Norma Seymour was the Senior Vice President of Service Delivery for Cayman National, in the Cayman Islands. I loved how descriptive her title was … Service Delivery. Ms. Seymour took her job and title very seriously and did everything she could to help everyone in her organization deliver … as she put it … “DELIGHTFUL” customer service.
Before I go any further, I should note, there are several books of excuses. There is Garfield's Book of Excellent Excuses, Excuses for Dummies, The Little Book of Big Excuses, The Book of Big Excuses, Complete Excuses Handbook, and my favorite title ... 1,001 Excuses for How to Get Out Of and Away With Anything.
I decided to do a little research on how our thinking changes as we mature. Now, maturity doesn’t necessarily come with age. It should … but it doesn’t. I once read … “Maturity isn’t proportional to age. Some people develop early, some develop late, and some never develop at all.” The definition of maturity is the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner. This response is generally “learned” rather than instinctive. You would hope as you grow older you would grow wiser … but, as Ann Landers once said, “Maturity isn’t a product of growing older, it’s a product of growing wiser.”
That is what their customer service representative said to me: “We can’t do anything about it.” Did the person who made that statement understand the full consequences of what they just said? Did they understand an eleven-year relationship was getting ready to be terminated? I’ll give you an even better question than that … Did they really care? What does that statement really mean? What is that person really saying to us? Mr. or Ms. Customer … “Good luck. You’re on your own” … “You are just going to have to deal with it.”
I recently did a program at a beautiful hotel where the customer service at the front desk was poor. I was thinking to myself how important it is to treat ALL customers with respect and efficiency. So, I did some research and came across some old notes of mine from years ago, finding a story that I thought was worth sharing with you on that subject. I must give one caveat about the story … this was before the arrival of the internet, where information is now so easily attainable.
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November 20, 2022
by Robert Stevenson