Employees’ attitudes affect customers

We’ve all heard the phrase, “the customer is always right.” Even when the customer may be mistaken, the employee is supposed to fulfill his or her request while maintaining a friendly demeanor. That’s just the way the customer service industry works. If you want to keep customers coming in the door, then you have to keep them happy.
Unfortunately, this idea of quality customer care seems to be slipping in various establishments. A lot of places I go, it appears that the workers simply could not care less about their job. And as a result, they don’t care about the consumer’s needs or about making a sale.
Service industry jobs are just short term for a lot of people. High school and college students tend to make up a large part of this employee base while they are working on getting their “real job.” Just because you know you are not going to be working at a certain job for the rest of your life does not mean that it’s acceptable to perform poorly while you are there.
It’s frustrating to encounter such a worker, because as a consumer, you are paying for his or her service and in a lot of cases are expected to tip, yet that employee is perfectly fine with letting you leave unsatisfied.
Take pride in your job! Don’t do it halfway just because you may have a manager that will never reprimand you. At some point in your life doing the bare minimum, or even less than that, is not going to be good enough. If you practice sloppy work habits now, how do you expect to have the skills or references needed to get a real job?
You may be having a bad day, but you are being paid to make someone else’s better. Don’t bring them down with your sob story of the day. Find a way to project a positive attitude and do what you can to be helpful. If you were treated the way that you treat customers at your job, would you be happy? Would you be happy 100 percent of the time?
Now I have been on the flip side too. As a worker you come across some unreasonable customers that won’t be pleased no matter how hard you are trying. These situations will come along every once in a while, but you still can’t be rude. Just do your job to the best of your ability and if they still leave unhappy you know that it was not your fault.
It comes down to people putting in effort. It is so refreshing when someone goes above and beyond expectations, rather than not meeting them at all. Give your best from the moment the customer walks in, until he or she leaves.
Instead of thinking of ways to cut corners and leave work as early as possible, spend some time thinking of extra things you can do to please your customers. Have things ready before they have to ask. Give more information rather than leaving out parts you don’t think they need to know. Give them a deal when you can, instead of trying to upsell. It’s the little things that are easy to do, that will make customers want to give you their business.
Start caring. Consumers do take notice, and will remember how they were treated. The job you have right now may not be your lifelong career, but it is real, and your performance at work has a real affect on a lot of people. And hopefully in return, you will receive excellent customer service when you need it too.