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Thinking differently |
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During our last visit to US, we were fortunate to take part at the Pizza Convention in Las Vegas. We were invited there by the magazine Pizza Today, thanks to some correspondence that Lia, my wife, had with them. The convention was very interesting for us. Probably the part that we most enjoyed were the presentations about different business subjects: methods to attract and keep clients, to handle complains, to organize your business. How much from what we learned there is actually applied in Romania? Lia could check it when she went with a friend of hers to have a coffee at a rather fancy café in Timisoara. The place is well furnished, classy, and the prices reflect it. Since it was a sunny day, they went outside on a terrace. They were just about to sip their coffee when Lia noticed a lipstick mark on her cup. She went inside and told the waitress about it. In her mind she already made a list of things that were about to happen, the standard drill about complains handling. One, thank the customer for her help, two, apologize and three, do whatever possible to make the customer happy. Do you know what the waitress answered? She said "It is not the first time when this happens" and she simply poured the coffee into another cup. Lia was so startled that her mental model didn't fit the reality that she almost started laughing. This was funny, but it had some unexpected follow-up for me. Lia went to our pizzeria and told everyone what happened. And one of the workers, Lili, remembered a story that I almost completely forgotten. 11 years ago I was managing the pizzeria and we hired a new saleswoman, Lili, directly from high school. One day she was at the counter and a customer complained that our pizza is stale. Lili argued back, it is not possible, it was delivered directly from the oven. This was indeed the reality, Lili felt offended, but the customer stuck to what he said. They came to a heated argument, where the guy called Lili insolent and threatened to tell about it to the owner. The next day, the customer came again and immediately asked to see me. He told me his story and I listened to him very calmly. Meanwhile Lili watched from the kitchen what is happening and she was quite frightened, that she could loose her job or I could scold her or shout at her. I asked Lili to join us and I thanked the guy for mentioning the fact to us, and I deeply apologized for the incident. In fact the customer was completely taken aback by my understanding attitude, this was by no means the standard rule in 1992 in Romania. As Lili confessed now to Lia, after so much time, she was very much impressed that I had no word of reproach for her and very much ashamed that I had to apologize for something she did. That night she couldn't sleep, thinking about it. I also gave some thought about the situation. I realized that people working with us do not have the chance to read American books as we have. Two days later I prepared on a sheet of paper several phrases where I tried to synthesize what I believed in. Something like "The client pays our salaries" and other similar short phrases. Then I displayed the paper in the shop. As she says now, Lili spend several days afterwards, trying very hard to understand each sentence. I am very much impressed and surprised by the intensity of the feelings that Lili had so much time ago. And very happy that, by pure chance, I found out that my efforts had some results. I sometimes make mistakes in my relationships with other people (who doesn't), but I am so pleased that other times I compensate my mistakes. Dorel Jurcovan June 8th, 2006 |