WHEN HIPPOS TRY TO DANCE.... Getting the right people for service excellence by J. N. Halm

I love dancing. In fact, I used to be a good dancer. Not a very good one, but just good enough to get by on the dance floor. During my university days, I was part of the drama and choreography wing of my campus Christian fellowship. Together with a group of friends, I also formed a dance and drama group at my local church.

I remember a young man back at the time that was so much into the group. He loved dancing. He would normally not be so keen when we had to put up a theatrical piece or even just a five-minute skit at church. But when it came to dancing, his enthusiasm and passion was palpable. He was one of the best members of the group. He never absented himself from rehearsals. He was always on time for meetings. He was enthusiastic about what we were doing and it was visible in his actions.

However, there was huge problem with this wonderful, dance-loving guy I am talking about. The problem was simple: He just did not know how to dance. His hand movements were always out of place. His body coordination was always “suspect”. His friends teased him with names such as "Iron Hands" and "Robocop". He could not even get simple moves that everyone was doing with minimum fuss and for a choreography group that was disaster in the making.

As a director, the last thing you wanted your audience to see was for everyone to be moving in one direction and a single individual moving in an entirely opposite direction. He always stuck out like a sore thumb. Many times when we needed numbers and he was the only left, we would put him in the last line so that the better dancers would be able to mask his movements. This sometimes did not work too well. There were times when with a certain beat everyone had to go down and you would see my good friend standing up. Teaching that boy to dance was like teaching a hippo to dance, and trust me, hippos cannot dance. They are just too clumsy, just like my good friend.

It has been a while since I set my eyes on him. Recently, I came across him on my Facebook page and we had a good laugh. I wanted to know from him why he found it so difficult to do simple moves that came across naturally to others. He said he had no idea. I cannot blame him for not knowing. He said that in his eyes he was always doing the right movements, we were seeing differently. After a long time of grappling with the issue, I have come to a conclusion that some folks just cannot dance. Period! No matter what you teach them, they just cannot dance.

Interestingly, I see a parallel between the world of dance and choreography and that of customer service delivery. Just as there are folks who cannot dance; so are there some employees who cannot serve customers excellently. They will do their best but by their very nature, they eventually sour a customer's experience. You can take them all over the world to learn from the best customer service representatives and they would still come back and treat customers rudely. Just as hippos do not make good dancers, so is it that those individuals do not make good service professionals.

Recently I was told about a lady who has never survived for more than three months at the front desk of her firm. She would always get into a fight with customers. She would be taken for training and she would come back well-polished, ready to deliver. But within months, she would be caught maltreating and mis-treating customers and her managers would have to move her to another desk-away from customers. I hear that lady is aesthetically-appealing. I mean very pleasing to the eye. In fact, I am told she was actually employed to man the front office. Unfortunately, that is the one place she cannot fit in.

As this story was being narrated to me, I could not help but wonder how she got through the interview in the first place. What were her employers looking out for when she sat in front of them? (I am assuming she went through the right recruitment and selection process!) Did her employers set out to evaluate her based on the known qualities that make individuals great at service delivery? Or did they just look at her beautiful face and decided that since she was good to behold, she was going to be good on customers?

I am not privy to the ways and means organisations adopt to recruit individuals to customer service positions. But if we are to mark how well do in recruiting customer-facing professionals by the quality of service across this country, then I am sure we are not doing too well.

What makes an individual great at service delivery? What are the qualities that business leaders and managers should look out for when bringing in people for service delivery? What are the personal qualities that make some people great at providing customer service while others just cannot see eye-to-eye with customers? Let us take a look at what the experts are saying:

• Loving

This should the starting point for great service delivery. To be a great customer service rep, the individual must "love" customers and I use that word with some caution. By "love", I mean the “caring”. It is that quality of wanting to see the customer walk away happy after every interaction with the company. It is from this love for customers that many other qualities will flow. It is important that interviewers find a way of getting to know if that sweet individual sitting in front of them will 'love' customers.

• Friendly

One definition of friendly is "disposed to promote the good of another". To promote the good of the customer is to put the customer first. It is to appreciate the fact that you went to work in the morning to serve the customer. This is one of the qualities that emanates from being in love with customers. When a customer-facing executive is in love with customers, he or she will go great lengths to ensure that the customer feels good.

• Polite

Customer service and politeness go hand in hand. The word has been defined as “marked by or showing consideration for others.” This is why people who are naturally rude and inconsiderate of others fail to be great customer service staff. In many reported cases of bad customer service, you will get to realize that things would not have escalated if the service representative had been a little polite.

The Germans say that “politeness is what warmth is to wax.” The Danes say that “If you have no money, be polite.” The Chinese also say “Politeness wins the confidence of princes.” Whatever race or creed you subscribe to, so far as you remain in customer service, politeness must be your watch word.

• Helpful

To serve is to help. I have found out that legendary customer service mainly results from the desire of an individual or a group to be of great help to customers. You must want to help customers if you want to be known for exceptional service. Customer service is, in effect, customer helping. Therefore if you are the kind of person who does not like to help others, do not even venture sitting at the front desk. I have witnessed too many ugly scenes of people who, instead of helping customers fill basic forms and fulfill requirements, rather frustrate customers.

• Positive

Anyone who has spent a few hours serving customers will attest to the fact that it is one of the most demanding and stress-filled vocations one can commit themselves to. When you have to handle long queues of customers, some angry, some sad and some outright rude, you must be positive. You must wake up in the morning and psyche yourself up for the day’s work.

Great customer service reps do not take everything to heart. They are able to maintain a positive attitude, even when customers are giving them a hell of a day. In my years of handling customers at the front desk, I realized that customers could sometimes act like a pack of wolves. They could sense negativity from afar off and they would capitalize on it, when given the opportunity.

• Patience

Closely related to the issue of positivity is that of patience. Because the work involves dealing with different people with different dispositions, customer service requires individuals who can take a lot of “nonsense”. People who have the mentality of “me, I don’t take nonsense” are not supposed to man front offices and front desks. When customers come to the individual with their problems, it will take a lot of patience to hear them out. It is the impatient service rep who will also flare up and sour the customer’s experience.

I am sure this list is in no way exhaustive of the qualities that we must look out for when employing people who will be dealing with customers on a daily basis. I have not tackled a quality such as assertiveness which is needed for dealing with some rude customers. I have also not spoken about honesty which is important to customer service. There are many more qualities needed for one to excel in customer service.

We cannot keep filling our front desks with individuals who lack these essential qualities and expect excellent service. There are some people who will better serve the organization elsewhere. Let’s place them there. Let’s place them where customers do not interact with them regularly (if not at all). I am writing this piece from the Upper West regional capital of Wa and I am told there are a number of hippo sanctuaries around. Before I leave town I will try and visit one of these sanctuaries. I am really curious to see what happens when hippos try to dance.