Does anyone want you as a customer these days?

(This is a mild rant)…

Like all of us, I have many encounters with live, in the flesh retail folks. People who seat me, serve me, sell things to me, respond when my receipt does not print at the gas pump.

I watch as they respond to me, and I watch as they respond to others. And I’m beginning to see a pattern. I’m not sure that a very high percentage of folks in jobs that require interactions with people want to interact with people. They just don’t seem like they care very much.

Recently, I watched a short video from author/speaker Dean Lindsay. He’s a good, witty speaker, and he made this comment (paraphrasing from memory): “you can tell if someone really wants to help you by the time they have finished saying their very first phrase.”

Yep. That’s about it.

And he also said this: “I’m not talking about the words they say, but how they say them.” Yep again.

So, for store managers, restaurant managers, I would say you have quite a challenge – train your people to act like they care about their customers.

It is quite a challenge. As my friend Cecil Eager put it years ago, “you can’t train friendly.”

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Watch this short (5 minutes) video from Dean Lindsay – he’s got some simple, brilliant, clear advice.