The Shocking Truth About You

Jeff Mowatt is a Calgary-based consultant on sales and customer service. We asked him about how customer perceptions-real or not-can cost you business.

Ironically, when corporations bring me in to speak at conventions on how to boost customer retention, I often find that there’s been little or no professional training for employees about personal image. Since it’s awkward to confront employees on these sensitive issues, here’s some ammunition to make the job easier: four image-related reasons customers may not like you or your employees. Incidentally, customers will never tell you these reasons to your face-they’ll simply do business elsewhere.

1. You look different than expected: Customers prefer conducting business with people who meet their visual expectations. So if you want to keep customers, dress in a manner that customers expect. A plumber dressed in an Armani suite makes the client uncomfortable. “That’s not fair!” cry so many employees at the thought of being told what to wear. First impressions may not be fair, but they’re real. Your job as a business owner or manager is to create an environment, including staff wardrobe, where your customers feel comfortable. Employees can express their sartorial individuality on their own time.

The best way to convey this message is with a written dress code. The great thing about a dress code is it weeds out would-be applicants who wouldn’t feel comfortable in your environment. That’s better for everyone.

2. You’re hard to understand: Customers don’t want to strain themselves to understand front line staff. If you or other employees don’t speak the local language clearly, then customers will generally go to your competitors where they won’t have to work so hard to communicate-or to spend their money. This is doubly important when speaking on the phone, where customers don’t have the benefit of non-verbal communication to help them interpret what’s being said. This has nothing to do with discrimination based on ethnicity or nationality. It’s about communication skills needed to do job.

3. You exaggerate: Don’t exaggerate to tell customers what they want to hear. If a task will take 15 minutes to complete, don’t say, “I’ll just be five minutes.” This is called lying. Customers hate that. Organizations that stay in business over the long term adhere to the age-old adage, under promise and over deliver. ‘Nuff said.

4. You’re indiscreet: “Indiscreet” describes the cashier at a self-serve gas station who chatted with his friends while I entered to pay. He barely stopped his conversation with his buddies to take my money. I felt like I was crashing a private party. I never went back.

Far too many employees inadvertently tell customers more than they want to hear. When a customer asks, “How are you?,” it’s just a greeting. Yet some employees take this as an excuse to complain. “Oh, I’m 60-40”, or as a security guard once told me, “I’m vertical.” (Yikes!) Some employees respond with, “I’ll be great when my break starts.” In other words, they’ll be happy when can get away from their job. Such indiscretions make customers wish they were dealing with professionals.

There is hope.

Awareness is half the battle. A lot of employees don’t realize they’re committing these offenses. Another part of the solution is training, preferably from someone outside the company. One thing is clear: if you do nothing, your business will continue to suffer. And no one will tell you why.