I am going to talk about Giving Up Excuses as one way To Be A Successful Leader.
You’ve heard the old saying, Excuses are like a certain body part, everyone has one. Nothing truly says that your level of maturity is not where it should be, you are not ready to take responsibility for your actions and you are not ready for anything that comes with the job of being a leader than being a leader that makes excuses for everything good or bad, chiefly bad.
People want to know that they have a leader that inspires them because he or she is confident, has high self-esteem and is ready to handle any situation good or bad. What people do not want is a leader that is uncertain, unproven, wishy-washy and most of all they do not want a leader that will throw them under the bus
the moment something goes wrong.
Unless if blatant there should never any reason for a leader to blame others or use others as an excuse as to why something went wrong or did not meet the expectations of the organization.
Remember, in any organization it is the leader that is there for his or her followers and not the other way around
As a leader you look good because your followers make you look good. When you look bad or your followers look bad the first and only question that should be asked and answered is who is the leader?
If you have ever spent more than five minutes working in customer service then you know that a customer complaint is not that far behind. It is just part of the job. It is a necessary evil. You would not have customer service without customer complaints they are going to happen sometimes for the most mundane little thing to something so serious you might have to call the police.
It is true, it happens but well there is no but you have got to deal with it has to get deal with it has to be done properly, it has to get that we dealt with immediately, it has to be dealt with was a sense of urgency.
It truly does because again, it is just that important to the customer just as it is important to the individual that is being complained.
Remember, customer service and customer complaints go together like peanut butter and jelly.
How do you deal with it? Well, we are going to talk about the five things we can do to address these issues and how to address them properly. How to take care of things so that they don’t grow into something bigger and it doesn’t turn your organization to some rascally care less, better still some could not care at all about the customer, only in it for themselves type of organization.
Now we are going to get these things, we are going to work on them and you are going to have to jump on it immediately because when a customer comes up and complains. First off, you have to know how to deal with it and who to hand off the complaint to because you at some point you might have to hand it off to your supervisor. If it is, you they are complaining on then it is going to have to immediately go to your supervisor. Doing this immediately creates a sense of transparency and creates a sense, to the customer, that you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, and there is a process. It is going to give them an opportunity to feel like a something good is going to come out of this and that is a very good thing.
Now if it is you that gets to handle the customer complaint well, that is all right and welcome to the world of customer service. You know while we’re always taught the customer is always right, sometimes it’s the other way around but this is where you and how you handle these customer complaints can kind of turn that around a little bit.
The first thing you have to do is get the details not just the facts. I am talking the details get them. Get as much detail as possible. It will go a long way in helping to paint a better & larger picture of the entire situation.
Who knows it could just be the day they are having, the customer is having a bad day and decided to take it out on the first person that they ran into in your organization, through no fault of the individual. Then again, it could also be that one of your employees really, truly messed up and how are you going to deal with that but that is for a different time we are still dealing with customer complaints.
Get all sides of the story!
Do not just stick on one side, then just go ahead, and say, “You know what Joe; you really truly messed up because the customer said so.” No, get both sides or as many sides witnesses that there were any get all sides of the story and again that goes a long way to showing everybody not just the customer but the employee being accused that you’re going to be fair and you are going to be impartial because you demand to know everything that happened.
Now that you have everything, the information, continue investigating until the end. Review the transactions. If there is video get the video, if there is tape receipts get the tape receipts. Get everything you can even including video. If your facility has cameras outside get video. If shows how the individual walked in without any problems when they walked in. Did something happen outside the building that caused the individual to become upset? Then look at the employee that is being accused. Video goes a long way. Computer interactions go a long way. Tape receipts they go a long way, as well. Continue investigating until the end and then once you have done so deliver your results.
However, there is one thing you should never ever do or say. It does not matter who you are never do this thing: never promise anything to the customer. Never promise things like “heads are going to roll for this” or “someone will lose their job of this” because you do not know what is happening. It could be your job that could be you that is losing your job, it could be your head is going to roll because you over-promised something; you overstepped your boundaries, especially when you are not in a position to make those kinds of decisions.
Do not promise the customer anything. However, do promise you will look into it and deliver on that. That much they are expecting. You cannot promise anything other than you are going to look into what is going on and if there was a direct violation of company policy then appropriate action will be taken. You could say that but again you are not going to promise things like “heads are going to roll” or that “someone’s going to lose her job”.
