A potential customer recently thanked me over the phone for being so nice to her, saying that she had heard that about me. My first thought was that she must have been thinking of someone else. Nice is not the way I would expect to be described by the majority of the customers with whom I interact at work.I work in a field where the majority of the staff are there to help, care for and nurture and the majority of the clients are there to be helped, cared for and nurtured. But my chosen field is also a business and I'm just about the only person who's responsible for keeping an eye on that. There are 16 people in my office taking care of people; I am the only person in my office taking care of the business so all those other 16 can continue to get paid.
The chips are stacked against the professionals in my field when it comes to running a business and earning a living. Our fees are a mystery to the majority of our customers, our billing is extremely complicated, our regulatory burden is overwhelming, there are too many entities involved and our customers are for the most part several steps removed from paying for the services they are purchasing.
Usually, by the time a customer speaks to me, s/he is frustrated, has spoken to several people already and is unlikely to receive the answer that s/he is seeking. I am usually in the position of having to tell people that I'm sorry they are dissatisfied but that that's just the way it is.
It is my job to say no, a lot.
I have been hung up on; I have been cursed out; I have been threatened with bad karma; I have had people try to go over my head (unlikely); I have been told that I don't know how to run a business; I have been told that my customer service ethic sucks; I've been told that I don't care about people; I've had customers try to bully me.
Thank God, I have a thick skin.
I live in a small town. Not that I expect people in town to be talking about me, but to the extent that they do, I would expect adjectives to be employed such as hard-ass, difficult, rude, condescending.
But not nice.
So, yes, it surprises me that there are customers out there who would describe me as nice.
1 comment:
That must have made your day. You do have a tough job in that you often have to tell people that they owe money (I assume). That never goes over well.
You are very articulate and thorough, which I would hope people would appreciate. Glad to see that some do.
Also, it's good that you aren't hung up with needing to be considered nice. That's a liability, I believe.
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