Why Air Travel is So Unfriendly

Have you ever had a bad airline experience?

OK, I joke. Of course you have. We've all had one. The only people who haven't had a bad airline experience are the people who don't fly.

One of the big problems is a lack of civility. Flight attendant turned author, Heather Poole, recently lamented on her blog about the lack of civility passengers show towards flight attendants. She has a solid point, but the issue is much bigger than that.

Passengers are regularly subjected to rude treatment at nearly every step of their journey. It's not just rude flight attendants. Rude gate agents, TSA officers, and other airport employees can all sour the experience before we get on the plane.

No wonder the U.S. airline industry is one of the lowest rated industries on the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

This post examines why incivility is such a common part of air travel. And, it highlights a few things airlines (and airports) could do to improve things.

Sources of Air Travel Stress

Let's image a typical travel day. There's a lot of things that contribute to passenger stress. It starts with the airport arrival. 

Many airports are chaos. There's a calamity of cars, taxis, and shuttle busses jockeying for position. People cut each other off at slow speed. Infrequent visitors really clog things up as they block other traffic while trying to figure out where to go.

What can airports do here? Better traffic control is a solution. The traffic control officers at many airports are typically unfriendly and unassertive. It's a dangerous combination that leads to continued chaos while these folks sit idly by.

The next step is the check-in. Savvy travelers skip this part and check-in online or via a smartphone app and then use an electronic boarding pass. Checking a bag is to be avoided at all costs.

But, there are those of us who attempt to check-in via the kiosk. Here, passengers are often met with long lines full of anxious passengers. They're also met by airline employees who frequently seem overwhelmed by the stress of it all, or, they've long ago numbed themselves to the experience. Trust me, this rubs off on passengers.

What can be done? One solution is to give these airline employees special training on how to better assist passengers who use those kiosks. This would allow them to be more helpful and allow passengers to feel more confident. 

Getting through security is the next big hassle. TSA has lately come under fire for long lines. This causes stress to skyrocket as passengers worry about making their flight. 

The unfriendly and aggressive attitude displayed by many TSA officers only makes things worse. The typical TSA process involves someone who checks your ID, but steadfastly refuses to smile. Next, you are greeted with an officer who is barking instructions at people as they wait in line. To top it off, there's the process of taking off your shoes, emptying your pockets, and taking certain items out of your bag, only to reassemble the whole mess once you get through to the other side.

It's no wonder that passengers are on edge when they finally clear security. 

One immediate solution is for TSA officers to rethink their approach to passengers. Bark less. Help more. Seek out the confused travelers and offer some polite guidance while developing a friendly rapport with frequent travelers who don't need any assistance.

The gate is the next sore spot in the journey. People cluster around the gate like herded cattle, creating stress and tension all the way around. This creates an unpleasant situation where people in later boarding groups are inevitably blocking access to the gate for people in earlier boarding groups.

Part of the problem is the shear volume of boarding groups. (I counted six on a recent flight.) People crowd the gate well before their group is called. Another issue is gate agents tend to make their crowd control announcements over the intercom, rather than approach individuals directly to ask them to clear some space.

Southwest Airlines spares itself from this ruckus by having a clearly defined boarding process where every single passenger literally knows their place. While that's not feasible for every airline, some gentle assistance to get people organized can go a long way.

Boarding the plane itself is another exercise in incivility. Gate agents at many airlines rarely smile and say hello as they scan passengers' boarding passes. Flight attendants are so busy preparing for the flight that they often neglect to greet passengers as they board the plane. Passengers themselves are so worried about getting a space for their carryon baggage that they regularly jostle and bump each other.

Here, the fix isn't so easy. Heather Poole asked passengers to be more courteous to flight attendants. I agree. But, we all could stand to take a deep breath and be more courteous to each other. Flight attendants to passengers. Passengers to flight attendants. And, passengers to passengers.

What the Best Airlines Know

Take a look at the three airlines at the top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index:

• Jet Blue

• Southwest

• Alaska

All of these airlines consistently promote civility better than their competitors.

Their employees are more friendly. Gate agents do a better job of engaging passengers. Flight attendants do a better job of greeting passengers. 

They also tend to have better in flight experiences and better policies that make it less likely for passengers to get agitated in the first place.

Here's one specific example.

I fly Alaska Airlines a lot. The gate agent usually smiles and greets me by name as I board the plane. They get my name from my boarding pass, but it's a nice welcome.

I also fly one of their partner airlines a lot. On this airline, the gate agent doesn't even greet me two times out of three. I will smile and say "Hello" and they literally will not return my smile or my greeting. When this is a regular occurrence, it's hard to expect much friendliness on the flight.

How to Write a Customer Service Vision Statement

Updated: July 28, 2023

A customer service vision is shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page.

This guide will help you quickly write one.

You can also use this process to write other corporate statements:

• Mission

• Purpose

• Vision

I'm going to show you how to write a customer service vision (or mission, purpose, etc.) that your team can memorize instantly. It will act as a compass to constantly point your team in the right direction.

Generally speaking, it's best to have fewer of these statements. Employees can get confused when they have too many statements to memorize.

So you can also use this guide to combine several statements that you already have into a single customer service vision.

Most customer-focused organizations use their mission or purpose statement in place of a separate customer service vision.

You can see some of my favorite examples here.

