What NOT to do in Customer Service 7

I know I have been silent since long, thanks to hectic travel last week. I was in Helsinki (Finland) again in the past week where I met a few customers. What a learning experience it has been!

When you are in a meeting with customer, you have an opportunity to:

1. Add value to them (so much so that they pull their notepad out and start taking notes)
2. Learn about communication, what works and what doesn’t.

How you utilize these two opportunities makes a huge difference to the business.

Even my travel was a great learning experience. Here is a brief account of what happened - I was scheduled to reach Helsinki via a connecting flight from Frankfurt. I started for Frankfurt but because of bad weather at Frankfurt, the flight was diverted to Paris. Here, all the passengers were made to sit on the plane for 6 hours after landing, in anticipation that weather condition at Frankfurt will improve. Suddenly, we saw air-hostesses pulling out their baggage leaving all passengers wondering. Then we were de-planed and taken to airport. Flight was canceled and we had to stay in Paris for 1.5 days before resuming our journey. Lot of passengers reached their destinations (Chicago, Newark, Frankfurt and so on) on Monday morning; just about the time they were to start working. You can read more about this ordeal here.

Aviation is a customer service business more than anything else. Most companies have similar aircrafts, equipments and infrastructure available to them. It is only customer service that enhances quality of experience and makes an airline preferable over other.

This experience taught me some valuable lessons in what NOT to do in customer service. Here are the top 7 mistakes in customer service:

1. Not smiling enough: The cabin crew team was very serious. They had an invisible message on their forehead which said “We are not interested in you”. Customer service is fun (for both the parties) when you smile a lot. It costs nothing to wear a smile, but goes a long way in building comfort.
2. Not listening and not communicating: Cabin crew is the touch point for customers. When some of the passengers wanted to complain or express a concern, the cabin crew was inattentive. They would listen and do nothing about it. Listening to concerns and not doing anything about it is as good as not listening. Similarly, when passengers were waiting, no announcements were made. Communication was a mess.
3. Lying to your customers and not fulfilling your promises: When we were made to sit in the plane for 3 hours, the pilot announced that we will fly in another 30 minutes. An hour passed and we did not fly. A few more hours later, pilot announced that since his 16 hours of flying time is over, the flight is cancelled. They kept on giving false promises to the customers.
4. Sticking to your policy and ignoring problems faced by the customer:  Processes are tools that we use to serve our customers. Often, same processes can become a hurdle in solving customer’s immediate problems. Don’t let that happen.
5. Going inaccessible when customer wants to talk to you: You know you have made a mistake. Go out and accept it. Hiding after making mistake can magnify the situation. When you make a mistake, you should have courage to call customer and say, “I screwed it up” and immediately work on solution. Imagine the frustration of customer when they want to know something and there is no one at the other end!
6. Passing the buck to someone higher in the order: When someone started complaining to the air hostess, she immediately redirected the passenger to the pilot. Sure, there are people above you who can give comfort, but why not try doing it yourself?
7. Forgetting the basic courtesies: Smiling, saying “Thank You” and “Sorry” does not cost a dime but it shows that you care. After a customer meeting, I replaced a normal “Thank You” with “Thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate it”. The idea is to make it more beautiful.

Each travel extends some learning, but this was of a completely different sort! Learning that came a hard way.

9 Random Things About Work Culture in Finland

This is my last week in Finland before I wrap up the priorities here and head back to India. Four weeks here have been quite an experience in terms of understanding a whole new country, culture and its nuances. The more you get to know the culture, the more you start respecting it. Travel teaches you to be open minded to understand and appreciate different cultures. By the time I am back, I would have visited three most prominent cities of Finland namely Helsinki (where I stayed and worked), Tampere and Espoo.

I wrote a post “8 Random Things About Helsinki, Finland” a few days back. In this post, I will attempt to mention 9 prominent things about work culture in Finland. Here they go -

• There are many characteristics of Western working culture on Finland where individuality and independence are highly valued (and also highly expected). People take lead in their initiatives and too many instructions are not required to be given. Instead of typical hierarchical structures, Finns like to work out solutions in groups. Management loosely controls the teams and promote initiatives. Power and flexibility are well distributed.
• Because of loosely controlled management, bosses respect their people and remain polite. (I actually saw the boss knocking the door before entering his sub -ordinate’s cabin and apologising for an impromptu appearance). Even if fully convinced, boss cannot take certain decisions unless people (who are impacted by that decision) are not convinced about the reasoning behind decision. Decision making is very democratic in nature.
• People endeavor to use their time sensibly.  Most people in modern-day Finnish work culture maintain and adhere to calendars of meetings/tasks. If a meeting has to be scheduled between three people, one of them would access shared Outlook calendars of others and confirm if all are available. All formal meetings happen after meeting invites via Email/Outlook Calendars. Meetings are expected to start on time and also end on time. They keep their commitments in terms of time/deliverables and expect the same in return.
• It is forbidden to work on weekend or sit back late hours unless there is an emergency situation at work. They try to pack more meaning in an 8 hour work day and avoid unneccessary activities where they don’t see value during the day. Impromptu meetings are avoided unless it is something urgent and needs to be addressed immediately.
• Office timings are very flexible and one can choose to work around 7.5 to 8 hours a day. Most people start at 8:00 AM and end the day by 4:00 PM with around 30 minutes of lunch break. Working week is between 38-42 hours and timings are flexible.
• Finns in general don’t like to talk much and are not very expressive. The day I started working here, I was told (or warned!) that Finns are generally reserve and I need not worry about it. As a rule, exceptions have to be there and I found some of the Finnish people to be very friendly and transparent.  But in general, it takes some time before you can break the ice with them and get comfortable. Once comfortable, Finns can be very open and transparent friends. They are very courteous too (e.g. if they take you somewhere in their car, they would open the door for you as a sign of courtesy.)
• Communication from Finnish people is very clear and straight-forward. Since their primary language is not English, it makes a lot of sense to speak slowly and clearly.  When writing, they prefer brevity and do not appreciate long documents. Most of the times, they would prefer a powerpoint presentation with less than 10 slides over a 20 page document. Interrupting when someone is speaking is considered impolite (unlike US, where people wouldn’t mind, or rather appreciate  if you ask questions mid-way). 
• For the dress codes, smart casual dressing is preferred. All Finnish work places have a special place where people can hang their long coats and jackets. In business meetings, a dark color suit with tie is preferred dressing. People wear light/pastel colors at work place and avoid very bright colors. Most people carry warm clothes/jackets because of climate. 
• Work in Finland is governed by strict Labor Laws. There is a huge building in Hakaniemi area where lot of Labor Unions are located. Firing someone is not always possible. Once an employee is confirmed, it is very difficult to fire him/her because it has to be justified. If it is not justified, company has to pay the damages. So hiring is done very selectively with a long term perspective. People are also entitled to take 4 weeks of vacation. If a company refuses to grant holidays, employees can sue the company.

I am sure the above points would be of some help to those who may be scheduled to travel/work in Finland or may travel in future. I am sure there are other nuances that I may not have covered and hence I will try to keep this post updated with things-as-I-learn-them.

Have a good Sunday and a fantastic week ahead!