I'm going to take a slight deviation from my usual blogs and write about something that happened to myself and my husband at the weekend that taught me all over again, the importance of effective communication.
Bear with me, it takes a while to get to the point but I feel the story of our journey is worth it!
It actually started a couple of weeks ago when my husband needed to have his iPhone repaired. This is the iPhone I bought him for his birthday last May which cost a chunk of change and had been having intermittent issues since it left the shop.
I bought the phone at iStudio in Central on Orchard so logic told me to go back there and see if they could repair or replace it. Cannot lah, was the response. We had to go to Epicentre in Suntec. I was slightly confused by this but assumed that this person knew what they were talking about. The fact he looked all of 12yrs old should have sent alarm bells ringing but alas no. Anyhoo, off we trotted to Epicentre at Suntec hoping they could help. We were told by the poor excuse for a 'Sales' Assistant that they couldn't fix it either and we had to go to the Service Centre in Wheelock Place. Of course we did! How silly of me to think anyone at iStudio or Epicentre could help! Breathe, 123, breathe 123, breathe.....
Rather than waste the rest of the weekend going from shop to shop we decided to leave it and picked up the mantle again last weekend. I was confident we had at last been given the right advice and that my husband's expensive phone would finally be fixed. When we walked into the Epicentre in Wheelock we were obviously interrupting something important as they were not pleased to see us: no smile, no hello just a look of confusion. Unperturbed, we walked up to the nearest 'Sales' Assistant who looked the most capable (and I use that term lightly) and relayed the same story we had told the 12yrs old in iStudio and the fringe flicker in Epicentre Suntec. Apparently, we were wrong again. We needed to go to the Service Centre somewhere else in Singapore because they don't service iPhones there. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! Can you sense my frustration???? Well, at this point I did lose it, for a number of reasons:
1) I hadn't had my morning coffee
2) I had spent $1000 on a phone which wasn't working
3) I had wasted about 1dy of my life (so far) trying to have someone fix it
4) The lack of interest my husband and I were shown as we relayed our story was unrivalled; I don't think I have been made to feel so unimportant in my life before.... Now, I'm not looking for a brass band and bunting when I walk into a shop but a smile and a 'Hello, how can I help?' go a long way.
5) And this is the key - they 'Sales' Assistants in both iStudio and Epicentre did not make eye contact with me, they mumbled their answers so I had to ask them to repeat, they gave me the least amount of information possible - "No, you have go to... Service Centre... no iPhones here." They did not even smile, say "hello" or apologise for the fact the phone was cr*p (even if it's not their fault, not the point).
If I have a problem with something I want someone to listen to me, to take notice of what I'm saying and give me an opportunity to let some of that frustration out. I do not envy the job of a Customer Service Rep as you can get some really stupid members of the public. I'm slightly biased but I don't consider myself to be a stupid member of the public but I get annoyed when someone ignores me. Customer Service Reps can do themselves a favour and actually try and diffuse the feelings of frustration that the Customer is feeling by talking to them! It's an amazing concept I know, one that really is quite ground breaking! Asking questions, LISTENING, empathising with the Customer are great ways to do this but unfortunately are very seldom used.
I could go on and suggest how they could have done more for my husband and I as the customer but I would be here for a while and this is not a Customer Service blog. What this experience showed me is that communication is key in ANY interaction, especially where there is the potential for high emotions. As a communicator, don't be afraid of the emotion you see - reflect it back to the individual without judging - if you see someone getting angry, say "You seem to be angry". This will no doubt unleash more anger but what you're doing by acknowledging and reflecting the emotion is diffusing it, allowing the speaker to work it out. The more you do this, the faster you will get to a point where the speaker is ready to listen to you and your suggestion and you can move on.
Remember, the less you communicate, the more you infuriate!
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