While customer service and customer experience are different, I often use the terms “customer service vision” and “customer experience vision” interchangeably.

That’s because the process I follow creates a broad vision for customer experience, but can easily be applied to customer service.

Finally, if your employees work remotely, you can use this supplemental guide to facilitate the process via a virtual meeting.

Prepare to Write the Vision

You'll want to do a little prep work before you actually sit down and write the vision.

First, take a moment to explore what constitutes a customer service vision statement if you aren't familiar with one already. Here's a short primer that can help.

Key questions:

• Can you use an existing statement (mission, purpose, brand promise, etc.)?

• Are you writing a new statement or updating an existing one?

• What one corporate statement is most important for employees to know?

Answering these questions up front can save you a lot of headaches. Generally speaking, you want fewer corporate statements.

Next, determine your scope.

• Is the vision for an entire organization or just one team? (A word of caution for teams.)

• Who is your primary customer? The vision should focus on them.

The next step is to identify any existing work that might influence the new vision. This way, you are building on your existing culture. I like to gather any examples of current mission statements, customer service slogans, service standards, etc.

For example, if you're writing a customer service vision for your team, you might want to get ahold of your company's mission statement to help guide you.

Finally, you want to get your employees' input. Unless you work on a very small team, it's unwieldy to involve everyone in writing the actual vision statement. I've found the optimal group size for that is 7 - 10 people (more on that in a moment).

I get around this with a single survey question that goes to every employee:

What do you want our customers to think of when they think of the service we provide?

It's an open response question, so participants can type in whatever they please. Many survey programs (Survey Monkey, Google Surveys, etc.) make this very easy to do. Using a survey allows everyone to weigh in with minimal effort.

I then put all of the responses into a word cloud, which is a graphical representation of the words that people use most often. (You can use free software like FreeWordCloudGenerator.com to help.)

Here's an example from the Center For Sustainable Energy's Clean Vehicle Rebate Project. This team supports people who buy a car in California that qualifies for a rebate from the state. Take a look at their word cloud and see what phrases jump out at you.

Writing the Vision

Once you gather data, the next step is the write the vision.

The first step is gathering the right group of people to help you.

I've learned through trial and error that the optimal group size is 7 to 10 people. This is similar to the two pizza rule, which suggests that you should limit groups to the number of people that can be fed with two pizzas.

The group's composition is important. You can read my guide on selecting the team, but in general here's who I like to invite:

• At least one frontline employee. They keep it real.

• At least one senior leader. They provide authority.

• At least one mid-level manager or supervisor. They're the link between execs and the front lines.

⚠️ Facilitating this meeting takes skill and experience. It may also be helpful to use a professional facilitator.

There's an art and science to keeping a group like this moving efficiently. You have to create a safe space for people to share their ideas, while challenging the entire group to think outside the box. (Use this guide to determine if an outside facilitator is right for you.)

In the meeting itself, the goal is the write a simple customer service vision statement that meets these three criteria:

1. It's simple and easily understood.

2. It's focused on customers.

3. It reflects both who you are now and who you aspire to be in the future.

Meeting Agenda

Here’s how I like to structure the meeting:

1. Clarify objectives. Define a customer service vision and share examples.

2. Review data. Look at the word cloud and any relevant cultural artifacts.

3. Draft the vision. I find it’s best to split the group into two teams.

4. Capture examples. Share real work stories that represent the vision in action.

You can download this toolkit and find a complete agenda on page 4.

Real-Live Example

Let's go back to the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project team. They help their customers through the clean vehicle rebate process. As a group, they understood that customers expected things to be easy when they applied for a rebate. 

Here's what they came up with:

Make it easy to join the clean vehicle movement.

I also like to spend a part of this meeting discussing specific behaviors, examples, and stories that align with the vision. These will come in handy later when you explain it to people.

For example, after writing this customer service vision statement, the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project team redesigned their website and some of their processes to make it even easier for customers to apply for a rebate.

Caution: I’ve read a lot of uninspiring, generic vision statements. Here’s how to avoid that.

Sharing the Vision

You still have a few things to do once you write your vision.

First, you want to share it with a few key stakeholders to get their buy in. You aren't looking for any additional word smithing here, just a gut check that the vision makes sense and hasn't left anything out.

Here's where you want to get a mix of leaders and individual contributors to weigh-in since each group will have a different perspective. You know you've got a good statement if it immediately resonates.

Occasionally, this second group will spot something the initial group didn't. It might be a key word that's missing or needs to be replaced. This doesn't happen often, but it's good to be open to the possibility.

Next, it's time to communicate the customer service vision to the rest of the organization or team. My suggestion is to make sure that everybody can answer three questions:

1. What is the vision?

2. What does it mean?

3. How do I contribute?

It's helpful to have concrete examples to help people learn about the vision and remember it.

Get Help

Do you have questions or need extra guidance? Here’s how I can help:

1. Schedule a free, 30-minute call with me and I’ll walk you through it.

2. You can hire me to facilitate the process.

I suggest starting with a no-obligation call first. Click below to get it scheduled.

Bonus Resources

You are welcome to download my customer service vision worksheet to use as a guide.

The vision is just the starting point to developing a customer-focused culture. You can get a full plan from my book, The Service Culture Handbook. It’s a step-by-step guide to getting your employees obsessed with customer service.

