What your customer is thinking but won’t tell you (part 1)

#1 If I am paying you my money, then I’m your boss.

Just about every weekend, I hand my credit card to some rental car company for the privilege of using one of their cars for a day or two. A couple of months ago, I showed up at a rental car location to pick up a car I had reserved.

By the way, since I’m about to say some bad stuff about this particular company, I don’t feel comfortable mentioning their name, so let’s just say the name of the company was Schmudget Rental Car. There. That’s obscure enough. No one will ever crack my code and figure out who I really mean.

When I arrived, it turned out that there was a huge disconnect between the car size that I had reserved on the Web site and the car that the rental location actually had for me. It was important that I get a larger car because I had my family with me, and all they had available was the next size down.

In others words, I encountered a problem, which is not that big of a deal. All businesses have problems. The character of a company isn’t determined by whether or not they have problems but by what they do about those problems.

The customer service representative at this particular Schmudget Rental Car location chose to go with the I’m-Just-Working-Here-Until-My-Band-Gets-A-Record-Deal customer service method. It did not inspire great confidence in me.

Two hours later, I am still at the same location trying to get the right size car, and by now, my patience is wearing a tad thin. When I suggest to Beavis that maybe this matter is important to him since I am the reason he has a job, he makes the incredible statement, “You don’t pay my paycheck. The company does.”

Wow. If you don’t see the complete inanity of this remark, then you might also be occupying the same strange universe as Beavis: a strange world where money mysteriously appears in the company bank account and then is distributed to employees who seem determined to destroy the company from within.

After a great while, I finally got the vehicle I had reserved and I was once again on my way, no thanks to my Rock-N-Roll-Wanna-Be friend.
It's extremely important that you take time to educate your employees regarding proper customer service technique and attitude. Every person in your company who interacts with customers is the link between you and the customer, and in a very real way they hold the life of your business in their hands.

In my next post I will continue the story of my interaction with Schmudget Rental Car and pass on a few points that I hope you will use to educate those in your organization who need a little help realizing that when someone hands you their money, he or she is your boss!

Feel free to reprint this article in your organizational publication. We only ask that you use the following attribution blurb at the bottom of the article:
© 2010 Charles Marshall. Charles Marshall is a nationally known humorous motivational speaker and author. Visit his Web site at http://www.charlesmarshall.net or contact him via e-mail at charles@charlesmarshall.net.