Welcome Message,
Welcome to EDIQ! a new resource for Diversity and Inclusion. This magazine will be a vehicle for cutting edge news and views and will give help and support to dealing with pressing diversity issues. Thank you for taking this journey with us! EDIQ gives Roianne and me the chance to help companies serve a previously sidelined section of their customer base. We look forward to sharing our knowledge and to hearing from you- your stories and your solutions. Editions of this magazine will be e-mailed to you(please subscribe) or you can find us on Facebook and on Twitter. Today's insight comes from Natasha, one of the founders of EDIQ. You can be part of a majority in one region, move, and become part of a minorty as was my experience moving from the Caribbean to North America. It totally changed my perception of myself. Diversity covers a very wide spectrum, versus a few years ago when diversity meant being female, or being disabled, or being a minority, in some cases diversity can cover being male. In many cases diversity and minority can mean the same thing. As business owners, you are expected to deal with me - your diverse customer, and diversity in it's entirity. Being supportive of diversity is good business, it also improves your bottom line and it also allows you to maximise efficiency in the workplace. (It's simply the right thing to do, but more on that later.) Today I will look at diversity from a mental health perspective, in another article, I look examine diversity from an ethnic point. With approximately 15% of the world’s population living with a disability, chances are high that you'll encounter a customer with a disability. The topic of disabilities and customer service is an interesting one. I wrote this article while looking at it through two main points: -How best can you serve them? -Is there a way you can make their experience so wonderful, that they will want to come back? Diversity and Mental Health. My interest in Diversity and Inclusion arose from an experience while at lunch. Standing in line in one of my favourite spots for a quick, healthy, inexpensive meal, a customer and a server got into a verbal spar. For simplicity, let’s call the customer John and the server Tom. John was standing in line with his son and was about to pay for their order. John asked for a serving of salsa to accompany his meal. Tom replied, “Here you are sir.” with a smile while handing the salsa to John. Music was playing in the background, I was tapping my foot, the weather was great. Everyone was happy. “This is not salsa! I spent time in Mexico. I know salsa” replied a now belligerent John. “I want the one behind the counter, not this one. The one behind the counter.” He continued. Tom’s expression changed. His smile became forced. He tried handing John the salsa from behind the counter; while replying “It is the same salsa sir, but I would be happy to give you extra servings.” John was not to be mollified. He started “This,” pointing to his salsa, “is not salsa. I spent time in Mexico, I know salsa. I want the one from behind the counter. The good one.” By now everyone in the restaurant had stopped eating and was staring. I clutched my purse and started backing away from John and looking at the nearest exist.” John’s son was with him, and he had started to look uncomfortable. The kitchen staff had stopped their chores and were observing the situation. The customer was upset, the staff were upset, the patrons were upset, I was upset. Every person in the restaurant was upset. Tom, left his station to go get more salsa for John with simmering resentment. He returned with a different serving of what was clearly the same salsa and handed it to John. John, now mollified, took his salsa and found a table. I stepped up ready to pay for my order, when Tom stated, “It is the same salsa.” in a low churlish voice, which other servers heard. They rolled their eyes, and another server, repeated “It is the same salsa!” while customers including Tom and his son sat less than 5 feet away. Glancing around the restaurant, I could see that people had not resumed eating, and were clearly still uncomfortable. I leaned into Tom and quietly said “You can de-escalate this.” To which he mutely stared at me. I was sure that he had no idea what I meant. I imagined the stories that everyone would re-tell. I sat at a table outside, away from John, and pondered about what had just happened and recalled a story that motivational speaker Zig Ziglar told- Who is pulling your cat? Here's an excerpt of that story: Mr. B was the top dog in a very large company. Every morning, he met some of his buddies for breakfast. One morning, he lost track of time, looked at his watch, and realized he was going to be late for work. He left the restaurant and jumped in his car. He barely had the engine started when he threw it in reverse to back out. He burned rubber leaving the parking lot. As he got on the freeway, he put the pedal to the metal and took off. As he sped down the highway, he looked in his rear-view mirror. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the flashing lights. He pulled over and rolled down his window. “Where are you going in such a hurry,” the officer asked. “I need to get to work,” he replied abruptly, “I’m a very important man,” declared Mr. B “Well, you’re not above the law,” the officer said. “I didn’t say I was … but shouldn’t you be chasing real criminals and leave me alone?” That was the wrong thing to say, because the officer replied, “I’ll leave you alone in a few minutes. Let me see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance.” Mr. B handed him the requested information. Then he sat there and stewed. As the minutes passed by, he got more and more angry. The officer came back and handed Mr. B a ticket, along with the rest of his documents. Mr. B grabbed them out of the officer’s hand, rolled up his window, and took off down the road. By the time Mr. B finally arrived at work, he was very unhappy about how late it was. The first person he saw was his sales manager. “Good morning, Mr. B” said the sales manager with a smile. “There’s nothing good about it,” barked Mr. B, “I want to see you in my office NOW!” The sales manager followed him into his office, and Mr. B threw his coat down on the couch, obviously peeved. “You fell short of your goal last week for the second week in a row. I want to know what you’re going to do to get back on track and I want to know now.” “Mr. B,” the sales manager objected, “We just talked about this yesterday. We have four big deals. Any one of them will put us over the top and I’m sure we’ll get at least one of them.” “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Mr. B blurted out while looking at some papers on his desk. “You’re dismissed.” The bewildered sales manager walked back to his office, and promptly yelled at his assistant for not having the documents ready for him to sign, despite the fact he’d just given them to her. The assistant stormed out into the lobby, threw the pile of documents on the receptionist’s desk and said “I need these typed right now, and don’t go to lunch until they’re ready.” The receptionist arrives home, late because of the extra work she had to do, that wasn’t even part of her job. She sees her twelve-year old son, pants pocket torn, lying on the floor in front of the television, and she lays into him. “I work hard all day to buy you clothes, and I get home from work and see you’ve torn another pair of jeans, and all you do is lie around the house. I would appreciate a little help around here. No more television for you…go to your room.” Muttering to himself about the unfairness of it all, the boy heads to his room, when the family cat unwisely chose that moment to cross his path. The boy kicked the cat and sent him scurrying from the room. Ziglar always ended that story by asking, “Wouldn’t it have been better if Mr. B had simply gone to the assistant’s home and kicked the cat himself?” Everyone involved would have had a very different experience if he had done that. In real life, if it difficult or even impossible to pinpoint where things go awry and why they go awry, as was the case with John and Tom; John potentially ruined Tom’s day, John may have ruined the day for many members of staff, and while my day was not ruined, I have not gone back to that restaurant in months. I haven't gone back because of Tom. Tom offered poor customer service and it affects my perception of the restaurant. I begun to see more interactions like the one between John and Tom. There were interactions in the library, in the supermarket, at the movie theatre. While I am not trying to diagnose John with having a mental health issue, there were other instances where it was clear that some customers were suffering with an issue; and I realised that customer service training marginalised customers with mental health issues! I noticed that when customers became confrontational, other customers responded by putting their goods down and exiting the area and the store. For example, imagine that you open the door to a restaurant and you hear voices raised in disagreement, most customers respond by closing the door and taking their business elsewhere. Even though they arrived with the intent to support that establishment. The same happened with the library, the movie theatre or any store. I arrived at two conclusions; 1. Customer service is not only a personal experience, judgement is based on the treatment of all customers, including diverse customers. So, when John receives untrained service from Tom, I have a negative memory of that place and I stop supporting that business. However, with training, we can change the way Tom reacted and therefore change the experience that customers have when a confrontation arises. 2. As a customer, I did not care why John was treated the way he was; I cared only that I was uncomfortable . Could the staff have been handled differently? Yes, they could have done things differently. Roianne and I can help in areas like this. If your business is customer facing, please get in touch. We are experts in building a brand that embraces Diversity and Inclusion. I hope that I gave you something to think about, and I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Natasha PS. Please join the conversation.
1 Comment
sunilb
10/15/2018 08:39:44 am
I enjoyed that extract very much. I realised that that is the norm in most workplaces and have observed it first hand. The first thing that came to mind as soon as I completed reading three quarters of the story was "Training". In any organisation there should be a Training Centre to train staff regularly especially in area customer service. While working in the Banking sector I was exposed to vaious Training programs from Customer Service to Communication and Time Management etc. There were external Training available also. There were invited Facilitators as well. I know the importance of Training and the impact on both Customer and Seller.
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