Finally, see how creating a customer service vision is just the first step in your journey to a customer-focused culture by watching this short training video.

Guide employees with a vision from Leading a Customer-Centric Culture by Jeff Toister

What To Do When Customers Don't Follow Your Rules

The airport shuttle bus driver was exasperated.

She had a nice little system, but passengers weren't paying attention. They'd clumsily get in the way, as if they somehow knew better. Didn't they understand that she'd been doing this for 10 years?!

These passengers slowed everything down. Slowing things down was exasperating.

The driver's system was carefully planned. When she picked passengers up, she'd hop out and load their luggage into the bus for them. This allowed people to quickly take a seat without jockeying for position around the luggage rack. It also made sure that she could load the luggage rack just the right way to maximize it's capacity.

It worked the opposite way when she dropped people off. Passengers would exit the bus while the driver quickly off-loaded all the bags. This was much more efficient than everyone climbing all over each other to get to their own suitcase.

If only they'd listen. 

The driver muttered angrily under her breath. "I've been doing this for 10 years. I know what I'm doing. Don't they understand they're just slowing things down?!"

Perhaps you've been in a similar situation where customers don't follow your rules. Here's what to do.

Photo Credit: TheGabeC

Step 1: Question Your Rules

Some rules have no obvious benefit to your customers.

Stop thinking about yourself and your company for a moment. Shove aside what's convenient for you. See your rules through your customers' eyes.

Rules that don't directly and obviously benefit your customer are less likely to be followed. 

The shuttle bus driver didn't realize this. What seemed convenient to her seemed inconvenient to her passengers. That's because passengers don't care about the fastest way to load and unload the entire bus. 

They care about the fastest way to get themselves on and off the bus. 

You have two choices when rules don't obviously and directly benefit your customers. One option is to change or abolish the rule. That usually works just fine, except for situations when you can't because of a compelling reasons like regulations, safety, or fairness.

If you can't change the rule, then go to step 2.

Step 2: Clearly Explain Your Rules

Some rules aren't clearly explained.

Customers get confused easily. They don't listen when you want them to listen. They don't pay attention to what you think is important. 

That's because they have other priorities.

Passengers on the airport shuttle bus were worried about getting to and from the airport. They were anxious about their flight or getting to their rental car. Following the bus driver's unique system wasn't on their mind.

A lack of explanation caused problems for the bus driver. Instead, she literally snatched suitcases out of people's hands and said, "My way works much better." She sighed and muttered to herself at the slightest hint of resistance.

This felt confrontational. 

The shuttle bus driver would have been much better off if she had spent more time communicating her rules to passengers. She could have engaged people one-on-one by saying, "I can take care of your bag for you! Just come on board and make yourself comfortable!"

She could have made a warm and welcoming announcement on the bus's public address system to inform everyone that she'd be happy to unload everyone's bag for them, while explaining people would save a little time and trouble in the process.

Sometimes, a clear explanation is enough. Other times, you need to do more.

Step 3: Make Your Rules Easy to Follow

Rules can be difficult to follow.

Some aren't intuitive. Others are inconvenient. In some cases, it's tough to follow the rules when everyone else isn't.

Having rules that weren't easy to follow caused problems for the shuttle driver. Just think about what people normally do when riding an airport shuttle bus. The driver's rules went against the grain of what people were used to doing.

When a typical airport shuttle bus pulls up and opens its doors, people naturally file onto the bus and look for a place to stow their bags. Most people enter via the side door that's halfway down the bus because it's nearest the luggage rack.

That meant that by the time the driver got out of the driver's seat and started enforcing her rules, people were already herding themselves onto the bus and doing exactly what she didn't want them to do.

Of course, that brings us back to #1, where she might realize her rules weren't absolutely essential.

Putting It All Together

The airport shuttle bus driver is just one example, but her situation was instructive. Above all else, she got stuck seeing things through her own point of view and refused to look at her rules from her customers' perspective.

Think about situations in your own business where customers don't follow the rules.

• Can rules be abolished or changed?

• Can you explain rules more clearly?

• Can you make it easier to follow the rules?

These fixes can go a long way towards getting your customers onboard.

Why Your Customer Service Training Should Be Out of Sync

Carpool Karaoke is an amazing thing.

It's a popular segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is it's amazing how we can watch it.

My wife mentioned a recent episode that featured Gwen Stefani, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts. We were enjoying a lazy Sunday morning with my parents who were visiting for Mothers Day, so we decided to watch it.

That's the amazing part. 

The Late Late Show with James Corden airs weeknights at 12:37am. We didn't have to stay up that late. We didn't have to wait for a weeknight. We didn't even have to watch the rest of the show that led up to that segment. 

All we had to do was find it on YouTube.

That may not seem amazing at first, but think of all the other content we can consume the same way. For example, why can't we do the same thing for customer service training?

The notion that we need to sync up everyone's schedule to attend a training class at the same time seems so out of date. And, it certainly doesn't make sense to sit through a bunch of training you don't want or need just to get to the really juicy stuff.

That's why your training needs to be out of sync. 

The Synchronicity Challenge

Imagine you have 1,000 employees.

They're spread over 13 locations and work 3 different shifts. You can't just shut everything down and get all the shifts to come to one central location. So, how will you get them all together for training?

