Humble?

Someone had a go at me today over the fact that we didn’t have poppies for sale in the garage last week. I pointed out that we had representatives of the British Legion on hand in the main supermarket foyer most days in November and she said ‘yeah, but what about the people just calling in for fuel and not going to the store itself?’ I patiently explained that we couldn’t get involved in every campaign that goes on for every anniversary for every charity, and that the Poppy Appeal has expanded now so that you can buy them from schools and a whole multitude of different locations, so we didn’t feel the need to be yet another point of sale for them. She then said “Hmmm, yes, but that is also true of Hallowe’en decorations and you couldn’t get those on display quick enough. It is also true of Christmas cards and advent calendars, and I’ll bet you a pound to a penny that you’ll have those all over this ‘point of sale’ in the next few days. So I guess your ‘involvement’ in these ‘campaigns’ is based on whether you’ll make any money out of them, right?’

She had backed me into a corner, and I salute her for it!

I threw off my cloak of corporate Wankspeak and admitted that she had a point. It was so nice to have a chat with her as myself, not hiding behind my Shield of Management, and she turned out to be a really nice lady – a volunteer dinner lady at a primary school and a passionate supporter of the Armed Forces, for whom several members of her family are employees. The outcome was that I promised her I would approach the British Legion with regards to hosting poppies next year and invited her to e-mail me with her arguments and I would forward them onto Head Office. I meant it too. Normally the good-old ‘put it in an e-mail’ quote is a way to get them out of your face and out of the building and your intention is only ever to hit ‘delete’ when the invited missive arrives. But this is different. I admired her passion and her intellect and I agree with her now – we SHOULD all play our part in remembrance, rather than just going ‘Poppies are everywhere, so we don’t need to hold them.’

Also made me think a bit about the way I deal with unhappy customers. I normally put up my ‘here we go again’ screens and treat them all as if their complaints are nothing more than unjustified ‘poor me’ moanings, but maybe if I took the time to listen to them properly and see them all as individuals with their own senses of what’s important I may find them all to be as convincing as this lady was today. So my plan from now on is to give people a proper ear and see if I can brighten their day a bit, rather than switch myself off while they give their frustrations an airing and then deflect them away with bullshit. If I’m calm and friendly, maybe I’ll get a calm and friendly response, rather than meeting hostility with hostility and making it worse for both of us.

I can’t guarantee that’ll happen next time some twat of a truck driver unloads on me about the price of vape liquid, but I promise I’ll do my best.

RC 12-11-18