How to demotivate your employees

Worst case of customer service I have ever seen and it happened to me.  

Sunday morning, a long leisurely walk down to the river and coffee - a perfect start to our day...or so we thought. We paid our money, was given a table number and we chose to sit by the waters edge....some 45 minutes later - still no coffee. So I volunteered to go and see what the hold up was...

The reception I received was less than hospitable - the person making the coffee picked up the receipts and slammed them down in front of one of the wait persons - mumbling - "Oh no, not again" she proceeded to go through them. Unfortunately she didn't find it, so then I was glared at and told to go and sit down - a non-verbal accusation of being a liar and a cheat. What was wrong of course, was there were no systems and checks in place, the procedure was faulty - but both the wait person and myself were made to feel that we were in error. She may have been, it may have been her first day on the job,. Who knows - what I do know is that after being told a third time to go and sit down - to which I replied "I heard you the first time" - I was stunned and appalled by the behaviour. The person making the coffee may have been the owner, she may have just been a fellow employee of the waitperson she had just humiliated. But it doesn't matter, the damage was done, and it got worse.

After a life time of working in the customer service industry, there is always one rule, be polite, followed by - be sincere. The "thank you for your patience" we received when the coffee was finally delivered was both rude and sarcastic, compounding error with error.

Every day we are given one chance to make a difference to the way other people's lives turn out. We have the power with both words and deeds to make someone's life a joy or an absolute misery.  The error that the staff at this particular establishment then made, was that I was a tourist and not a local....

Does this sound like I am going to be vindictive? Absolutely not, but I have sent a note to the management this morning, and advised them to employ people who a) want to work b) enjoy what they are doing because if you don't, you are likely to get staff treating customers with a little less than respect. And worse still treating their colleagues badly too.

Everyone who works with you and for you can make a massive difference to way your business is run, and ultimately the profits you make. It doesn't matter if it's the cleaning staff, or the CEO if you have a problem in one area I can almost guarantee you will have problems throughout the organisation.

So, how do you know if you have a problem? Well turnover of staff is one of the biggest clues. If you don't pay people according to the current levels, they will find a job that does. If the conditions they work in are not good they will find one that is, but if the people who work together have no idea how to treat each other with respect, then you will have people leaving in droves.

As with all things in life, you cannot change another person's behaviour you can only change your own. If you have any say in how your business is run - hint - you all have a say in how the business performs, then lead by example. If you want people to be surly and rude towards you and your customers, then be surly and rude to them. If you want to be taken seriously then you need to look at your own actions and lead by example.

(MMO1)
 
 
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