‘Pick Better People to Work for You. Please.’
“Pick better people to work for you. Please.”
Someone recently publicly voiced that frustration and plea about an interaction they had with an organization’s employee.
Assuming the person who uttered to an employer to pick better people is reasonable and objective of their analysis of the treatment they received, what are they really saying and hoping to communicate and how should an employer consider the situation and best respond?
Todd Saunders
“I would first take a close look at the interaction that led to this response,” says Todd Saunders, CEO at FlooringStores. “This sort of feedback suggests that there was more of a human issue than strictly a business issue, which would definitely be concerning.”
Mac Steer
“It’s a pretty clear and concise way of communicating that the customer feels that the company's employees aren’t up to snuff,” says Mac Steer, owner and director at Simify, a prepaid travel SIM card company. “This customer thinks we’re not offering the level of service we should be and that if we had better quality employees, they would be able to provide better service.”
Saunders wants to know where the communication and service went sideways and deviated from the positive experience leaders want, expect and need for their name to be its best.
“Communication breakdowns can happen in any situation, but a negative reaction this strong would lead me to believe that my salesperson did not properly embody our customer service standards in this interaction,” he says. “Based on my findings, I would use this situation as a coaching opportunity for my whole sales team about empathy and responding professionally in tense situations.”
Sebastian Jania
“What this communicates is that the employer needs to hire workers who don’t bring their own baggage to the workplace,” Sebastian Jania, director at Ontario Property Buyers, asserts. “The employees’ role, especially in a customer service role as it sounds like this is, is to have the skill set and the emotional intelligence to put their problems to the side and be able to solely focus on the customer and how best there needs can be served.”
He agrees that in certain circumstances a poor customer experience could require that an upgrade in team personnel is in order or at least people who are more in alignment with the mindset to deliver desirable service quality.
“This can also mean for the employer to pick people who are more in line with the company vision,” Jania says.
“If for example, the company’s vision is to be a place where they treat customers with a VIP experience, and the employee does not fit this vision, then surely the customer will compare the treatment that they had with one employee to the company’s vision, values and the way they were treated by other staff members.”