In the old days, classroom training was the default solution. This was a hassle because you'd spend a great deal of money on four big things:

• Paying employees to attend training

• Paying a trainer to facilitate multiple classes at each location

• Travel costs to get the trainer to all of the locations

• Covering the employees' shifts while they attended training

Webinars made things slightly better. Employees could tune in from their computers, so you could hold fewer sessions and didn't have to pay for the trainer to travel from location to location. Of course, there was a drop-off in training quality, but the savings was substantial.

This type of training is known as synchronous training.

This is where everyone attends training at the same time. It's great from a learning perspective because people can easily share ideas and contribute to each others' understanding of the topic. It's not so great because of the aforementioned logistics.

The Asynchronous Opportunity

E-learning promised to solve the synchronicity problem. 

The beauty of e-learning is it's asynchronous training. This means that people don't attend at the same time. They consume the training when it's convenient for them.

To relate this back to television, e-learning is kind of like your DVR. You don't have to tune in to watch your favorite show at a specific time. You can watch it when (and often where) you please.

This can help you save a lot of training dollars. 

You pay to create the training once, and then re-use it, so you don't have to keep paying the trainer for each class. It's also easier to work asynchronous training into employee schedules, since employees take the training at their own pace. That means you'll spend less on keeping your operation covered while employees attend training.

There are also a few downsides to many e-learning programs.

For one, they're boring. Many e-learning programs are nothing more than a monotone voice droning on over text-laden PowerPoint slides. Even the flashier e-learning programs make you sit through a lot of content you aren't necessarily into before you get to the good stuff.

Another problem is what happens next. How will participants get the support they need? Will they get a chance to share ideas with each other? Many e-learning programs lack this crucial element.

The Balanced/Blended Solution

Really good training often blends both asynchronous and synchronous elements.

To help explain this, let me go back to Carpool Karaoke. I viewed the segment asynchronously. But, I also viewed it with my parents and my wife, so we were immediately able to talk about it (which reinforced the memory). 

I've since talked about it with other people who watched the segment. Even though they watched it at a different time than I did, we still consumed the same content. 

Good training is often like this.

Imagine again that you had to train 1,000 employees in 13 locations spread over three shifts on how to better serve upset customers. You wanted to focus on giving them specific skills for diffusing customer anger.

Here's how you could blend both asynchronous and synchronous elements:

Step 1: Everyone watches Chapter 1 from the Working With Upset Customers training video on Lynda.com. This part of the course focuses on diffusing customer anger and finding a way to help them.

Step 2: Supervisors hold team meetings. The purpose is to lead a team-level discussion about the training video. Employees can discuss their key learning moments and make a commitment to apply what they learned. The conversation could take place in a regularly scheduled team meeting to minimize operational disruptions.

Step 3: Supervisors provide feedback. The goal here is to check-in with each individual employee to see how well they're using the new skills, and to provide additional feedback to help them continue their development. Supervisors could do this as part of the regular feedback sessions they're already holding with their teams.

The net result of this plan is effective training that costs less and has far fewer logistical headaches.

What the Heck is a Customer Service Vision?

I've written about customer service visions a lot on this blog.

More recently, I started calling them customer experience visions. (Here’s why.)

The customer experience vision the number one thing that companies need to consistently deliver outstanding customer service. My research into elite customer service organizations reveals that nearly all of these companies have one.

So, what the heck is it?

This post will give you a short primer on what it is, examples from leading companies, and tools you can use to create your own.

What is a Customer Experience Vision?

Let's start with a basic definition.

A customer experience vision is a shared definition of an outstanding customer experience that gets everyone on the same page.

In some companies, this is a standalone statement that's separate from other items like mission, vision, and values. In other companies, it's integrated into another statement.

Here are just a few things that can do double duty as a customer experience vision:

• Corporate mission statement

• Corporate purpose statement

• Corporate vision statement

• Corporate values

• Brand promise

• Customer service philosophy

• Customer service standards

Here's a great example from REI where the company uses it’s purpose statement as the customer experience visiont:

A life outdoors is a life well-lived.

This statement gives all REI employees clear direction on how they should do their work.

Imagine you are planning a big hike. The employees working in a typical sporting goods store would likely picture the hiking section if you asked them for help finding hiking gear.

Employees in this store focus on the stuff they sell, not customers. They don’t think about what the customer is trying to accomplish or what could help customers be more successful.

By contrast, walk into REI to get help planning for the same hike. Unlike the typical sporting goods store, REI employees are guided by their vision, “A life out doors is a life well-lived.” This is what REI employees picture:

This is me on top of Mt. San Jacinto, having a great time.

This hike was a new challenge for me. It was longer, at a higher altitude, more remote, and featured a wider temperature variation (50 degrees!) than I had ever encountered.

Fortunately, a helpful REI associate knew exactly how to prepare for a hike like this. He patiently guided me through the store and pointed out exactly what I needed. His advice, combined with resources on the REI website, helped me plan for the hike and ensured I had an amazing time.

What makes a great vision statement?

Good customer experience visions have three hallmarks:

1. The definition is simple and easily understood

2. It describes the type of experience you want your customers to have

3. It reflects both who you are now and who you aspire to be more consistently in the future

Take another look at the example from REI and you'll see how it fits the test. It's one clearly worded sentence. It implicitly focuses on customers. And, it's authentic because it represents who REI actually is today.

