Have you ever been waiting in line at, let’s just say, a fast food restaurant and noticed that the staff seemed particularly busy? It’s something we’ve all experienced at least once in our lives, right?
Just the other day, I stopped by McDonald’s to get a cup of coffee before heading to work. I noticed that the drive-thru line was abnormally long, so I figured I’d park the car and go inside, while I let the engine warm up a bit. I walked into the restaurant and got in line. There were only two people ahead of me, so I figured this would be a routine transaction.
Boy, was I wrong!
The cashier was obviously new, and she was trying hard to manage without the help of her manager – who was rushing around trying to complete orders for the drive-thru line, which was only continuing to grow. The gentleman at the counter completed his order right as a group of five teenagers came in the door and took their place in line behind me. Doing what she was trained to do, the cashier smiled and kept taking orders.
It was at this moment that my trip to McDonald’s went from ordinary to educational.
The man who had just ordered went from Jekyll to Hyde in two seconds flat. He snapped his fingers twice at the cashier and said sternly, in a voice just shy of yelling , “Are you going to get our coffee or make us wait all day? We’re in a hurry here. Can’t you see that?!”
The cashier went from happy McDonald’s employee to a deer facing down certain doom in the form of a pair of high-beam headlights just as quickly as the guy had snapped. Another crew member came to her rescue with two cups of coffee for the man, and he was met with a few choice words meant to spoil his day.
After the man walked out, and I got my chance to order, I asked the cashier and her rescuer to stop for a moment. This is what I said to them, “I want to thank you for working hard to get me my order as quickly as you can! I appreciate it, and you guys are doing a great job this morning. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
The look on the employees’ faces brightened immediately, and I got my coffee upgraded free of charge by the manager, who was working the drive-thru window. To my surprise, the customer behind me gave the employees similar praise (but she didn’t get the coffee upgrade).
What happened at that counter was basically reverse customer service. At Incept, we talk a lot about our values – one of them being “Everyone’s a Customer.” Yes, I was the customer on that day at McDonald’s, but those employees were also my customer on a very basic scale of human relationships. I felt that I needed to tell them how good of a job they were doing, not because I wanted free coffee, but because it’s what they needed.
So the next time you start to think about how the team member at the fast food restaurant is taking too long, maybe you should remember that perhaps being the bright spot in their day could help them turn a difficult situation around. Customer service is a two-way street after all.
When have you engaged in reverse customer service? When have you experienced it?
I recently stopped in at a gas station that I frequent and overheard a cashier tell another patron that their rewards program had changed.
She gave him the brochure and explained the differences that were going into effect. The cashier waiting on me said, “Well, since you overheard that, I should probably give you one too. This is a much better program. It’s about time THEY did something for the customer.”
I walked away thinking, “Wow. How can someone take such a positive thing for their customers and turn it into a negative?” Somehow, this employee had gotten a really bad attitude. I was certainly glad that he wasn’t part of the Incept team! For some reason, that situation really stuck with me, and I began to realize that there are at least two important lessons here.
Lesson One
I think it’s fairly rare for an employee to come to the job with a bad attitude – at least to a new job. Most employees come into work wanting to do a good job. They want to succeed, and they want to make their bosses proud of them. Unfortunately, and all too often, employees lose that desire somewhere along the way. The magic moment when passion for quality begins to fade is (almost always) when the employee feels like management doesn’t care about the quality of their service. Accordingly, they feel that management doesn’t care about them as a person.
In the case of this cashier, I’m pretty sure that he didn’t create the bad attitude. I expect that his manager created it by treating him as a number rather than a human being.
Lesson Two
I came away from this with another lesson: When you’re on the front lines, dealing with the customer or the donor, the people who you interact with see YOU as a representative of the company.” You ARE the company in their eyes. There is no “you” and “them.”
The words that you use, the empathy and advocacy that you convey in your voice, and the professionalism that you bring to the interaction all formulate the donor’s (customer’s) opinion about the entire organization you represent. I can point to at least three recent studies that all concluded that the attitude of the front line employee is at least one of the top two determinants – if not the single largest determinant – of the donor’s (customer’s) future business. The most common reason why people take their business elsewhere is the poor attitude of a person who is, at any given time, the face of the company.
Managers
It’s probably not realistic to expect a mistreated employee to deliver an ideal customer experience. Employees have to feel valued and respected. That doesn’t mean that we have to baby employees and let them have their own way. We can certainly have good business rules in place to hold people accountable. 
We just need to treat them like we want and need to be treated.
The old “Command and Control” approach to management doesn’t cut it with today’s employees. CBS did an expose that concluded Boomers need to hear the message that they should be less of a boss and more of a coach. We need to become coaches and mentors. The very future of our businesses depends on it.
Customer Service Professionals
The next time you start to think negatively about the company and think you can distance yourself from the entity, you need to sit back and change your thinking. If you have challenges with the company, you need to have a candid conversation with your chain of command to offer suggestions on how to provide a better customer experience. Lose the “they” vocabulary. There is no “they.” When you talk with me, I think of you as the company.
Welcome to Your Values - Population: You
I am made up of my belief in the following values:
- A softness of heart
- Compassion
- Cooperation
- Creativity
- Dedication
- Friendship
- Generosity
- Honor
- Humbleness
- Humility
- Humor
- Integrity
- Kindness
- Loyalty
- Persistence
- Personal growth
- Pride
- Relentlessness
- Respect
- Teamwork
It might seem like a waste of time to define what beliefs your personality is based on, but you should try it. While you do, I challenge you to take an honest look at each value and ask yourself if you really live by it.
