Five ways to protect your Education Support Staff from worst-case scenarios
“I wish I had never gone to work that day. If I had known what that customer was going to do, I would have stayed home.”
Have you ever said those words or something like them? Have you known someone who has said those words? I have uttered those words, and sadly, I know many Business Managers and Educational Support Staff from schools in Geelong, Ballarat, Melbourne and beyond who have also said them.
The school community (aka your customers) are often strangers, and some strangers can be aggressive, abusive or dangerous. Even our well-known customers can use behaviours that we may not expect, which can also leave staff feeling shocked and vulnerable.
This is the downside of interacting with customers; you can never be certain what behaviour will walk through the door or be on the other end of the phone.
Schools spend enormous amounts of time and money enticing strangers to enroll their children in their schools. As a Service Excellence Coach and the Director of Just For Schools (JFS), I work with schools to educate and motivate Education Support Staff to exceed the expectations of those strangers – no matter if that’s new school staff, students, parents, or people from the wider community. One of our programs includes Worst-Case Scenarios – What to do if it happens to you.
Interacting with strangers ultimately leaves ESS open to worst-case scenarios. Worst-case scenarios are not the day to day unhappy or grumpy customer interactions. Worst case scenarios are the customer interactions that leave ESS feeling shaken, upset, intimidated, violated or abused.
These types of situations can happen in any school and on any day. You can and should do many things to give your ESS and customers a feeling of safety. To help get you started, here are five things that minimise the possibility of a worst-case customer service scenario.
1. Have clear policies and procedures
Advise your ESS what to do if they find themselves in a face to face or telephone worst-case scenario. Review these standards regularly with your team and ensure they are part of your induction program for new ESS.
2. Role play possible worst-case scenarios
You can make it light-hearted but trust that asking your ESS to say the words “please leave or I will call the police” or “I will be ceasing this call now”, as well as physically closing doors and walking away, confirms to ESS that you not only approve but encourage these actions. It’s called experiential learning, and it gives ESS confidence.
3. Create safe meeting rooms
If you have private rooms to meet with customers, advise ESS to sit with their back to the door and the customer to sit opposite them as this allows the ESS to leave the room quickly and not be cornered.
4. Have a code word
Something for ESS to use if they need help, e.g. ESS who ask for a “green pen” could be code for “this customer is becoming aggressive; please stay near me.”
5. Engage the experts
Invite the local police or a security service provider to a team meeting to share their tips on what to do in worst-case scenarios.
It’s important also to consider that individual ESS may have different levels of tolerance for bad behaviour. Some ESS may handle abusive language easily and not feel threatened, but other ESS may find that type of behaviour is their worst-case scenario. New or less tolerant ESS who see other ESS accept bad customer behaviour may feel expected to do the same – this is not good for the team or the school.
Important: Remind your ESS that most customers will be polite and respectful and more than happy to follow complaints procedures and to behave in a way that leaves everyone feeling valued and safe.
Worst-case scenarios are rare, but anxiety is the price we pay for being unprepared.
If you would like more ideas of how to protect your ESS team, my book “The A-Z of Service Excellence” covers this in Chapter W – Worst Case Scenarios and Chapter V – Venting. You will find practical actions to help ESS during and after difficult customer interactions.