As far as anyone knows the customer could be having a bad day, misidentified the employee and they are blaming someone completely different and yet you are going to tell them that that individual is going to lose her job. No. You do not do that. You never ever promise things like that. You can promise that there is going to be a resolution. Again, what if it just turns out all of the evidence points to one thing but the customer’s word points in a different direction, what do you do?
You do not. You bump it up, you send it up the chain of command until there is a resolution. Remember never promise anything especially when you are in a situation where you cannot deliver on that promise. If you do, I guarantee it will make you look bad, it will make the organization look bad and it will prove that customer’s point.
Again, handle all customer complaints swiftly, thoroughly, appropriately and give them the results. Give them an answer even if the answer is no answer. No matter, they need to be addressed because it is not only a reflection of how you are as a leader, how the organization deals with situations like this but it is also a reflection of the type of people the organization attracts.
Is just somebody that’s looking for trouble or is it somebody that just going about their business doing what they need to be doing and then something happens?
It is how you deal with it. At that point, you become a different type of ambassador for your company. You become the policy and procedure ambassador. What I am getting at is they get to see the other side of the store. They get to see the other side of the business. They do not only get to see the front end of the business everybody else sees but they now get to see the inner workings of the organization and how all of that functions.
They get to see the company deals with situations as they arise.
You become an ambassador not just on the front end of the house but also in the administrative side of the house.
When it comes to customer complaints, as a leader, you have a unique opportunity to show others what you are made of. Don’t let them down.
So you want to be a successful leader. You want to be the one that people follow no questions asked. Hey, who doesn’t want to be that leader? To be that kind of leader there are a few things you have to give up to be a successful leader.
Give Up On Your Self-Defeating Self-Talk.
What is Self-Defeating Self-Talk?
Self-Defeating Self-Talk is that talk we have with ourselves when things are not going the way we want them to go or when others are not doing or behaving the way we want them do or behave. It is that conversation we have with ourselves either with our inside our head voice or that voice that we say at a volume that is just below what the human ear can comprehend. Self-Defeating Self-Talk that is full of words we would hardly dare say to others but have absolutely no problem saying to ourselves. Usually, the self-talk is laden with words like “dummy”, “idiot”, “nitwit”, “dumb donkey”, “poopyhead”, and words like “can’t”, “cannot” “never”, “why bother” and “who do you think you are” will find their way into that conversation.
It is time to stop talking about yourself in the negative.
While you might be doing all the right things, going through the positive motions, and leading people down the path of righteousness. All of that is for naught if you have no problem talking about yourself and to yourself in the negative. However, just like any bad habit you try to keep under cover, eventually you will be caught. Your negative self-talk will be discovered.
People are always listening
No matter what you say, do, or want to believe people are always listening to you. That is one fact you cannot hide from nor avoid. They are listening when you think they are not. They are listening to not just your words but to your action as well. So be very careful with what you say and what you do. When those that follow you see you and hear you being negative. I do not know if it is human nature or not but people cling to negativity harder and longer than they do to positivity. It is as if positivity is garbage that has been in the kitchen waste bin a day or two longer than it should have been. Sure, we have to touch it but just long enough to get rid of it.
On the other hand, negative talk is contagious
Whether we say it aloud or just under our breath, negative talk is still negative talk and it does not take a Rocket Scientist to tell you negative talk is contagious. Once someone else hears that negative talk it is out there. There is no taking it back. Seriously, there is nothing you can do to get it back. Once that Pandora’s Box it is open it is can never be closed with all the negativity that escaped back in the back. However, the work begins to undo the damage done. The same applies to you. You must work at reeling that negativity back in and get it under control. As a leader, you have no choice, you must!
They will believe your negativity but they will start to believe it about themselves
When you fail to reel it back in then others will start to believe the negativity that you have been spewing. Your followers will begin to believe that you might not be the real deal. You might just be someone who lacks the confidence and the ability to lead. Because they follow you, they will also start to doubt their confidence and ability to become the kind of leader they thought you were. That, my friends is NOT a good thing. Your job as a leader is set in stone. You are to help make more leaders! Your jobs is NOT to make others doubt themselves.
Cease the negative talk and thoughts
You have your marching orders. Stop with the negativity, the self-defeating self-talk, NOW! It serves you no purpose to continue and it certain serves those that follow you no purpose. When you stop with the negativity, it gives others the opportunity to begin to believe in you, again. It gives those naysayers and other nothing they can use against you. So many might try but when there is nothing for them to swing at, what then? Exactly!
In the end, those that follow will start to feel good about you and being with you and following you.