What About When They’re WRONG
By Silver Rose
What About When They’re WRONG!?!
My friend Bob, after reading last week’s column about appreciating workers, emailed me the following questions:
This is the type of question I get all the time and it’s at the heart of how most of us were taught to approach life which is completely opposed to how The Law of Attraction can work to our advantage.
The Law of Attraction, which says, “you attract more of what you focus on,” is absolute, just like the Law of Gravity. Even if you don’t believe in gravity, if you jump off a 10-story building, you will die (or wish you had!)
We are trained to focus on what’s wrong in order to make things turn out right. The more we focus on what’s wrong, the worse our lives get. It’s incredibly frustrating, because all we want is WHAT IS RIGHT.
And therein lies the problem. Who gets to say what is right? Who gets to determine, for example, what good customer service is? One of the most important things I learned from fellow speaker Brian Tracy is that human beings are physiologically incapable of doing something they believe is wrong. If someone does something, he or she has justified it in their own minds.
Therefore, whoever is delivering what, in your opinion is poor customer service, has justified it somehow. Either he thinks he IS giving good service, or he thinks you’re getting what you paid for, or that the owner of the company who’s making more money than he is ought to be the one to make sure you’re happy, or he thinks the things he’s doing that prevent him from delivering good service are more important.
But I PROMISE you, he is not, in his own mind, unjustified in delivering poor customer service to you.
I once heard a story about a doctor’s office who regularly conducted surveys to make sure their patients were happy with the services. One day, they reviewed some surveys and were flabbergasted by the high volume of complaints about the receptionist during the lunch hour. Lisa, the young woman who filled in during lunch was one of the sweetest and hardest working employees they had.
Here is what they discovered. Lisa is so painfully shy when meeting new people, that she cannot look them in the eyes. So, when waiting on incoming patients, she would look down at her desk while she talked to them. Their interpretation was that she was not only rude but completely disinterested in providing good customer service. In fact, quite the opposite was true and, after some training, Lisa improved and the complaints stopped.
Customer service has gone down in this country because we try and demand it into being instead of expecting it. We complain to each other about it without asking for it. Think about it. Aren’t you delightfully surprised when you receive exemplary service? If you expect poor customer service, the Law of Attraction will not disappoint you. You attract what you focus on! Start noticing when you get good service. Start noticing what you take for granted. Most importantly, let people know your expectations. How can they provide good customer service if they don’t know your definition?
For years, I heard complaints about how bad HMOs are. I thoroughly appreciate HMO’s for the services they provide at a reasonably good rate. Eight years ago, I took an elderly relative to a Kaiser Permanente E.R. for an infected toe. Not only did the doctor take care of the toe, he took a few extra minutes and clipped ALL of her toenails and then rubbed oil into her dry feet. He said she reminded him of his own mother. I didn’t surprise me (I expect care from caregivers) but I sure was appreciative.
Look for good customer service. When you don’t get it, check to see where YOUR energy is and then work to turn it around. You’ll get so good at this, people will think you’re a VIP because of the treatment you receive!
