At one of my favorite book sellers, I recently heard an employee on the floor saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over again to the same customer. No action was taken to remedy the wrong. The employee was just very sorry.
Suddenly it hit me, I’ve been in several retail outlets recently and heard that phrase from tellers, cashiers, floor personnel, sales people and managers over and over.
I’ve looked on-line to see if I missed some new tip or trick from an overpaid Customer Service Guru, but it appears that it is happening quite spontaneously.
If you have to apologize multiple times to most or every customer, something is very wrong with your retail operation.
What most retailers call Service is nothing more than common courtesy – being a human being. Service has to do with quality in all its forms, and courtesy is only the tail end of that process.
If you don’t do your job right, or the systems make you hard to do business with, or policies are written to stop the crooks and just anger your honest customers all the courtesy in the world won’t save that customer from a good competitor.
It dates me to tell you, but I remember “Love Story” by Erich Segal (the book and the movie!) I thought it was sappy and stupid to think that “Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.” Just show me one perfect person or relationship! But it is plain to the mature Lon that this is an ideal, perhaps impossible for a human to attain, but certainly worth the effort.
Maybe it is too much to say that Service Excellence means you never need apologize to your customer, but it ought to at least be harder to say it. “I’m sorry” ought to accompany some action to fix the problem or some extra to ease the sting.
If you need to apologize to a customer, by all means do so, quickly, sincerely, and then make it right or add something extra. But if you have to apologize too often, or to too many customers, something else is wrong and should be fixed, quickly, and permanently.
Otherwise, “I’m sorry” means absolutely nothing.
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