Pizza delivery

Okay, so you've found a job answering the phone of a Pizza/Chinese/Curry delivery shop. Perhaps there is even a second phone so you're going to be quite busy. It's important that you know how to do your job.

How do you irritate a customer?

The obvious first answer would be to deliberately mess up their order. Instead of the Vegetarian Deluxe, send them the Meat Explosion(tm). This is a bad approach because the customer may actually have a basis for a refund.

You wannnn schoobubbizza?

Firstly, let's start with your English. If you are lucky, you will not have a poor grasp of English. Perhaps you have recently emigrated, you're in R&B fan or just plain bad at them speakin' words things. This puts you at an immediate advantage. If you speak good English, learn to speak it badly. R&B* is an excellent teacher. I'd recommend that you read Denstiny's Child or Fergie Ferg lyrics until they appear normal to you. Despite your having very poor English, you should never repeat any information back to the customer to confirm it.

Hold please *click*

When you're speaking to a customer, it's important to realise that you already have them, you no longer need to be nice or attentive - they are your bitch now. If another phone rings of course you should answer it. Simply say to your current customer "Hold please" and before allowing them a chance to agree or disagree you must place them on hold.

The unknown quantity

If you tell a customer that their food will arrive in 30 minutes then you have done a terrible thing. You have obliged the shop to deliver the food within a finite amount of time.

Once you have taken the order, hang-up. Don't give the customer a chance to ask how long it will be.


(*) R&B is the music that combines the metrosexual lifestyle with the literacy skills and emotional maturity of a 4 year old child.

Working At The Cash Register

This lesson is a broad one that can apply to any kind of high-street store/restaurant. Here is an overview of your objectives.

1. Allow the customer time to browse your products
   
   
2. Encourage relationships with your colleagues
   
   
3. Maintain a profession distance from the customer
   
   
4. Provide constructive feedback on the customer's product choice
   
   
5. Don't smile
   

1) Allow the customer time to browse your products

Your customer must not be rushed and should be allowed ample time to browse your products. The customer does not know your full range of products or even that they need them yet and so may attempt to simply buy what they came for and leave. Only you can save the customer from their own ignorance.

Do whatever you were doing before the customer came in to your store. If you were cleaning, reading a newspaper, doing some admin work then keep doing it. If you were having a conversation with a colleague, maintain this conversation and ignore the customer. The customer will thank you for this when they notice a product that they would not have originally considered purchasing.

2) Encourage relationships with your colleagues

Friendships are not something that are forged and then just left to their own devices. You need to work hard to maintain them. Think of the amount of times you've put-off phoning someone thinking 'I'll call them next-week'? Next week becomes the week after and so on... Before you know it, you've drifted apart. The same can happen at work. You need to engage your colleagues to maintain an effective working relationship.

Talk to them whenever you can. This fits well with allowing the customer time to browse your products. If a line of customers are waiting, don't let this interfere with your team-building exercises - keep talking. As well as allowing the customers time to browse, they will be impressed when they see how well the staff communicate with one-another.

In order to make customer's feel at home and 'human', your conversation must be casual. When talking to your colleagues, discuss what you did over the weekend and don't be afraid to swear. Customer's appreciate this down-to-earth attitude.

3) Maintain a profession distance from the customer

Although in the previous section, I advised that an informal attitude will make the customer feel at ease, you must maintain a professional distance from the customer. Avoid eye-contact at all times, even when talking to a customer. When you have rung-up the items in the cash register, follow these guidelines when telling the customer how much money they owe you.

1) DON'T LOOK THE CUSTOMER IN THE EYE!!! (They will think that you are coming on to them or perhaps trying to steal their soul.)

2) Do not waste their time with fake pleasantries such as the word please. Here are two examples, one good and one bad.

Bad
"That will be two euro 49 please."

Good
"two 49."

Note the efficiency of the good example. The customer has already chosen what they are going to buy so their is no reason to keep them waiting any longer than is necessary. Often, you will find that it's more effective to simply hold out your hand and not bother telling them how much they owe. The customer will appreciate the fact that you are crediting them with the intelligence to be able to read the total from the LED display of the cash register.

3) Improve the customer's hand-eye co-ordination

When you are waiting for money, it's important that you stand there with your hand held out rigidly waiting for the money. Often you will not be looking at the customer and may well be talking to your colleague about what you did the night before but the important thing is that you are holding out your hand. When the time comes to provide the customer with their change or receipt, it's important that you never place it in the customer's hand.

Many customers will hold out their hand in anticipation of their change, Your goal though is to place the change on the counter, not their hand. Customers will often track your hand and try to place theirs underneath it. The challenge is to avoid their hand - move quickly. If necessary, simply throw their change on to the counter. YOU MUST NOT ALLOW THE CHANGE TO BE PLACE DIRECTLY IN TO THEIR HAND. By doing this, you are helping the customer develop their hand-to-eye co-ordination even though their attempts to intercept your hand will be futile.

4) Provide constructive feedback on the customer's product choice

Customers, even though they have made their decision will still appreciate your person opinion on their purchase. If you work in a music store, perhaps you could point out purchases that you don't personally like.

Staff working in computer stores should strongly recommend products that they have had training in (regardless of the quality of the product) and attempt to dissuade customers from buying products they are not familiar with.

If your shop sells Macs, you could provide information that you remember once reading on slashdot. Mention that Macs are slower, more expensive and gay. Even thought the customer has already chosen to buy a Mac, they will appreciate your honesty.

5) Don't smile

I cannot emphasis how important this is. Although they say that a smile costs nothing, this simply is not true. Every time you smile, you are stressing the skin on your face and risk exposing your teeth to erosion from the wind. The customer is not here to make friends, they are here to purchase products. Politeness as we already know is false and gets in the way of giving the customer what they want.



Conclusion

I would strongly suggest that you follow these steps. Luckilly, you will find that a large number of younger casual employees will do much of these steps naturally. As a manager, all you need to do to enjoy success is take an incredibly hands-off approach. Some would call this shocking neglect of your responsibilities but we know otherwise.

If you don't wish to follow this advice then screw you. I get plenty of visitors anyway and I can get by without you. As people who follow the advice of this site know, there are plenty more customers in the sea.

Introduction

We're all consumers. We buy stuff, we interact with people who represent companies/organisations. For a long time, I've been training people to work with customers.

Most people understand the need to communicate effectively with their customers. Most accept that it's not just a case of giving their customers what they asked for, it's making them feel that we wanted to help them and that we value their business.

Some don't however. Some people don't understand the need to be polite, friendly and appear interested in their customers. These people can be difficult to train. I see it this way, it's an attitude thing very often based on their personal experience and expectations. If you are happy receiving 'no frills' service then it's easy to expect others to feel this way and so you deliver the service that you personally feel is fine. Changing this attitude is difficult. This isn't what this blog is about though. This blog is aimed at teaching you how to deliver terrible customer service.

Bad customer service doesn't come easy. To some in comes naturally so really all you need is neglect. To others, it's a challenge to overcome the basic cultural instinct to be friendly.

Cultural expectations of customer service vary between countries. As an Englander, much of this content is based on experience with native English speakers. Much of what is covered probably doesn't apply to these benefit fraud/job stealing Johnny-Foreigners we hear so much about in the Daily Mail.