Teryl @ Work

What is good service?   Its giving people what they want, not what you want to get rid of, nor what you think they want! Case Study One On a recent trip to Cape Town, I hired a car.  On arrival at the car hire company, there was a queue at least 30 deep.   There were 5 people serving. I did the maths, and realised that at an average of 5 minutes per person, I had at least a 30 minute wait. Unfortunately, the average was not 5 minutes, because it appears that at 11 am, a lot of international passengers require cars, and the very pleasant floor manager informed us that international passengers take much longer. When we asked why more than half the stations were unmanned at such a busy time, the explanation was around shifts and not enough people, none of which satisfied anybody in the queue.   50 minutes later I was in front of another very pleasant young woman who informed me I had been upgraded and would get a better car. Now, I always hire the same car, as...

Service in South Africa is less than consistent.   Every day, we have to deal with people who have little or no interest in providing a great customer experience. So how do you raise your happiness level and get better service most of the time.   I have been conducting a personal survey into this and have found the following: Shout, bully and demand and, under certain circumstances, you get faster service, not necessarily better, but you move up the ladder Wait to be served, and you will wait a long time Polite and assertive behaviour, on balance, gets the best results Sometimes, I feel that the power has shifted.   In other words, as a consumer, it seems to be up to me to greet the service provider first, be absolutely charming, ask nicely for whatever it is I want, and thank them graciously after receiving unfriendly service. The counter of this is that when I receive great service, I keep going back, even if the product is not as good! Under promise and ov...