It’s Not the Words. It’s the Attitude.
I wasn’t frustrated when I called my rental car company—but ten minutes later, I was fuming. Here’s why:
SAM:
Hello, this is Sam. How may I help you?
ME:
Hi Sam. It looks like I got double-billed for a car rental. I talked with someone last week, but I’m not showing the refund
SAM:
I’m very sorry this has happened to you. I understand why you’re frustrated. I will work to make this right.
ME:
Perfect.
SAM:
So, I see your bill here for July 18 for $310.18. This is the bill where you were overcharged?
ME:
I was actually billed twice. There was another bill on July 19.
SAM:
I see. It says you rented the car for 3 days. Was there a problem with the car?
ME:
No. But I was billed twice.
SAM:
Oh. I see. May I call you Shaun?
ME:
Sure.
SAM:
Thank you. Mr. Belding, I see you already spoke with someone about this last week. Is there an additional problem with the rental?
ME:
Yes. I talked with someone about it last week. It was supposed to be resolved, but nothing has changed
SAM:
I see, Mr. Belding. Just so I can clarify, which of these two bills are incorrect?
ME:
I’m only supposed to have one bill.
SAM:
Oh, I see. I know how important this is that we get this correct, and I will work very hard to make sure that this is right….
It went on like this for another 10 minutes.
Yikes
Despite what the agent said, he didn’t see a thing. He wasn’t listening, didn’t care, and wasn’t particularly engaged. It was also obvious that he was reading from a script—which only made things worse. It’s a scenario countless people have shared with me in my career, and the stories almost always begin with, “I hate it when they’re just reading from scripts…”
Words are not enough
In fairness, the scripts this agent was using covered all the right bases. They were designed to communicate empathy, comprehension, and ownership—all skills targeting the three drivers of trust: Caring, Competency and Integrity. So why did they seem to make things worse?
The answer, of course, is twofold:
a) Just reading from a script is meaningless
b) Words alone aren’t enough
It’s like telling your partner that you love them, but not turning away from your solitaire game. Or your boss responding to your amazing idea with “Good thinking,” without looking up from the document on their computer. Your words mean nothing if the people you’re talking to don’t believe you mean them.
Attitude is everything
There are a lot of excellent skills for dealing with unhappy or difficult customers. They work. I can vouch for that. We’ve been teaching them for 30 years and I’ve seen the results thousands of times. (Although the skills required today are quite different than thirty years ago!).
One thing that became clear to me early on is that, while the skills worked, they worked far better for some people than others. It didn’t take me long to understand why. It all boiled down to attitude.
I realized that the people who excelled at projecting caring actually did care. They wanted to help. The people who excelled at listening weren’t just pretending—they were genuinely interested in what others have to say. They strove to understand situations from their customers’ perspectives. Beyond the skills and the words, their attitudes came through in their voices, their body language and their behaviours.
Attitude drives success
It’s all about how you look at things. If, for example, you think of your customer service job as just a job—or if you consider the customer service component of your job as unimportant—work quickly becomes an unfulfilling chore with few opportunities for success. But, when you approach customer service as an opportunity to make a genuine difference in the lives of the people around you, everything changes: People begin to trust you more. Your interactions are more positive. You get fewer “difficult customers.”
The big myth about attitude
There’s a common myth that attitude is something hard-baked into one’s personality—that it can’t be changed. But the truth is, attitude isn’t fixed. I’ve witnessed ‘There’s no point in trying’ become ‘There’s no point in not trying.’ I’ve seen ‘It’s just a job’ turn into ‘I’m proud of what I do.’ Attitude can change—and when it does, everything else changes with it.
Skills matter. Examples of how to use language—not rigid scripts—matter. But it’s attitude that breathes life into them.
