Good one hi good day so far thanks $4.50 there you go good one.
That’s word for word what I experienced from someone serving in a capital city convenience store last week. There were no pauses, no obvious beginning and end.
The first good one was for me as I picked up my purchase and left. One step to the door I heard the next customer get the same script except for the purchase value. The next customer too.
Fake interest is not good customer service. Rote delivery of catch phrases is not good customer service.
The best retail employees are those who are authentically engaged with customers without spending too long to the disservice of other customers.
By authentically engaged I mean: making eye contact, smiling, saying what they mean to that person at that time and by using sentences and not brief catch phrases like good one – this should have been have a good one meaning have a good day.
I urge newsagents to encourage their employees to be themselves, engage in genuine greetings and not talk from a script. Tell them to ask sensible questions too. In my example, I was asked if I’d had a good day so far at 6:15am. I was in a suit and had clearly not been up all night. But how would the person serving know – they did not look at me.
One of the best ways we can differentiate our businesses is by being ourselves and by not following a tiresome corporate script.
We experienced this a restaurant last year. The waiters patter was exactly same as he seated people around us and obviously insincere. Result? It really bought down a nice meal and definitely did not earn a tip from us.
I’m amazingly lucky in that I will know 9/10 of my customers on any given day. This means I can tailor my service to them by default. In the city I can imagine this would be much harder. Simply following the cues they provide can help though. Do they use lots of pleases and thank you’s? Are they a fan of a cheeky ‘bullshit’ here and there? It helps to make the experience fun for everybody.
I still expect my staff to greet the customer is some way and also great them if they are walking past a customer in the shop and to stop and ask if they can help them even if they are carrying a bundle of mags to put out or on their way to tea break. They must not walk past or fail to acknowledge a customer. No rehearsed patter but it generally sounds much the same.