Episode #79: Employ Your Secret Weapon

First impressions are vital in business and in life, yet so many companies get this simple thing wrong. How about your company? Let’s look at what people are getting wrong and see how to fix it.

You appreciate Japan when you leave it and meet grumpy, angry looking, unfriendly customer facing staff overseas. Dale Carnegie's Human Relation's Principle Number Five is "SMILE". It may sound a bit simplistic but actually the idea is very profound and has a lot of depth. You would never guess that this idea to smile when you meet people, especially when in a customer facing roles, had been around since "How To Win Friends And Influence People" was first published in 1936.

Buying food, checking in for your flight, or entering the airport lounge, unsmiling, unfriendly staff assault your senses. No smiling, not even one of those pathetic fake jobs. To top it off, they then produce a section from the manual and say "have a nice day/flight/whatever”. The incongruency of greeting you with a "I don't care" attitude and their final words, has obviously not been explored yet.

Giving your instructions to the cabbie or the serving staff and being greeted with total silence is a bit disconcerting. Do they know what I want, are we clear about what needs to happen next? Why is there no acknowledgement of what you want?

These abysmal service interactions are a simple failure of leadership. The companies employing these staff have poor leadership, because the people destroying their brand are not being trained properly. What a fantastic opportunity for companies to win in the marketplace. The cost of a genuine smile is obviously too expensive for these failing companies. Imagine though, that properly led staff were being trained on just one thing - smile when you meet your customer.

Teaching our teams to smile at the first interaction with the customer, sets up a chemical reaction that will create the right momentum, to create an experience that adds to the value of the brand and to the revenues of the organization. To do this we need to properly train our leaders to make sure their staff get it. The lack of congruency is costing firms money. The up-sell, the cross-sell missed opportunities are frankly scary, pathetic and unnecessary.

Listen to how your staff answer the phone. Do they say the name of the organization, their own name and do it with a smile in their voice. Observe the customer facing interactions and see if the genuine smile is there or not.

As company leaders, I don't think we should be satisfied with anything less than excellent smiles as the first point of contact. If we can get a smile going at the outset a lot of good things will follow and Principle Number Five “SMILE” can be the catalyst to success.

Action Steps

1. Call your own organization at different times of the day to check how clients are being handled.
2. Ensure leaders are explaining to staff that they represent the brand and how they interact with clients makes all the difference to how the brand is regarded.
3. Select customer facing staff who smile naturally.
4. Practice Dale Carnegie’s Principle Number Five - Smile