Do you love Greggs?
I love Greggs.
Usually Greggs are fabulous, but here is a tale of how just one person getting it wrong can undo a whole load of good stuff.
I was at Liverpool Street Station, London, on my way to deliver some training at Aldgate. I went to Greggs for a bit of brekkie!
To give you context, it was 8.30am and heaving, very noisy and the food counter is not visible to customers queuing on the right hand side, where I was.
I asked the assistant “do you have meat and vegetarian pasties?”
He said “yes”
Janet “OK I’ll have a vegetarian one and a coffee.”
Assistant ….. silence …. went off to get the food. He came back, gave me the little Greggs bag with my food in it and I paid.
Something was wrong. The bag was too heavy. He had given me both a vegetarian and a meat pasty.
Janet “Excuse me, there are two pasties in here”
Assistant “you asked for both”.
Janet “no, I only wanted the vegetarian one”
Assistant “no you didn’t – you asked me for the meat one as well”. Petulant stare from assistant.
Janet “I only want the vegetarian one”
Assistant “you asked for meat. I heard you”
[I literally felt my brain shift gear]Janet “I clearly stated that I wanted vegetarian. Please take it back and refund me” (I think I may have used my ‘trainer’ voice here – I wasn’t in the mood for a debate)
Assistant visibly rolled eyes and huffed. Mumbled “you asked for meat”. Went to get manager.
Manager was polite and helpful and it was no trouble at all to refund me. I did make it known to him that I appreciated his help. I also relayed the conversation I had just had and suggested the staff member could do with some training.
So there are loads of levels to this, of course but here are a few:
🟣 However good your company or product is, the customer-facing staff you employ must fundamentally like dealing with people. Not once did I get a smile or even a suggestion of friendliness
🟣 Even if I was wrong (we do all make mistakes) the assistant should have cheerfully changed my order. A good assistant might even have apologised for the misunderstanding. Note that is different from saying ‘I’m sorry’ which implies they got it wrong. Apologising for the ‘misunderstanding’ is neutral and it does not suggest blame on either party.
🟣 Body language matters – rolling eyes will never a happy customer make!
🟣 Don’t argue with customers! End of!
🟣 A little bit of training would have gone a long way here. This was such a simple little exchange.
🟣 How many customers would one assistant see in a day? Hundreds probably. How would it affect your brand if, every day, one person was upsetting customer after customer?
Getting it right matters massively.
For a conversation about how I can help your customer facing team delight your customers instead of wind them up, send me a direct message.
And if you know anyone at Greggs ……!
Happy selling!
Does your customer facing team need a bit of a boost? For information on how we can create some bespoke training for you, let’s have a chat. Here is the link to my diary https://calendly.com/jefere/half-an-hour-with-janet
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