I thought I had everything timed perfectly. Dinner was simmering on the stove and I had 2 hours before our guests would arrive. I needed to make a quick run to the store and planned to be home within the hour. I thought I was quite lucky to get someone to help me right away. Tammy greeted me with a smile and asked how she could help. She was very nice! I explained what I needed and she said she could take care of it right away. She asked me for some of my account information and began to enter it in the computer. I sensed there was a problem when she started pounding on the enter key. She looked at me and used my name as she apologized sincerely. She said her computer wasn’t working right. I felt sorry for her and I got behind the computer to help her and hurry things along! I came to realize that there wasn’t a computer problem and it was Tammy who wasn’t working right. Her big smile and sweet voice didn’t compensate for being slow and untrained. What I thought would take 15 minutes took 125 minutes and 32 seconds. I left the store angry and my blood pressure was up. When I walked into the house my guests were sitting on the couch and the smell of a burnt dinner was hanging in the air. I never want to see Tammy again.

There are 2 things that anger your customer 1) Too much information 2) Untrained employees.  Too much information (TMI) can be a problem for veteran employees. They have a tendency to tell the customer details that may be important from an internal management point of view, but have no relevance to a customer. The veterans may actually think the added detail they are giving the customer is helpful and shows their expertise, but TMI can paint a picture of a dysfunctional operation. Example: Mr. Smith, the reason we haven’t picked up your trash is because we are optimizing the routes and the changes have not been updated in the system yet which means the driver didn’t have you listed on his route sheet. Your customer simply wants to know when the service will be completed. Untrained or inadequately trained employees are a result of a manager taking short-cuts with new employees because of a busy schedule or delegating training to someone who isn’t qualified. There is also a false belief that once someone is trained, there isn’t a need for ongoing training or a refresher. The Environmental Services Industry is complicated and there are many details for someone to grasp and remember. Learning will happen over time. Managers, you need a refresher, too. Your new hire training should include a ride on the different trucks and a day in each department. However, instead of providing this training during the first week it should be a part of training after a couple of weeks when the new employee can make sense of it all. There is one “must have” piece of equipment to train new sales and customer service people and that is a training headset. The new hire needs to hear both sides of a customer conversation and see what his/her trainer is doing on the computer at the same time. While this piece of equipment seems like a no-brainer, too many managers have never thought to order it. Remember how I said I never wanted to see Tammy again? I went back to the business and as I went to pay for my purchase I took the time to tell the owner how his employee could have been more efficient. He appreciated that I returned and that I gave constructive feedback. Sometimes a mad customer can be a business’s best friend.