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Button TextI’m fascinated with great customer service.
Maybe it’s because I’ve spent years of my life as a bartender and waitress.
Or, more likely, it’s because truly outstanding customer service demonstrates the best of our humanity: honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, generosity and ultimately — love.
In recent years, it’s been a mostly one-sided conversation.
We consumers tell the world how businesses treat us with our Yelp or Amazon reviews and through our blogs or on social media.
But have you ever considered how businesses would rate YOU as their customer?
What if the businesses you buy things from began publicly rating you on things like:
- How kindly you treat their staff when you make a request or ask for help
- Whether or not you honor your agreements to pay on time
- Your willingness to read the fine print and follow instructions
- Your behavior towards other “shoppers” or members of the community
On this week’s new episode, we’re looking at how technology may be challenging that old adage, “the customer is always right.”
listen to this episode on the marie forleo podcast
Subscribe to The Marie Forleo Podcast
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Don't you love when singers do this?
Yes.
Christina Aguilera does this a lot. They tap their mic. I kind of want to go to karaoke just so I can do that. Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. So check this out. A few weeks ago on the set of MarieTV, Michelle was talking about how much she loves Uber, the on demand car service that lets you book a ride with your phone. And she said something Uber fascinating. Listen to this. Not only does Uber let its customers rate their drivers, but it also lets its drivers rate their customers. That means if you're that drunk a-hole that pukes in the back of the car or you're somebody who makes your driver wait for ev's, they can refuse to pick you up.
So this really got me thinking how technology may be shifting the playing field and challenging the age old assumption that the customer is always right. Now, as a business owner who loves to give great over the top customer service, I will tell you that 99.9% of our customers are total stars. They are angels and we love them so much it hurts. However, 0.1% of those customers who happen to sneak through our doors are total pitas. Now, if you think I'm talking about this unleavened hollowed out bread that you get with your falafel, look pita up in the Urban Dictionary. And make no mistake, we bend over backwards to shower our pitas with love because as James Taylor says,
(music)
Thanks, James Taylor. And eventually we do show the pitas the way that we feel by kindly but firmly showing them the door. And I'm not being callous here, but when we go over and beyond to deliver outstanding customer service and these people still behave completely disrespectfully to my team, I'm not having it. Which brings me to my point, how can the idea of customer ratings help us be better customers? Or put a different way, and this is our first ever tweetable question. "Does thinking the customer is always right, make you act all kinds of wrong?" To help you answer that. Here are the top three moves that make all of us ultimate pitas.
Top pita move number one, "Me no read." Not reading is the number one move that turns all of us into pitas. And I've got to admit sometimes, I do it and it always comes back to bite me in the butt. Whether it's terms of service or guarantees or email instructions, honestly ask yourself, how many times do you just not read? Just because the print is small or there's a lot of it doesn't mean it's not your responsibility to read it. And these days it's rarely that small. Why? Because companies want you to read their policies. They don't want to have an argument with you. They don't want you to come and say, "I didn't know I only had 10 days to return this," and then they have to point you to the thing that you checked off that said, "Yeah, I've read your policies."
Top pita move number two, "Me no pay." This is the worst and can be especially bad if you sell digital products and offer payment plans. Some customers just stop paying and seem to completely ignore the fact that they're basically stealing. A related pita move is making someone come after you for the money. Any time you make somebody chase you down for the money you volunteered to pay, you're compounding the stealing by robbing them of their time. Top pita move number three, just be in a beeyotch. This one really fires me up. There is no reason for any of us to be cruel to each other ever. I mean, you've got to ask yourself, do you ever forget that there's a real live human being on the other side of the phone or the email exchange or even the coffee counter?
Do you roll your eyes? Do you throw a tantrum? Do you do things that you would never do in the presence of someone that you respect? Really think about it because the truth is if we want better service, maybe it's time for us to be better customers. You've got to ask yourself, if you knew that your bad customer behavior could get you blacklisted by companies, and that day might be coming, how would that change your behavior? On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you are the ultimate pita, 10 being you are a superstar customer, how would you honestly rate yourself right now? If you're anything less than a 7, what is one change that you can make to be a better customer? Now, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on this one. So leave a comment below.
As always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now. Did you like this video? If so, subscribe and share it with your friends and if you want even more great resources to create a business in life that you love plus some personal insights from me that I only talk about in email, get your buns over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you next time on MarieTV. B-School is coming up. Want in? For more info and free training, go to joinbschool.com. Thanks James Taylor. It's the po-po. I didn't do it. Oh, chimichanga. Oh, how I love thee? What's wrong with me. What's right with me, actually? come on.
As both a consumer and a business owner, I’ve been on all sides of this conversation — and I’ve made mistakes all the way around.
But what makes me so excited is the possibility that technology may be helping us collectively, ever so subtly, hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Especially when things don’t go the way we expect.
So perhaps this idea of “customer ratings” can help us all pause and behave a bit more kindly, a bit more honestly and with a bit more compassion and understanding for one another.
In the comments below, I’d love to hear from you. If you knew you were being rated as a customer, would it impact how you behave?
On a scale of 1 – 10, 1 being you’re the ultimate PITA and 10 being you’re a superstar customer, how would you rate yourself? If you’re less than a 7 right now, tell us one change would you make to be a better customer.
While this is a fun conversation to have in the context of business and technology, what’s even more interesting to me is how once “private” behavior becoming public can inspire us to simply be better humans.
Thank you, as always, for reading, watching and sharing your wisdom and experiences with us all.
With love,
xoxo
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