It was close to 1.00 AM, I’d just driven 200 miles and it was raining. The day had not run to plan and now I found myself tired and a little disheartened, pulling into the car park of an East Midlands hotel.
Weighed heavy with two large cases and a laptop I trudged through the rain towards the hotels front door. Finding it locked I hunted for a bell and prodded it. Three rings and a minute or so later and I was ‘buzzed’ in.
Stood in reception I scanned the area for evidence of life, just as I begun to believe that maybe I’d walked onto the set of a low cost horror movie, from behind the tall reception desk I heard a muffled grunt. It was the receptionist, or more accurately the night porter.
‘Name?’ he said, not looking up. ‘Dawe’ I responded, and with no obvious acknowledgement he began thumbing through a pile of paperwork. Each passing sheet accompanied by an audible tut. ‘Dawes?’ he said, still looking down. ‘Um, yes’ I said ‘no ‘s’…… but it doesn’t matter’.
More shuffling of papers and a single sheet was thrust under my nose, a pen followed shortly afterwards. ‘Name, address, registration number’ he said, now looking at the screen of his smart phone which had just delivered a text.
As I completed the form a key card appeared. ’38’ he said, by now responding to his earlier text.
‘Thanks’ I said (not feeling it) and popped the key card into my shirt pocket. With no offer of directions I figured a hand with my luggage was out of the question so I headed out of reception with my bags, leaving the night porter to his nocturnal texting.
A couple of wrong turns later I arrived outside my room. By now my tiredness had given way to grumpiness which was about to become anger with the discovery that my room key didn’t work. The return walk to reception seemed longer and the bags even heavier. The night porter, grunted something about ‘they all do that’, re-swiped my card and handed it back still managing to avoid either an apology or eye contact during the exchange.
Once in my room I dropped my bags on the floor and flopped onto my bed. It was just after 1.30am. In a little more than 6 hours I would be back in reception, settling my room bill and handing over £134 for the privilege. It didn’t make me feel any better
So what had gone wrong? Okay I had arrived ‘out of hours’ but I had called ahead and let them know. I also acknowledge that I hadn’t dealt with the hotels front line reception staff. But that doesn’t really excuse them, this was a pretty shoddy experience from a hotel that should know better.
Which gets me asking the question, does the same thing ever happen in dealerships? A customer arrives to look at a car, just as we are closing or maybe a desperate driver drops by for an essential part only to find parts is closed?
It’s fair to say that we don’t open 24/7 and that we can’t always have the best people in the right place at the right time. Long opening hours, holidays, sickness and meal times (yes some people get them!) all conspire that a particular member of staff may be elsewhere when we need them.
Of course we engineer strength in depth don’t we? Training and developing the whole team? We also give staff feedback and praise from Managers plus the occasional poke with a sharp stick if they fall below the standards.
But for me there is another vital element that needs to be present if we want our staff to really engage with customers. And that element is Empathy.
Empathy is about putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes. Understanding how they feel and what they are experiencing. Empathy is the very essence of being human, and yet how often is it ignored as essential?
The night porter may not have been well trained, he may have had poor management, but if he knew first-hand what it was like to be a tired customer, checking in at 1.00am having just driven 200 miles…. then I suspect that he would have behaved differently.
It’s time we asked ourselves some questions. How many of our service receptionists regularly get their cars serviced at full retail labour rates? How many of our car sales people go and buy a new car? The fact that we work in this industry means we know how it works, we cut corners, we get deals. Rarely, if ever, do we really experience what it is like to be a ‘regular’ customer.
But if we want our staff to treat customers brilliantly then we need them to empathise with them. Empathy comes from understanding and experiencing a situation, so isn’t it time we sent our sales people out to ‘buy cars’ and collect brochures? Isn’t it time that our receptionists were treated as retail customers when we service their cars on a Saturday afternoon?
How you help your staff see through your customers eyes is no easy challenge, but it is one that we have to step up too. If we want increased loyalty and satisfaction then we need to experience what it’s like to be a customer at our own businesses.
Only then we will ‘carry their bags’ without thinking twice.
Leave A Comment