The reason a customer experience vision like this is so essential is that it gives every employee, from the CEO to the frontlines, a clear guide to follow. I like to refer to it as a compass that points people in the right direction. Without a compass, it's easy to get lost.

You can read more about the three hallmarks of a memorable statement.

Customer Experience Vision Statement Examples

Here are just a few examples from companies that are well-known for outstanding customer service.

The Ritz Carlton

We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

Southwest Airlines

The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.

L.L. Bean

Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings and they will always come back for more.

USAA

Service. Loyalty. Honesty. Integrity.

In-N-Out

Quality, Cleanliness, and Service

These examples are all a little different, but they all fit the three hallmarks of a strong customer experience vision. Imagine working for any of these companies and you can see how easy it would be to learn the vision.

Develop Your Own Customer Experience Vision

A customer experience vision is essential if you want your company to be customer-focused. 

It can also work on a team level, if your span of control is a department and you don't think the rest of the organization is ready to get on board.

You can use my step-by-step guide to help you create your own.

Here are a few more tools that can help you:

• Book: The Service Culture Handbook

• Website: Service culture resources

• Video: Leading a Customer Centric Culture

13 Reasons Why Customer Service Employees Don't Care

Updated: January 22, 2024

It's infuriating when a customer service rep doesn't care.

Isn’t that their job? They're supposed to help you out and make you feel better. So often they don't.

If you're upset, they answer with a shoulder shrug. If there's a problem, they say, "Yeah, I know," and then do absolutely nothing about it. You ask if something's in stock and their complete and final answer is, "I don't know, check over there."

There's no care. No hustle. No ownership. 

Why does this happen?

Let’s take a moment to get inside their heads. Look at things from the employees' perspective. You might not agree with their lack of caring (I don't), but you'll begin to understand. 

Here are 13 reasons why customer service employees don't care.

Reason #1: It's not a career

I was hired on the spot for my first contact center job. It wasn’t the job I wanted, but I needed a job right away. It was the one I could get. That's how many employees find their way into customer service. They don't have some grandiose vision of saving the world. They just need a paycheck. 

Reason #2: It's not their company

Customers look at the employee as a representative of the company. Employees often see it differently. They're paid by the company to do a job and you, the customer, can either make that job easier or harder. Check out this video gem from Randi Busse that explains what she calls the difference between an owner and a renter mentality.

Reason #3: There's no purpose

Smart companies create a strong customer service vision that defines their brand of outstanding service. It can create purpose and meaning for employees to help them think of their job as more than just a paycheck. Unfortunately, most companies haven't defined a customer service vision because they assume that great service is self-evident. (It's not.)

Reason #4: Poor fit

You probably know that not every employee is a great hire. The challenge is those poor hires end up serving customers. Imagine being in a job you don't like, working for a company you don't care about. That's a recipe for apathy. Smart companies create an ideal candidate profile to help them hire employees who will love their jobs. 

Reason #5: Incentives and Games

Managers often use incentives, games, and contests to motivate employees. It's based on the assumption that these employees need to be motivated. (They usually don't.) Unfortunately, these incentives create a distraction where employees care more about winning prizes than serving customers. They also create a disincentive to help customers in situations that don't contribute to earning an incentive. 

Reason #6: Rude customers

Customer service employees have to endure a lot of rude treatment. They're looked down on by condescending customers. They face the brunt of customers' anger, which can trigger an instinctive reaction to get away from that person. That's counter to what a customer service employee is supposed to do, but it's tough going to work every day and feeling like a punching bag.

Reason #7: Unpredictable schedules

Many customers service employees have their work schedules changed on a weekly basis. It's hard to explain how disruptive this is if you've never lived it. An unpredictable schedule creates child care issues, disrupts sleep cycles, and makes it impossible to make plans ahead of time. This amazing New York Times article profiles a Starbucks employee whose ever-changing schedule made life outside of work extremely difficult.

Reason #8: Misplaced priorities

Employees tend to understand something's importance by how often their boss talks about it. Unfortunately, many managers don't spend enough time talking about customer service. If the manager displays that sort of apathy, then it should be understandable when employees appear to be uncaring as well.

Reason #9: Blame

I recently wrote about a disturbing trend where companies blame their employees for poor service. A natural by-product of avoiding blame is to avoid taking risks. Employees tow the company line and become reluctant to bend the rules to help customers. This can come across as uncaring.

Reason #10: Disengaged co-workers

In my book, Getting Service Right, I wrote about Camille. She was a hotel associate who felt pressure from her disengaged co-workers to provide poor service. Sadly, this happens a lot in customer service. Employees aren't always aware that it's happening. So, one uncaring employee can lead to a whole bunch.

Reason #11: Broken systems

So much of customer service is outside the employees' control. Defective products, unfriendly policies, or a lack of coordination between departments can all make it hard for a frontline employee to help customers. Many employees lack the necessary empowerment. All of this adds up to create a feeling of learned helplessness, where employees perceive that any effort is futile so they stop trying.

Reason #12: Emotional labor

Emotional labor is the amount of effort it takes to display a certain emotion. If you're feeling happy, then it's easy to smile and show people you're happy. But, looking happy and friendly (key customer service emotions) becomes much more difficult when you don't actually feel that way. Over time, expending too much emotional labor can leave people feeling burned out.

