JoAnna Brandi, often called the “Customer Care Lady,” has 20-years experience helping create more positive, customer-caring companies that thrive, where employees are motivated, customers are loyal and competitors are nervous. She's the publisher of the Customer Care Coach®, a ten session self-study customer care leadership program, and Monday Morning Motivation, a weekly focused “self-talk” for people who care about their customers.
JoAnna is a consultant, well-regarded public speaker and author of two books on customer loyalty: “Winning At Customer Retention: 101 Ways to Keep ‘em Happy, Keep ‘em Loyal and Keep ‘em Coming Back” and “Building Customer Loyalty: 21 Essential Elements in Action.” She’s been delighting people worldwide with her biweekly “Customer Care Tip” for over 15 years. JoAnna is a practitioner of applied positive psychology and an “Authentic Happiness Coach," bringing the teachings of the new “Science of Happiness” right into the workplace. She's currently working on a new book, “The Feel-Good-at-Work Factor.” She's also a founding member of the Positive Workplace International.
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When Steven Slater jumped out of his own JetBlue airplane earlier this month using the emergency chute, he did more than raise eyebrows. He raised awareness. He’s America’s latest folk hero and T-shirt celeb. With cries of “Get two beers and jump,” disgruntled and dissatisfied employees everywhere are overlooking his rude, illegal and dangerous behavior in favor of cheering him on in his “escape” from the world of work.
He gave voice to what apparently some can only hope to aspire to — the ability to escape from a situation in which they face fear, abuse, harassment, neglect and/or starvation of their spirit every day.
I’ve gotten some flak for suggesting that bad bosses and rude customers have combined to put more pressure on people today than ever before. Maybe I should soften that opinion and say that business and economic conditions have put so much pressure on people that they’re readily heralding Slater as their “hero.”
For the most part, I think employees have done what they’ve been asked to do. “There's no question the existing workforce is producing more with less,'' says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Global Insight.
But the pressure doesn’t let up. Bosses, under pressure from their bosses and the shareholders who want fast profits, are often living in fear and revert to fear-mongering tactics to squeeze more from their employees. “Be thankful you have a job” isn't the best way to thank an employee for their extra effort.
Here’s my concern … and it should be yours, too. Many workers, frustrated, bored, angry or just living in fear, won’t leave quite as dramatically as JetBlue’s Slater. But they will leave. Emotionally, they'll leave themselves at home, impacting your ability to reach your goals of “wowing” your customers.
Physically, they'll do damage to your brand by saying things to customers that shouldn’t be shared. In the past several weeks, I've heard many “here’s how it really is around here” secrets from employees upset with their own inability to solve my problem quickly. Ouch.
How can you use the Slidin’ Slater incident to start a lively dialog in your company about how working conditions impact employees’ abilities to take care of customers and feel good about work? How can you unearth peoples’ real feelings, clear the air — hey, we’re all frustrated with this economy! — and move in the direction of creativity and positivity?
Don’t take the chance that key members of your team are getting ready to check out on you. Be proactive and use this incident as an opportunity to broach the least discussed and most important topic in your company — your culture.
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