse service or ask you to leave if they feel unsafe.
Define the lines of safety and boundaries (both emotional and physical) for the team. This helps identify the points of breach. For example, abusive yelling and ranting at a staff member. In this case, you’d develop a framework for the team on how to implement boundaries in this situation, whether it’s face-to-face, over the phone, or via email or live chat. Explore what safe boundaries look like for these different mediums or environments of communication. Then give your team clear empowerment and actions they can take around that.
Train
One of the big gaps in customer service teams is when the skill level is quite variable. This means that some people have a better ability to manage a difficult customer than someone else in the same time. Training helps bridge that gap and creates a team with a common language and skill set. This, in turn, benefits the team with higher levels of confidence and ability when facing these issues.
The benefits of customer service training become particularly apparent to customers who try to push the team’s buttons by playing one off against another, for example. Because when a team’s received consistent training, a customer will find that the ‘response shield walls’ are the same for each member of staff. This ensures consistent boundaries for the customer and consistent protection for staff.
Additionally, conducting regular training – whether in-house or via an experienced external facilitator – can be a powerful way to accelerate a team’s skills and knowledge. Good training will equip them with tools, practical applications, and real-world scenarios, so they can move their learning to that experiential level.
Support
Implement an effective and well-thought-out back-end support. This makes the biggest difference to staff retention and job satisfaction. Not surprising, given that customer service teams face the bullets on the front line like soldiers. If they feel they are in this together, there’s a sense of camaraderie. Everyone feels they’ve got each other’s back. Where this is done well, there’s often a high degree of job satisfaction, engagement, and motivation – even when they’re having bad days. This also feeds everyone’s basic needs for that sense of belonging.
So there you have it, a simple three-point staff care strategy.
- Protect.
- Train.
- Support.