She stands there, soured and annoyed, the customer at the self-checkout.
Her eyes narrow into narrow slits. Her teeth are clenched. She is literally seething. Then she spots the checkout station supervisor. I’m standing opposite her at the checkout and I sense a seemingly inevitable spectacle.
The tone of voice is sharp. Too sharp for my liking. So she orders the unsuspecting employee to the check-out. The few steps to the customer were enough to create an Oscar-worthy interplay of moods among supermarket employees. From indifferent to interested to reserved to alarmed. The closer she came, the more she built up a defence mechanism.
‘There’s a rotten fruit in the apricot skin,’ the customer complains, holding up the spoilt specimen for all to see. It’s as if she’s the prosecutor in an American courtroom series and wants to convince the jury with this piece of evidence. The defence’s response, here in the form of the employee, is great: ‘It’s not my fault’.
In the meantime, the audience grows in number and watches the play, which takes on the quality of an amateur drama, spellbound.
‘That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to point it out to you. There have been a lot of cases of rotten fruit in the bowls recently.’ ‘You don’t have to take the peel, just get a new one.’ ‘That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to point it out to you. So far I’ve only realised it at home and then it was too late.’ ‘But you could have replaced the bowl the next time you went shopping, that wouldn’t have been a problem.’
I’ll spare you the rest of the story, but not a few thoughts on the theatre at the checkout:
1. Why are employees, in this case it obviously was, not professionally and consistently prepared for such situations? It’s only a matter of time before a complaining customer stands in front of you… you want to be prepared. Even stand-up artists don’t just get up on stage without being well prepared.
2. The reaction to annoyed, stressed customers is too often defence or counter-attack. Neither is effective. Nobody, on the other hand, can defend themselves against charm.
3. Hardly anyone knows the background, which is why customers react the way they do. With a few exceptions, attacks are rarely personal, but they can become personal in the heat of the moment. ‘Of all things, that’s annoying. I’m sorry there’s rotten fruit in your bowl. I apologise for that. Can I get you a fresh bowl?’ This or a similar response would probably have settled the case and the customer’s pulse would have quickly returned to normal. The comment on the repeated incidents would not have been an attack, but would have been understood as feedback and assistance with an obvious problem in quality control. Customers want to help if you let them.
4. Customers who complain are worth their weight in gold. The second worst case is customers who say nothing and never come back. Even worse are customers who don’t tell you anything, never buy again and share the negative experience with everyone else around them.
Sure, it’s easy to give tips from the audience. But when you’re on stage yourself, it’s more challenging. This is precisely why it is useful to prepare yourself and your team for tricky situations.
Best wishes, Ralph Hubacher