Do You Stand Behind Your Employees?
A friend shared the following email that she sent to the individual responsible for Customer Service at Danier Leather in Toronto.
I am taking a few moments to email you about the poor customer service I received today at approximately 12.30 pm in your Eaton Centre store.
I had gone in on my lunch hour to purchase a pair of gloves. Once I found the pair that I wanted to purchase I stood in line for a cashier. I was pleased to find out that if I surrendered my email today I would be able to take advantage of the 20% discount being offered.
For a while there was only one cashier, so the line was long and slow. Then a second person started serving, however I had already stood in line for approximately 10 minutes.
That is perhaps not a long time on a usual occasion, however due to illness in my office, we were short staffed so I was anxious to get back to the office.
I approached a sales associate and asked if I might be able to get her to hold the gloves and I would be back in just after 5 pm. She took the gloves from me and asked my name to which I gave her the information, and then the store manager came over and told the staff member (disregarding me standing there) that she could not hold the gloves. No apology was offered by either person.
I don’t know why, if this was the policy, that this staff member had not been informed. My contention is that she had already accepted my request, and that in good faith and good customer service, in this instance, the store manager should have obliged.
So you not only lost a sale today, but also my email address on your mailing list.
I am not looking for any special treatment, but I wanted you to be aware that your company has left a bad impression on a long time customer.
My Perspective: Clearly this store manager is neither customer-focused or a very strong leader. The lessons learned by this employee — who seemed to have been prepared to put the customer first — is that all future decisions should be made in the absence of any regard for customer satisfaction.
Secondly, they learned that in future, anything that is not standard operating procedure require approval from the store manager.
Both of these attitudes are a death knell for a customer service business. Regardless of your employee decision, if it’s good for the customer and doesn’t harm the company, stand behind their decision. Then if they need coaching, take them aside and provide that direction at a separate time.
Not only did they lose a customer that day — but the lessons learned by the sales associate will surely cost many more lost sales in the days to come.
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