Cancer in Services

That’s right, nowadays people tend to fall into so many mistakes while performing service, but management is not there to correct those attitudes, perhaps this article may sound familiar, but it’s not a lost case.



Let me start this segment with some outrageous things I’ve seen and experienced in the last couple of days:



A taxi usually makes around one hour to get to the airport, the one I took made a record of 30 minutes, even though I implied a couple of times I was not in a hurry.



I probably saw 10 airport employees on their cell phones, instead of performing services for passengers.



At the airport counter, I saw a couple of ladies (employees) chewing a bazinga size gum with their mouths WIDE open and making terrible sounds (like a 4 year old child eating peanut butter and jelly), how disgusting is that? They didn’t even raised their eyes to look at the passengers they were taking their boarding passes. Don’t you really deserve to be treated with courtesy and decency?



The air attendants (especially the ladies) had long faces, seemed bored and looked like they were doing passengers a favor.



After my plane landed, it took a 45 minutes wait for my suitcase so I asked an airline clerk for my suitcase in a very polite but evidently serious, and took 15 minutes for the airline to realized that the baggage was taken through two lanes instead on the right one.



After a deadly line for customs, I managed to get out of the airport when a bunch of taxi drivers offered me a ride to my hotel (someone was picking me up), and the moment I told them that I had arranged my transportation, they were UPSET from my answer!!!!!



Even though all countries are suffering from one of the worst crisis ever and tourism has decreased that much, you would think that people would do their best for the client, I honestly got that wrong.



Why do employees give such a terrible service? Because there’s nobody who can teach them with a hands-on example, remember that excellent service makes a business profitable, so I believe that everybody can spend some time on the floor with the staff. Remember that a manager wouldn’t have a job if there were no problems to fix, but many times have to be involved in the solution by rolling up their sleeves and getting dirty.



I can recommend you some solutions to help terminate the bad service cancer that will eventually make you close doors:



--Make your management team to get their hands into business, restrain the use of computers and e-mail.

--Get assistance from a professional (if you have him / she on board, use their skills).

--Remember that not everyone was born to serve other people, choose wisely during interviews, and ask many questions on this regard.

--Plan in advance both theory and practice with your staff, make them aware that they all live from giving service, and if they grant an exceptional service, with time and dedication, they’ll live even better.

--Be incisive on the tipping subject, if they perform in a superb way, most likely they will get a juicy tip.

--Don’t let your staff to blackmail you (don’t be afraid on letting a bad employee go), be certain that someone else would need the job.

--Write down in your employees contracts some escape valves regarding bad service, chewing gum and cell phone use during shift, this will keep them constant and you’ll have something rock solid (legally speaking).

--Don’t discard comments from your guests, instead of making you weaker, makes you stronger because you know exactly where the problem is.

--Prosecute and terminate the bad attitude, smile and ask your staff to do the same, you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.