Customer Service, Part Two

I have now completed all four of the customer-service sessions I led for the fancy hotel. I definitely have to institute a ground rule: "no side conversations." I always do this in trainings in the States but forgot to here, and a few of the younger staff (boys who look like they're about 20) were whispering and cutting up a little. Not an inordinate amount, and they really are cute, but it does distract from the class. Plus it makes it much harder for me to understand Spanish when there's background noise.

I'm also going to tell everyone next time they don't have to ask my permission to go to the bathroom!

We made a list of complaints that cause stress, and role played them:
--Air conditioning doesn't work.
--Not hot water.
--Wine is acidic.
--Meal wasn't what was expected.
--Maintenance problems at night.
--We roared when a participant, a cleaning woman, told us that a customer complained that the bed, which had wheels normally held inside a container, got out of the structure and rolled all the way to the door.

I suggested to the participantes to offer sympathy not just solutions, especially when customers were annoyed or angry. Often, I said, people don't just want the situation fixed, they want a sense that the person who is serving them genuinely cares and is willing to listen. This is my theory. But whether in Mexico or the States, I have a hard time getting employees who are hired to offer solutions to get out of the "fix-it" mode and into offering sympathy as well, not just a rote, "I'll correct it."

We discussed the best way to let a client know you'll get back to them with a solution. I said, with business guests and/or clients from linear cultures (like the U.S. and Germany), Mexican vagueness can be frustrating. Giving some kind of precise timeframe would reassure the client. In my case, at a furniture shop recently, I asked when the manager, who I needed to talk to, would be back. I got the usual: "Ahorita" (means, "soon." But "soon" could be ten minutes or a couple of hours). You also hear "un ratito" (a little while. But again, you never know how long "a little while" means). Precision does not exist here!

I asked the participants if there were any cultural groups who predictably got annoyed--expecting it to be Americans. Wrong! They said Americans and Canadians were pretty forgiving; it was the Mexicans and Italians who got more irritated.

The action statements that several of them came up with delighted me: "I will not promise what I can't deliver," "I will offer solutions, not excuses," "I will communicate specific, concrete responses to guests," "I will not chatter with my coworkers in front of guests." I don't hear commitments like these very often here.