I think there's issues on both sides. On the management side of
things, retail and call centre jobs generally treat their employees
as disposable. They're not meant to be groomed for anything higher
up, they're just bodies to do a task. These days the name of the game
is "consistent response" which really boils down to "lowest common
denominator" as the goal is no longer to have some staff who can give
excellent customer service that's tailored to the person's needs, the
goal is to give the exact same response as anyone else would give.
I've not worked in retail (thankfully) but I have done call centre
jobs and you wouldn't believe the number of times I got in trouble
for showing independent thought like skipping the script when I knew
better solutions (or was told by the customer that they'd called in
before) or for staying on the call longer to make sure their problems
were actually solved. Better customer service? I'd argue yes, but the
problem was it didn't fit the model that everyone was supposed to be
following.
You see a similar thing in retail with staff being pressured to sell
the high mark-up items, or whatever item they're pushing that week/
month rather than what the customer actually wants/needs. In that
type of environment you can easily get into trouble for actually
listening to what the customer wants and making a good recommendation.
On Feb 24, 2009, at 5:49 PM, NSURIT@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Chris, I will not argue the point of the difficulty of living on a
> minimal
> wage and I would suggest that perhaps the way out of that job, is
> to do it to
> the best of your ability, treat every customer with respect and to
> look for
> ways to increase your value to any employer. Not sure what the
> connection is
> between what you are paid and your intelligence. Additionally, if an
> employee is upset with what they are being paid, I fail to see how
> acting dumb,
> disrespectful and lazy is going to improve their lot in life.
>
> Bill Barber
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