Your Customers Didn’t Go To “Customer School”

[Revised re-post from Aug ’08]

I swiped my card and began to fill ‘er up. To my surprise, the pump’s display read $3.95 (not $3.90, like I’d seen on their street sign). I walked in to see the attendant and shared my observation. When he saw me, he took a break from the conversation he’d been having with a co-worker, listened to my concern, smiled, then turned and pointed to the sign above the price sign. He politely shared that $3.90 was displayed as a “CASH ONLY” price. I felt kind of silly for not having seen the bright yellow “CASH ONLY” sign and as I exited his store (laughing at myself) I thought, he was … polite about that. Surely I wasn’t the first one to ever make this mistake, yet many attendants would have likely given a gruff and annoyed response.

Stupid is as stupid does.

All too often, front-line employees get annoyed by “stupid” questions … and it shows. We’ve all probably had the experience of interacting with someone whom – no matter how hard they may try to hide it [Read more…]