The topic of this blog was very relevant to my personal experiences. There have been many times where a company's internal processes and operations have caused me to become very irate. I have to take a step back to realize that the brunt of my frustrations, the front line people, have little to do with the problem. I empathize with their role as they take punishment from consumers on a daily basis. One prime example of this are service counter reps at airports. It isn't their fault that a plane is delayed... but passengers don't care. They'll yell, whine, curse, etc. as if that rep. was personally responsible for their inconvenience.
I feel that culture is important in this situation, but lines communication are paramount. Having clear channels for front-line workers to report back to the internal organization allows them to feel like they're helping solve the problem while providing the internal operations with tangible information. Without these channels of communication, the front line feel that they are being left to fend for themselves... and instead of being the face of the company, are acting as the scapegoat of the company.
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3 comments:
this is very true it is often seen that even though it is not the fault of the front line people they are blamed by the cusotmers and have to take criticisum which is very unfair. The blog did make very good points on this topic and i think this is a topic we can all relate to and i really like your example about the flight delay. To think of it, it is very true that we do react to these kinda of situations in the same frustrated way which is not right because the people who ahve to bare this attitude are is not the ones causing the situation.
I agree with your points, especially about how consumers often let their frustration get away from their common sense. While shopping at Kohl's on Black Friday, I witnessed a customer screaming at a floor worker about how the lines were too long and she couldn't understand why their weren't more registers open. The worker tried to apologize and patiently explain that staffing wasn't his decision, it was the manager's, and that he could try to get the manager's attention so that she could express her concerns, but the woman would barely let him walk two feet without beginning her tirade again. Aside from the lack of logic involved in complaining about long lines when choosing to shop on Black Friday, this woman seemed far less concerned with allowing the worker to try to solve her problem than she was with venting her frustration at any cost. When I was a front line office worker, I found my backchannels of communication quite often getting blocked, and my own frustration getting in the way of my professional duties. It takes a skilled temperament to handle these situations, and often times, front line workers aren't paid nearly enough to attract that kind of talent.
I agree that communication channels are very important to improving the experience of customers. The scapegoat metaphor is particularly telling. Just the other day, I was the whipping boy for the way that our receipts print out. A customer was very frustrated because he felt that we had shortchanged him. The essence of the problem, without mundane details, was that the receipt prints out in such a way that not all the taxes are itemized, being applied on one line after the subtotal. No matter how I explained it mathematically, he inssisted that I was wrong because the number he was looking for was not on the receipt. That is a company decision, but I was blamed for it. A quick statement to the store manager gave me a fairly certain indication that no one would really care about this issue. Now I find myself hoping that this customer does not come back to me again.
Maybe if they pay me more... I don't know.
I enjoyed the comments from violet and Anima Avatar as well
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