An American Tradition . . . and other Customer Tales

Baseball season is over again and I remember when I was much younger thinking about how near it was to the end of school, and the beginning of summer vacation. The new season also reminds me of my heroes and some baseball legends. Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, Ted Williams, and countless others. But for some strange reason this year, the very popular Simon & Garfunkle song, “Mrs. Robinson”, from Mike Nichols’ Oscar-winning movie, “The Graduate”, popped into my head. It was the Joe DiMaggio thing.

If you don’t remember it here’s a verse:

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo)
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey)

It got me thinking about “the good ol’ days” and one thing in particular -- appropriate professional business behavior. You may recall that I’ve written about negativity in the workplace, like toxic bosses and co-workers, and destructive comments.

Within the last few months, I’ve been literally peppered and frequently floored by stories I’ve heard, situations I’ve witnessed and research I’ve conducted – and guess what? Some businesses are making money in spite of themselves and their toxic and caustic cultures. Could they make more? Ah, the million dollar question. The envelope please . . .

I am increasingly perplexed by a few things that go on in the workplace, the least of which is that some people would like to collect a paycheck without doing anything, including showing up at work if it were possible:

1. How people in a business setting answer the telephone – many times it’s quite unprofessional.

I know you’ve heard them too. “This is XYZ Company.” Followed by dead silence. So you ask professionally , “Good morning. My name is Brian Howe and I’m trying to reach Mr./Ms. Manager.” The response spews forth, “He’s here, but he’s real busy and can’t come to the phone.” More silence. I say, “May I please leave a voicemail or message?” Once again the professional response, “We don’t have voicemail.” “Okay, then will you take a message for me, please?” “Sure, let me put you on hold.”
You get my point.

2. How employees talk to each other and to clients – I think it’s become appalling in many instances.

Foul language, inappropriate and unprofessional voice tone and volume. It sometimes resembles the “trash talking” that evolved from TV wrestling (or should I say rasslin’). I’ve actually heard conversations where a customer called their supplier a son-of-a-b - - ch to his face. I’ve also heard much worse, but won’t be able to print it here.

3. Management, who are supposed to be leaders, and are too busy, too lazy, too afraid, too lenient, or too non-confrontational to take action to eliminate this type of behavior, which by the way, is a direct reflection on them and the owners of these businesses.

Simply put, real leaders are supposed to do two things for their companies: Make more good things happen and make less bad things happen.

If it were your company, would you actually hire people who only stock the produce section displays with lettuce? I think not, or least I would hope not. I’d want my entry level produce clerk to be able to answer customer questions, handle complaints, and quickly know where to go get help should he or she not be able to resolve customer inquiries or issues.

That’s what I remember about my local food store when I was an impressionable young boy. Maybe it’s because there were eight kids in my family, but the butcher felt compelled to call us when there was a sale on chickens, or steak or even ground chuck, so we could stock the freezer. Now that’s creating real and sustainable customer satisfaction!

So, this actually happened to me in a recent trip to a local supermarket chain. We all know that often shelves are stocked with new items and price markers are not updated. Perhaps that’s a fact of life. So, I asked the produce clerk if he could tell me how much my grapefruit item cost, and he looked at the same confusing price tags on the displays I had looked at before asking him, intently studying them. Finally, after scratching his head – just the way I had done a minute before – he said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to tell supervisor he hasn’t changed the price tags yet.” He promptly turned around, and went back to unpacking and stocking bags of baby carrots. So there I was left holding (no pun intended) the bag – of grapefruit. Ten pounds. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed . . . and I guess the butcher forgot to call me about Boston butt being on sale.