Reason #13: Poor leadership

Customer service leaders must set a positive example for their employees. Many don't. They talk down to their employees. They treat customers indifferently. They think they're too busy to deal with customer service. (What the heck are they doing?) It's hard to ask an employee to be inspired if his manager isn't.

Solutions

There are many things you can do to inspire more caring among your customer service employees.

1. Create a customer service vision

2. Talk about service constantly so employees know it’s important.

3. Be a role model.

That last one is a gut-check. You can't expect employees to care unless you do, too.

Customer service leadership can be counterintuitive. My book, Getting Service Right, will help you identify 10 hidden obstacles that make it difficult for employees to be their best.

Get Chapter 1

Discover the reasons behind an employee’s odd behavior.

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Companies Are Trying to Blame Employees for Service Failures

Sandee gave the same speech to every customer.

"If you give me a 10 on the survey, the whole store gets credit. If you give me an 8 or less, I'll get in trouble."

This was a classic case of survey begging. It was annoying and inauthentic, but it was easy to understand why she did it. Sandee was try to avoid getting some heat for anything short of a top tier survey score.

This is an example of a corporate blame system. The frontline employee is set up to take the fall for anything that goes wrong, even if it's out of her control.

It's a disturbing trend. 

The Blame Game

Surveys are a common tool used against employees.

Employees like Sandee face sanctions if they're named in a survey that's anything short of spectacular. A car salesman recently told me he received a customer survey full of glowing comments, but the overall rating was an 8 out of 10. The salesman's reward was getting some of his commission docked for the "poor" survey result.

Company PR teams like to blame employees too.

Two years ago, a Comcast customer recorded the cancellation call from hell. He spent ten minutes trying to cancel his service while the Comcast rep continuously badgered him about keeping his account. 

Predictably, Comcast's PR strategy was to blame the employee for the incident. I took a closer look and discovered it wasn't the employee's fault. Comcast had intentionally designed a system that made it hard for customers to cancel and then hired a team of Retention Specialists who were trained and incentivized to prevent cancellations.

In another example from 2015, protesters lined up outside an Arby's in Florida after an employee allegedly refused to serve a police officer. It turned out the officer wasn't refused service, and the store manager was fired for creating an unfortunate incident. Yet, somehow, the exonerated employee was still suspended.

Is It Fair to Blame Employees?

Sometimes, the answer is yes.

Let's draw a line between unacceptable, lone-wolf behavior and the behavior you'd naturally get when you put an employee is a difficult situation or don't give the employee the resources or empowerment to help their customers.

Recently, a Starbucks employee (called Partners at Starbucks) typed "Diabetes here I come" on a customer's drink label. It made national headlines and caused the company a lot of embarrassment.

This is clearly unacceptable behavior. Kudos then to Starbucks for issuing a statement that still spoke to collective responsibility:

“We strive to provide an inclusive and positive experience for our customers, and we're disappointed to learn of this incident. We are working directly with the customer to apologize for his experience, and with our partners (employees) to ensure this does not happen again.”

Of course, there are many times when it's not fair to blame the employee. 

Don Peppers recently reported that Delta Airlines was asking customers to rate their phone service reps with a single question: Would you hire this person?

The problem is a customer can easily direct their anger towards a hapless customer service rep. Flight delays, cancellations, lost baggage, exorbitant flight change fees, and a myriad of other issues are all beyond the agent's ability to control. 

Granted, a terrific customer service rep might be able to turn things around despite all those obstacles. Perhaps the employee can learn to be more successful in these challenge situations, but blaming them when they fall short takes it too far.

Why Companies Blame Employees

The big picture is PR. 

They'd like the public to view any service failures as the work of a lone wolf rather than a systematic issue. Companies that use this tactic are depending on us customers not being able to see through this charade.

There's also another reason that corporate executives may not realize. I call it the intermediary problem. It's something that I discovered while conducting research for my book, Service Failure.

The intermediary problem suggests that it's easier for us to treat someone else poorly if we do it through an intermediary. 

For example, a 2009 experiment by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University gave subjects $10 to share with a partner. They found that subjects shared an average of $1 less when they used a intermediary (i.e. an employee) to determine how much to share.

Here's a real life example of the intermediary problem that's happened to many customer service teams. 

A customer service executive is contacted by a furious customer. The executive feels bad about the situation and promises to make it right. The executive passes the case to a customer service manager and demands swift action.

What the executive never realizes is that the customer's problem was caused by staffing cuts that the executive had made to save money. The executive didn't think about the thousands of customers those cuts would affect because those customers were served by intermediaries (i.e. employees). The executive did care about the one furious customer because that person contacted the executive directly.

The Solution

All of this leads to a simple solution.

Executives need to spend time on their frontlines. They need to talk to customers directly. They should spend time listening to frontline employees who serve customers everyday.

Then, and only then, can they truly understand the obstacles their employees face. That will make it much more difficult to throw employees under the bus.

The Undeniable Power of Using Experts to Get Better Service

Coppa seemed all wrong.

It's an Italian tapas restaurant in Boston's South End. That's a neighborhood I avoided when I had lived there in the 90s.

They didn't have any reservations available. My wife and I didn't like that uncertainty. We had other things we wanted to do that night and didn't want to get stuck waiting for an hour.

It was tiny. I've been in a lot of tiny places in Boston. Tiny usually equals cramped, crowded, and unpleasant.