Be honest with yourself, and you might learn a thing or two about how you live your life.
Today we celebrate Veterans Day.
I can’t help but feel like there should be more than one Veterans Day each year. If it wasn’t for these brave men and women of our armed forces serving all of us in the most honorable way possible, the way of life we know today wouldn’t exist.
At work, I make it well known where I stand on the subject of respect when it comes to veterans: “Have it. Show it. Don’t forget it. End of story.” In honor of Veterans Day, I’ve decided to recognize a few of our own members of the Incept team who have served our country. Here they are:
- Steve Ray – Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army. Served from 1984-1998. Steve was on the Czechoslovakian border when the Berlin Wall came down during his 9 years in Europe. Steve also served in the first Iraq war.
- Shawn Brilsky – Petty Officer 3rd Class, U.S. Navy. Served from 1985-1988. Shawn proudly served on board the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier known as “The Big Stick” by her crew.
- David Shawver – Seaman, U.S. Navy. Served from 1987-1989. David worked with the famous Black Lions who flew F14 Tomcats.
- Carl Wolford – Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. Served from 2005-2007. During his time in the Marines, Carl spent time in many locations including Okinawa.
- Monik Vinson – First Sergeant, U.S. Army. Served from 1989-1997. Monik was a Supply Sergeant with “76 Victor” and spent time at Ft. McClellan in Alabama. Monik is very proud of the time she spent there, because Ft. McClellan was the home of the Women’s Army Corps before it closed in the late 1990s. She ended her time in the Army with the 645th Supply Unit based in Youngstown, OH.
Thank you to the members of our Incept family mentioned above for everything you have done to ensure we can live in a free country. You are heroes, plain and simple.
To the everyone else who has served our country, I want to say thank you. It is our honor to live in a nation protected by brave men and women like you.
In closing I’d like to leave you with this thought again, “Respect for our veterans… Have it. Show it. Don’t forget it. End of story.”
(In honor of all those who have served, please visit the Armed Services Blood Program website and see what they are all about.)
A long time ago in a land far far away, people who worked together treated each other with kindness and respect. Sadly those values are often lost in most modern work environments, but not at Incept.
I don’t remember what month it was when our President/Chief Results Officer, Sam Falletta, said it, but there are a set of standing orders in the contact center. They are, of course, unofficial and are more like guidelines to live by, but they’re also simple and important.
“Compliment someone everyday,” and ”Thank someone everyday.”
Simple enough, right? What we’re really saying is this: follow the golden rule. Doing so will build trust, friendship, and communication in teams of any size. By treating others the way you want to be treated, we strengthen the integrity of our company which leads to much happier employees.
I mean, seriously, who wouldn’t want to be thanked and complimented each day just for coming in and doing their job? It’s that simple.
The other day, a friend asked me why I love my job so much. I responded, “Because I’m saving lives everyday. Each time I schedule someone to come into their local blood center and donate, I’ve saved someone. In a few weeks, I can save more lives than a doctor, a surgeon, or a firefighter can in a year! Who else gets to do that?” She then asked, “Well that has to be hard. Why would anyone want to donate blood?” The people I schedule everyday have the best answer. So I simply told her what they tell me, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Integrity” can be defined as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. I think that integrity is one of Incept’s more important values for a reason that’s best summed up by Alan K. Simpson: “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”
At Incept we surround ourselves with the best people who do the right thing everyday. There’s no room to compromise on the topic of integrity. Your company either has it or it doesn’t. Incept has it, and it’s one reason why our employees love to work here. Knowing that, at the end of the day, your company does the right thing equates to it being secure and stable. And that provides peace of mind for a lot of people. We fight the good fight, and it shows in how good our employees feel about their jobs and the work they’re doing. Working here means you’re part of a family of people who demonstrate “Compassion” in everything they do. We not only talk the talk, but we walk the walk. We have people who do volunteer work, people who head charities, people who are always there to lend a hand. We demonstrate our compassion by doing things like hosting blood drives to support our community. Each time we host these drives, our employees follow through on the words they speak. They roll up their selves and give donations of 100% “Compassion-Packed & Integrity-Positive” blood!
Everything we say, we stand for. Every value we talk about, we live as a part of our daily lives. For me, the values on the wall in our contact center are a lot more than a cool banner to look at. They’re a promise to me, as an employee, that Incept will stick to what it says. I think that’s a value that’s hard to come by in companies these days. For me, that makes Incept special!
Integrity is a core value at Incept – something that we hold very near and dear to our hearts. Personally, I feel this is the number one value a company and individual can have and appreciate the fact that it has been included in one of Incepts six values.
At Incept, we define integrity as “doing the right thing.” Our definition also includes the following:
- We will always behave in a way that our mother would be proud of
- We tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
- We will only associate with people who are completely honest and ethical
Do the right thing. Pretty easy to understand, don’t you think? Don’t do bad things, be honest, honor commitments, and so on.
How do you define integrity?
- Does it mean that you will never be late to work or have to miss a deadline that you committed to?
- Does it mean that you will never tell even the littlest white lie?
- Does it mean you will never cheat?
- Does it mean you will never break even the most insignificant rule or law?
So, if you do one of the above, do you feel you should no longer be considered an ethical person? Or do you feel there are boundaries to what can and cannot be done?
Have you ever been waiting in line at, let’s just say, a fast food restaurant and noticed that the staff seemed particularly busy? It’s something we’ve all experienced at least once in our lives, right?
