No Respect From Customers? Here's What to Do.
A lot of readers of our Winning at Work newsletter have asked what to do about customers who don’t respect them or the work they do. One person recently wrote: “In my field of work (hardware), I find that some men who come in do not seem to think we women know anything and would rather talk with the guys that work here. I find it degrading and very frustrating…”
When you get no respect, it's hard to stay motivated
As difficult customers go, these are tough ones. It’s hard to stay motivated when you feel that the people you’re trying to help have no respect for you – particularly when you know you’re doing a good job. Sometimes, as in the letter above, it is a bias issue, where an individual makes unfair assumptions based on race, gender, age, etc. Sometimes it’s just someone who simply takes service professionals for granted. Sometimes it’s just plain arrogance.
There are only two choices
These situations can be especially difficult, because there’s often no real solution. It’s unrealistic, for example, for you to expect to change a customer’s long-held prejudices and beliefs. You could chastise and scold them, of course, but other than the brief moment of satisfaction it would bring you, the outcome would never be positive. You are really only left with the two choices outlined in the oft-quoted serenity prayer: Change the things you can, and learn to accept the things you cannot change.
Reframing is a powerful tool
One of the most useful methods for accepting behavior that you can’t change is by reframing the behaviour. This is a technique that helps you look at someone’s actions from a different, more palatable, perspective. It doesn’t change the behavior or make it right, but it helps us rethink the other person’s motivations.
Change assumptions about other people’s motivations
Early in my career speaking and training on customer service and CX, one of my friends used to say, “He just stands in front of people and makes stuff up.” It was just lighthearted chirping but, if I’m being honest, it still bothered me. The chirping stopped, though, a couple of years later when he attended a conference I was speaking at. “Holy crap!” he said to our friends the next time we were together, “He actually knows what he’s talking about — and it’s really cool stuff.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t respect what I did. He didn’t know what I did. Had I reframed my assumptions about his chirping from that perspective at the beginning, it wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much.
More than a mind-game
Is reframing just some cutesy mind-game? Absolutely not. Here’s an example:
Imagine you lose your job. You could focus on, “I’m jobless,” or on “Now I can find a job I’ll enjoy more.” Both statements are true. But, where the first can create a spiral of depression, the second can get you out of bed in the morning. Why not choose that one?
How to get respect
There’s an old saying that respect can’t be demanded — it has to be earned.. It talks to the truism that genuine respect is ultimately achieved by your own actions. It takes time, and consistent behavior that shows people they can trust and rely on you.
In the case of customers who don’t appear to respect you, try to gradually and subtly give them a little more insight into what you do. You never know when one might suddenly say, “Holy crap. You actually do know what you’re talking about!”
