RE: Rules of Etiquette in The Servicing Industry; ATT'N: To All Concerned

Dear All:

Please forgive the informality but I would just like to share things that might come in handy to you in dealing with customers.

In the time I've spent as a staff for Speechpower, as a call center agent, both servicing clients and customers of all sizes and shapes, and as a customer myself, I have come to realize that though we have all, by now, learned that the customer is not always right, there are still certain rules that should be applied.

Note that I've also learned this from experience both as a customer and as an employee servicing a customer. Also, most of these "rules of etiquette" may apply to almost any situation.

1. Remember that though in Filipino culture, we usually think it's respectful to call a person by his own appearance, i.e. "manang" and "manong" for old women and old men respectively, "lola" and "lolo" for the much older women and older men respectively, it is not right to judge in haste.

Once a man calling for van passengers called my attention using his megaphone: "Mrs., are you going to Cubao? The van will be leaving soon." Surely you all know that I still am a "Ms." and that I just look like a Mrs. due to my "issues" with weight. With the apparent "personal" (because no one really knew my "real" status) embarrassment I went through with the guy calling me while I was still at the side of the road opposite to him, I still took it as an insult nevertheless because of first, respect, and second, my weight issues that caused me to look older than my actual age. Having known that I never really had to take the van as beside it, its competitor, a bus going to Cubao, is also calling for passengers, upon reaching the guy's side of the road, I stood in between the bus and the van and in raised eyebrows I said "Mrs.? I'm still single". And with that I strutted towards the bus.

Another instance happened to me just recently. Well, not actually to me but to my mom who's in the hospital. My mom's sickness, dementia of the Alzheimer's type, caused her to look very much older than her actual age. But because I was highly emotionally charged and physically weak and tired that time due to what had been happening, I erupted rather violently when the nurse (who is much older than me) who entered the room, in a loud voice, called my mom "lola". Maybe I got it from my mom, you know, reacting with a really bad temper over what we consider an "insult". Maybe I was just being protective of my family.

WHAT TO LEARN: As members of a company servicing people, we should always remember that we should never judge in haste and should be very careful in calling a person based solely on his/her appearance. Especially with women, a "Mrs." may only be a "Ms.". The usual trick is to call a female client or a stranger, "Ms." or "Ma'am". But if a situation calls for extreme caution, ASK (the pitch of the voice rising at the end) with all the politeness we could muster: "How should I call you, Ms. (surname here)?"

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2. When giving response to an irate or frustrated and confused customer over something that he/she have done or have not done whether correctly or wrongly, never ever begin your spiel with a chastisement as if scolding a naughty little kid over what he/she should have or should have not done.

Again, a very recent situation involving the female cashier of the hospital where my mom was confined and me was something very similar to this. An hour before said incident, I paid in full my mom's hospital bill so we could finally have her discharged. She looked a bit of a "stern snob" but I just set aside those thoughts away as I have some much more important things to think about than my own personal biases. After paying the bill, I went outside to a nearby internet cafe to check some important emails and when I went back to my mom's hospital room, our house help turned over to me prescriptions that the nurse has just recently gave shortly before I arrived. Noticing that there were two bottles of unused dextrose, I grabbed the bottles and went to the nurse's station to ask if I could have those returned and the amount deducted from the bill I would be charged in buying the new drugs in the prescription. They said yes and that I should just inform the pharmacist. The pharmacist, after, examining the receipt of the dextrose bottles, told me to go over to the cashier to have it fixed. The cashier, upon seeing the receipt, frowned and in an irritated tone, said some things which at first, I could barely understand except for what she said first "MS. THIS SHOULD HAVE......" I asked her again and she repeated her explanation, obviously more irritated by my calm request. She said I should have informed her immediately, before paying the hospital bill, that there would be some medicines that would be returned. So I asked "What are we going to do now?" The pharmacist, after wondering what's taking me so long, approached us and talked to the cashier. From what I heard, she said the same thing. The pharmacist told her "Fix that, it's the patient's right for a part of her bill to be reimbursed." But the cashier didn't give in so the pharmacist walked out.

One of the tasks of my previous job was to reimburse the cash of clients if with valid reason to do so even if I should go to the extent of making numerous notes on the receipts just to explain what happened wrong and why the reimbursement should be done. Having known this, I once again talked to the cashier and got the same reply. Now agitated, yes, I burst out, my voice rose that a guy from the admitting office had to intervene. Needless to say, he became the bridge that had my problem over my mom's bill resolved but not without the cashier not giving me everything I needed for the pharmacy and having me go back and forth from the pharmacist to her.

WHAT TO LEARN: Don't react with pessimism if a distraught customer comes to you for help. Say first what you could do before saying other things.

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3. Never ever pass on to others a task that is yours to do.

Another situation with the same hospital had me fuming mad. Looking after my mom and other patients of dementia is a 24/7 job. On my third "sleepless" night, after dozing off for a few minutes, my mom woke my dad and me up to uneasy moans and cries and screams that had one of the nurses coming inside our room. All of us glancing at the dextrose, I realized that a few minutes beforehand, she instructed me to tell her if the dextrose was close to running out. With that realization coming all back to me, she gave a joke in Filipino while mom was screaming that didn't sound like a joke at all: "Oh no...mommy's watchers must be so busy that they forgot to check your dextrose..." With that I retorted: "I don't like what you just said. For you to say that to us who are without sleep and tired! How dare you! May I remind you that it is YOUR JOB to check on her dextrose, not us!"

WHAT TO LEARN: Do your job and do it well.

******************Our new house help, after witnessing during the past few days how I could react with a really bad temper, told me, "But this is a government hospital. The courtesy you have experienced in Medical City (NOTE that this particular hospital has the motto "Patient on center stage"; well, save for mom's neurologist who knew mom's case but still reacted with rudity when mom was in a state of a violent anxiety attack, everyone adhered to this motto) is because it is a private hospital. I told her, it is NOT AN EXCUSE regardless of the ownership of the hospital.

You see, disrespect breeds contempt. I am not justifying the way I reacted. I know it is ill of me to stoop down to their level because at some point our house help was right when she said that I am the one who knew how to behave. Regardless of who started, the way we respond most especially if we are the ones who service people is a reflection of our personal etiquette and a gross representation of either the quality or inferiority of the service of our companies and offices.

MARIA PRECIOSA T. CARDENAS
Sales and Marketing Coordinator
Technology Business Group
ECC International Corporation
Mobile No.: 0928-366-5256
Tel. Nos.: 750-5671 to 73
Fax Nos.: 750-5670