Coppa turned out to be perfect.

They had amazing food, a wonderfully cozy atmosphere, and great service. The restaurant was crowded, but they found a comfortable spot for us at a small bar looking out the window.

We never would have gone there if we had relied on Yelp. Good thing we asked an expert instead. When it comes to getting great service experiences, a knowledgeable person is still the go-to option.

The Limits of Yelp and AI

Yelp makes recommendations based on two things: algorithmically-culled recommendations of an anonymous crowd and the searcher's ability to enter appropriate search criteria.

It generally does a good job. 

Just last week, I was traveling and needed to find a place to get a haircut. Yelp was able to narrow down my search to a few highly rated places that were all within walking distance of my hotel. A quick scan of the reviews helped me pick a winner. It worked out well.

But, there are a few problems with how Yelp delivers its recommendations.

First, how do I know that the anonymous crowd shares my interests and tastes? Coppa has over 500 Yelp reviews and a strong four star rating, but I really don't know who is rating them. 

There's been plenty of times when the crowd has absolutely loved something that I just couldn't get into. For example, I've tried many times to love The Godfather movies and still don't like them.

The second problem with Yelp is the user. It's limited by whatever search criteria you use. So, if you decide to exclude the South End, then Yelp won't recommend anything in that neighborhood. That's why Coppa didn't appear in my Yelp search.

The problem, of course, is customers often don't know exactly what they want. Or, they think they do, only to be delighted later on by an option that didn't fit their criteria at all.

I experienced a similar challenge when I tried to use IBM Watson to pick out a jacket. Watson was limited by the search criteria I thought matched my needs. I received better service from an in-store sales associate who could interpret my criteria and think laterally to suggest options I hadn't considered.

The Power of Experts

My friend, Patrick Maguire, had suggested Coppa. 

Patrick knows a lot about restaurants in Boston. He writes the popular I'm Your Server, Not Your Servant blog about hospitality service. He also consults with Boston-area restaurants on PR, promotions, and hospitality. I definitely consider him an expert.

I had told him my wife, Sally, and I were looking for a place for dinner. He asked a few thoughtful questions that led to his recommendation.

Patrick used his extensive knowledge of area restaurants to make his suggestion. He used his perceptiveness to interpret my criteria and understand what was truly important to us. And, he used his relationship with me to effectively persuade me that things I saw as obstacles (South End, no reservations, etc.) weren't really obstacles at all.

Yelp couldn't do that. 

The other thing that Yelp couldn't do is validate my choice. Getting some insider information makes me feel good. Heck, look at the title of my blog and you can tell this is something I obviously value.

Accessing Experts

I wrote a little about connecting with experts in this blog post about Do-It-Yourself Learning. 

Chances are, you know a lot of people who are an expert in one thing or another. The thing I've learned is you have to approach them directly.

So, if I had made a general post on Facebook asking for restaurant recommendations, I might have gotten several suggestions from well-meaning friends who may or may not have been on-target. If I was lucky, Patrick would have seen my post, but there's a good chance he wouldn't have. 

The direct approach worked much better. I went to him because he's an expert in that area.

This means you have to think about who's in your circle that knows something about what you know. Check up on your friends' profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks if you can't remember who knows what.

Employees are often experts too.

They've received specialized training. They spend a lot of time answering questions and familiarizing themselves with their company's products and services. And, I can tell you that most customer service employees love getting the chance to share their knowledge.

This means your restaurant server knows the inside scoop on how menu items really taste. A retail employees knows the ins and outs of their products.

As I noted in a recent blog post, self-help tools like Yelp are gaining in popularity, but employees (and your friends) still hold the edge when it comes to nuanced or complex requests.

Spot the Customer Ownership Mentality Before It's Too Late

Customers think they own things they really don't.

It's an instinctive thing. I first noticed this quirk of human nature years ago as a customer service trainer. Whenever I'd facilitate a multi-day class, people would invariably return to the same seat on day two.

Seats weren't assigned. It's just that people felt it was their seat.

Participants would even get a little uncomfortable if they arrived to find someone sitting where they had sat the day before. No reasonable person could lay claim to that seat, but you could tell they secretly thought it belonged to them.

I've since noticed this in many customer service situations. Here's an overview along with some tips on handling it.

Hey! That's My Seat

The seat issue happened on a recent Southwest Airlines flight that was delayed because of weather. Southwest doesn't have assigned seating, but that didn't stop people from thinking they owned their seat.

The flight crew handled flight delay very well. They made an announcement and told us it would be awhile. We could de-plane if we wanted to. Most people did.

A few people from our flight were re-booked on different flights so they wouldn't miss their connection. Other passengers from later flights joined ours. This meant the passenger mix was slightly different when everyone re-boarded the plane.

Per Southwest's open seating policy, the new passengers sat wherever they found an agreeable open seat. Of course, this often meant they chose to sit where someone else had been sitting before we de-planed because of the weather delay.

I could hear more than a few passengers exclaim, "Hey! That's my seat!"

Seats weren't assigned, but passengers felt they owned the seat by virtue of having sat there first. Some displayed some genuine distress despite the frequent and gentle reminders from the flight crew that Southwest Airlines has open seating.

Other Ownership Examples

There are other situations where customers can think they own things they really don't.

