The Golden Rule: It’s not just your mama’s advice

This blog is generally aimed at customers of R&R, as well as managers of various companies, but everyone who might read this blog has also had the experience of being a consumer. Part of the society we live in, we buy things. The quantity and quality as well as content of the things we buy vary from person to person, but everyone buys things at one point or another, on a weekly, and possibly even daily basis. For those of you that read this blog and have had the experience of management somewhere at some time, you can understand where I’m coming from. Anyone who has worked in a customer service capacity, direct customer contact or food service will also be able to relate closely to this blog.

Everyone has heard of the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. It’s simple advice, that so few people truly consider when interacting with others, especially when you are in a position of power over the person you are speaking with. A position of power has a range of scenarios from parent to child, manager to employee, and consumer to service provider (in most cases). I’m not sure what happens in people to cause an interaction to go from civil to nasty, but it’s certainly not a way I’d want to be treated if I lose my cool and start to treat the person I’m interacting with as if they are beneath me somehow. I’m no saint when it comes to these types of scenarios and have been rude and outright mean to people when I feel slighted in some way. However, before you lose your temper in the next customer service related scenario where you may, consider this: I can tell you unequivocally that I am willing to help someone and will go out of my way to make a customer happy if they are nice and reasonable throughout the entire exchange.

For many people, frustration leads to an instinctual reaction to try to vent that pent up emotion in the offending party’s direction. But for many of us, we know that can likely result in the exact opposite of what we want to happen, an easy and painless resolution to our problem. I’m no psychologist, but I know at least for me, when I’m confronted with a customer being unreasonable, I begin to get defensive and less helpful because I have no interest exposing myself to that behavior for longer than I absolutely have to. Please do not take this to mean that I am suggesting you sugar coat your problem. You can be honest without being brutal. You can express your problems without getting mean. If you do it right, you can even get the person trying to help you to empathize so that they try to do more than the minimum to help you.

The reason situations like this happen in the first place boils down to these two things: Misunderstandings and mistakes. Misunderstandings are too varied and complex to address but the other reason is easy. We make mistakes, you make mistakes, humans make mistakes. If I notice someone making a mistake, I point it out. Some people find this awkward and off-putting but if you consider the Golden Rule, I’m really just trying to get people to do better work. I hope someone would point out to me when I make a mistake, so I do the same to others. At the same time, I try to consider the feelings of the person on the other end of the phone when I have a problem, so that I’m not the cause of their bad day.

Morale of the blog is try to be nicer to people. They will want to help you more if you have a problem, and you will end up with a better overall result than if you begin to get upset and start yelling.

Justin H

Blogger

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