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.

By Cate Schreck – Service Excellence Coach

The post Five ways to protect your Education Support Staff from worst-case scenarios appeared first on Just For Schools.

Bystanders may perceive this type of interaction differently. You may think…

• Gee, settle down Mr. Customer. Who needs a new iron that quickly?

• It’s never OK to raise your voice and make demands of a service provider.

• As a customer, sometimes raising your voice is the only way to get what you want.

• Their irons are faulty, so I wonder how reliable the rest of the stock is?

The one thing that everyone will agree on is that the interaction gained attention and not the excellent kind of attention a business wants. The exchange left everyone feeling some form of negativity. Empathy is the critical soft skill your Education Support Staff need when interacting with the school community – the one’s in front of them and the one’s within eye or ear shot.

Empathy is our ability to “put ourselves in the other person’s shoes”. The first step to being genuinely empathetic is first to remove our own shoes. When we do that, we stop judging others based on our perceptions of how we believe things should be. We consider that everyone is unique and that when we interact with customers, rarely will we know what has or is happening in their lives that is fueling their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Your ESS may not control how someone chooses to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but what they must control is their response.

Remember these 3 Tips:

1.  Empathy

Not all customers will be right, but it can do significant damage to your school if staff seek to prove them wrong. Empathy does not mean agreeing with the situation; it means considering how the situation makes the customer feel.

2.  Move

It’s normal to feel annoyed or overwhelmed by a customer’s difficult or demanding behaviour. If possible, move the conversation to a more private location. Some people like an audience, and some don’t, but both may feel less frustrated in a more private setting.

3. Actively Listen

Avoid the urge to interrupt an upset customer. Let them talk it out. Think of it like letting steam out of a boiling kettle. Let the customer get rid of the built-up pressure before telling them what you can or cannot do. Telling an upset customer something they don’t want to hear is much easier on you and them if they aren’t a red-hot kettle.

So, back to the unhappy iron man.

He left without his iron and saying words to the effect of “never shopping there again.” That’s when the real problem began. The customer service employee relived the event with his co-worker. Five other customers and I could hear the conversation, which included “grumpy old man” and “I don’t get paid enough to deal with this @#*!”

Going by the look on the other customers’ faces when the customer service provider was sharing his story with his co-worker, I think they too will be sharing the story – but not in favour of the business

Book your Onsite Training with us today to deliver professional development in the most effective way to educate and motivate ESS. Efficient and practical PD can iron out all customer concerns, leaving everybody wrinkle free and feeling valued and respected.

By CATE SCHRECK – Service Excellence Coach and Author of The A – Z of Service Excellence

The post What happened next was worse than the bad service… appeared first on Just For Schools.