It happens when customers are assigned dedicated account managers. They start to develop a relationship with that person. They think their account manager is their account manager.

Trouble can happen when that account managers leaves the company or some accounts need to be re-assigned or re-distributed. Customers get upset. They feel slighted. Often, their business follows the account manager to the new company.

Perks are another great example. 

It's tired news that airlines have made people unhappy by taking away inflight meals. What people conveniently forget is that nobody liked those meals! They were the target of universal disdain. Comedians made a living by poking fun at how bad airplane food was.

But, now that they're gone, we feel slighted.

My local hardware store used to offer customers free bags of freshly popped pop corn. One day, the popcorn machine was gone. A store employee explained that they had to get rid of the popcorn because of some sort of health code issue (apparently, you need a permit or something - I didn't fully understand it, but it sounded reasonable). It made sense what the store had to do, but customers were disappointed.

At the grocery store, try shopping out of someone else's shopping cart and see how they like it! (Just kidding - don't try that.)

Prevent The Ownership Problem

There are a few things you can do to prevent the customer ownership mentality from causing service failures.

The first thing you should do is get proactive. Identify situations where this is likely to impact your customers. Create a plan to ease the pain.

The second thing you should do is set clear expectations.

The Southwest Airlines flight crew did a great job of continuously reminding people that the flight featured open seating. This prevented the ownership issue from getting worse.

If you have dedicated account managers, make sure your customers get to know a few other people. This might include other support staff or a back-up account manager who can help out if the regular person is on vacation or out sick. Setting up multiple relationships will ease the transition if their favorite account manager leaves the company or is re-assigned.

The final thing you should do is avoid taking something away from a customer that they are likely to think is theirs.

That means keeping perks in place whenever possible. Or, if you have to take something away, give customers something better in exchange.

Squarespace is a great example of this. They provide cloud-based software that makes it easy to create websites.

A few years ago, they upgraded their platform. This upgrade had many new features, but existing users had to convert their websites to the new platform to take advantage of those new features. 

Squarespace's remarkable decision was to continue supporting the old platform indefinitely while giving existing customers the option to upgrade their website to the new platform at no charge.

They gave, without taking away.

How To Assist Customers With Self-Service Kiosks

Note: This is a revised version of a post that originally appeared in 2014.

It's weird to see an employee standing by a self-service kiosk.

These kiosks are, by design, intended to be self-service. They're supposed to be cheaper than the humans they replace when it comes to handling basic transactions. 

(Side note: Check out this recent blog post on who is better at service, Employees or Robots?)

The reality is customers often need extra help, especially if they are a first-time user or use the kiosk infrequently. 

You see this at the airport where a mass of infrequent travelers are trying to check-in for their flights. It happens at the post office, where a postal worker is available during busy periods to help people figure out how to buy their postage from the machine. You also see it at the grocery store where there's usually one employee stationed in between a bank of four self-serve check-out lanes.

Unfortunately, the employees assigned to help customers use kiosks are rarely given any training on how to do this.

There really is an art to it. Do it wrong and you'll annoy your customers and actually slow things down. Do it right and you've convinced another person to join the self-service revolution.

Here are three steps employees should follow:

Step 1: Ask

The first step is to ask customers if they’d like assistance. Never assume they need or want your help.

It can be seen as an annoying intrusion if you just start offering assistance. Many times, your customers already know how to use the kiosk. Or, they'd really prefer to figure things out on their own.

You can even make it sound like an invitation.

When the Portland International Airport installed kiosks outside their parking garage to allow customers to pay for their parking, employees were stationed by the kiosks to help out. They invited customers to save some time by paying for their parking right there.

This embedded a clear customer benefit inside their offer of assistance.

Step 2: Guide

Avoid pushing buttons.

If a customer would like some help, guide them through the transaction using verbal directions and pointing to the appropriate buttons. This approach incorporates a basic tell, show, do learning approach into a mini-training lesson on how to use the equipment.

• Tell: give the customer verbal instructions

• Show: point to the correct button on the kiosk or visually describe it's location

• Do: have the customer complete the transaction themselves

Two bad things can happen when employees operate the kiosk for the customer.

The first bad thing is it can be rude. I've experienced this several times where an aggressive employee just cuts in front of me and starts pushing buttons faster than I can even read the screen.

The second bad thing is operating the kiosk for the customer prevents the customer from learning how to use it. That means they'll likely need help again the next time around.

Step 3: Encourage

The final step is to encourage the customer. Making sure they have a pleasant self-service experience is key to getting them to do it again.

This can mean the difference between self-service kiosks taking off or being neglected. My local post office provides a great example.

During busy times, a postal employee is stationed in front of their self-service kiosk. He or she invites people over to try the machine, but this same employee frequently sabotages the process. The employee takes over each customer's transaction, shooting out rapid-fire questions and pushing buttons before the customer really understands what's going on.

Confusion and anxiety are apparent on most customers' faces. The self-service kiosk isn't a pleasant experience for them. 

Meanwhile, the employee adopts an aggressive attitude. It's clear their top priority is to process each transaction as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, their lack of encouragement actually slows things down.

This spills over to slower times. There is almost never someone using the kiosk when I go to the post office. People would rather wait in line because it's less stressful.

Meanwhile, I cruise over to the kiosk and complete my transaction in less than a minute. With nobody there to push my buttons, using the kiosk is a breeze.