Communication is the surest path to delivering Amazing service to our customers. But it’s often harder than we realize to be on the same page with our customers.
Here’s a funny (and true) example of how something can seem so clear to an employee but not their customers. Thanks to the good people at NotAlwaysRight.com for this.
Me: “Hi, [pizza place].”
Customer: “Hi, it says you have a nine inch small pizza. How big is that?”
Me: “Nine inches, six slices.”
Customer: “But how big is it?”
Me: “The diameter of the pizza is approximately nine inches. There are six slices.”
Customer: “Like, ok, but you already told me that. How big is it?”
Me: “I’m not sure what other metric to use. The pie is slightly smaller across than a third of a meter.”
Customer: *brief pause* “Okay, what size is the medium?”
Me: “Twelve inches, six slices.”
Customer: *another brief pause* “The small has six too. So they’re the same size?!”
Next time you have contact with a customer, think of this example and apply it to your situation. Are you helping the customer understand everything as clearly as you do?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is not an instance where you need to communicate more clearly. The main thing you could do to clarify your sizes is call them small/medium/large, which you have already done. In basically any pizza place in the world, the different sizes have the same number of slices. If you are interacting with someone who has not yet figured out what medium is bigger than small, there is nothing you can do.
Well, you should start asking for what kind of metric they are looking for. (Like, how many people they want to feed, etc – ask them!)
Exactly as @Krabe says. I guess the customer wants a specific type of hand-holding which in this case might be that she want help figuring out which pizza to order for the number of people present — it’s upto the pizza restaurant employee to put on a different thinking hat — in times of plenty, you might survive ignoring a customer who doesn’t communicate well, but in hard economic times, like we are in now, having someone with the ability to do this type of alternate thinking pays off.
Maybe if we just let people who don’t know what “9 inches in diameter” means get confused, hang up, and starve to death, we would be doing a service for the species.