Communication Coach Blog
Hi “fans” 😉
I have just been informed that the federal leaders will continue talking after 9pm tomorrow (because 2 hours is not enough I guess), so I will not have time to be on LeDrew Live Tuesday at 9pm. HOWEVER they have asked me to come in for WEDNESDAY at NOON instead. So I am happy to oblige.
CP24 (City News) LeDrew Live with host Stephen LeDrew. Look for me around noon on Wednesday.
Thanks,
Coach Ric
Hello Communication Enthusiasts!
Many Canadians will be watching the Federal Leaders’ Debate happening in English this Tuesday April 12th, from 7-9 pm EST. I am sure it will be full of interesting mini-speeches, critiques, replies and maybe some humour. I am also sure it will contain a lot of body language and other non-verbal communication, both positive and negative.
I have been asked by CityNews/CP24 to be a guest on the Stephen LeDrew Live show following the debate. I will be asked to give my expert opinion on the body language used by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe during their debate. I am honoured by the request and have agreed to share some thoughts on air.
As of right now the producers think I would be on around 9:30 pm. I’m not sure how much detail Mr. LeDrew will be asking of me so I don’t know how long my segment will be, but I will endevour to give fair and balanced feedback on each of the politician’s body language, and the inferred meaning and feeling. It must be a difficult job to be a professional politician!
Enjoy the debate and enjoy the LeDrew Live show!
For a number of years now I have enjoyed conversations with friends about terrible customer service or great customer service, and it seems there is an endless supply of stories, especially here in the big city of Toronto. We Canadians pride ourselves on our stereotypical politeness and our overuse of “please” and “thank you” but the sad fact is that the average customer service experience here in Toronto is mediocre or “good-enough” at best. Here is the problem: when we get great service, whether it is at a restaurant or while dealing with a utility company or any other service industry, we are genuinely shocked and almost overwhelmed. We RAVE about the wonderful service. Why? Because it isn’t normal here! Isn’t that wrong? So I have created this category in this blog.
As a professional Communication Coach I train people in advanced communication skills which, as you can imagine, includes customer service, building rapport, conflict management etc. Considering my job, I guess it’s fair to say that I’m a harsh judge of excellent service, but the other reality is that I am a very happy, positive person 99% of the time, and I go in to any interaction with a smile and positive attitude, and the hope that it will be a good experience for both/all of us.  I definitely do not try to be a jerk to anyone! I used to work customer service myself (most people have at some point).
So I thought I would create a blog category where I can RANT and RAVE about the good, the bad and the ugly customer service here in Toronto. Heck, there may even be stories in there from outside of this city. It could be on the topic of public transit, restaurants, utilities, camera shops etc. No topic is off-limits or too personal.
I can promise you that even though I will use this blog to vent a bit and let people/companies know when they have acted poorly, I will also praise the hard work of others, to make things balanced and fair. My goal is to be entertaining as well as informative.  I think you will agree that my posts are quite down-to-earth, personable and I hope insightful.
I welcome your comments and stories, but please keep them polite and professional, so I can allow them to be posted.
Thank you!
Yours in pursuit of customer satisfaction,
Coach Ric
This article by Perry Marshall exemplifies that no matter what your business or profession is, you need to understand people i.e. have excellent communication and people skills.
Thanks Perry!
Coach Ric
We’ve all asked for some extras at the restaurants, right? We want malt vinegar instead of white for our fries/chips, we want extra ketchup packets from the fast-food place so we can put them in our fridge, we want 2 helpings of the special dipping sauce at Swiss Chalet. The question the wait staff, managers and owners of restaurants need to ask themselves is – how much is too much? That’s tricky when you live in a culture of “the customer is always right”.
I remember I used to visit a Red Lobster in St. Catharines (this is going back a long time ago…mid-nineties!) and they were always giving away free appetizers or discounts off the bill if anything was a few minutes late or if the customer ever said “boo”. I remember thinking at the time, as I ate my comp shrimp cocktail, that the place must be losing a ton of money.
Anyway back to more recent times, a couple of years ago I took my girlfriend (now my wife) to a new restaurant for Valentine’s Day. We went to Mambo’s on the Danforth. Let me tell you – it was awesome! Great service, great tapas, great mojitos…couldn’t ask for anything more. I immediately signed up for their newsletter to get coupons emailed to me regularly. We went a couple more times and even when they changed some items on the menu and did some reno (I can’t remember if they changed management hands or not) we still came back for special occasions, or when we were feeling like we needed to be spoiled.
Anywho, here is my story that relates to the title: I got an email offer that said if it was your birthday you could come in and get a free main/dinner. I thought that was good, but who eats by themselves on their birthday at a restaurant like that, right? So I emailed back to the owner asking, since my girlfriend and I had birthdays within 8 days of each other, could we come in and both get a free main in one night?
I know, I know – I was being a bit pushy right? But you know what they say – you never know until you ask. I thought I wasn’t asking for that much, since we were returning customers and he would know that from our names since we had signed up for special nights before via internet.
What happened? He never emailed me back. Ever! I guess he felt it was too much to ask, and instead of responding or negotiating with me, he wrote nothing. I felt a bit embarrassed and so we never returned to the restaurant again. Ever.
So the question is now upon you; if you were the customer, waitstaff, manager or the restaurant owner, what would you do?  How would you respond to my email/request? All straight-forward and also creative answers welcome!
I was so pleasantly surprised Wednesday evening! I was on the subway, heading westbound to Jane, when at approx 6:11pm the train stopped at Dundas West station for a couple minutes. I was expecting to hear nothing about the delay, which would leave everyone wondering how long the delay would last. And what do you think happened next? A calm and clear voice belonging to the TTC operator announced in a very professional way that all trains were stopped due to a burning odour at St. George station, and that they were waiting to get permission to continue. He told us he would update us again soon as progress was made. WOW! Fantastic. That is a huge improvement on the usual “tell nothing” attitude. This guy understood our feelings and kept us in the loop. Kudos!!!
The train began to move again shortly and there were no more disruptions to my ride. I just wanted to post that here to say THANK YOU to that operator, and to encourage all TTC operators to do the same thing; speak to us in a calm, clear manner, and inform us of why we are being delayed and approx. how long it will last. Is it that hard to do? I think not.
If you take the TTC as often as I do, then you have heard both their recorded customer service announcements and you have also heard impromptu voices from the drivers of the trains. The recorded voices are professional, calm and informative. The loud speaker system doesn’t always work well unfortunately, but at least the voices are clear.
On the other hand, I would say that 90% of the drivers who make announcements over the loud speaker should not be doing so, in the best interest of the company brand. Why? Because – simply put – they sound aggressive, and sometimes annoyed. (On a side note – I wonder if they receive any type of public speaking training?)
I bet they are annoyed at all the stupid questions they have to constantly and repeatedly answer all day, every day. I bet they have heard the same questions hundreds of times, and are tired of people asking. I bet they struggle with ESL issues on top of that. I bet they are annoyed at all the people who stay on a train or try to enter one even after the driver has repeated him/herself 10 times “This train is out of service. Please do not board this train. Once again this train is out of service – do not board this train.” Under those circumstances, not to mention normal stress from the job, you often have yourself a short-fuse.
That is what I hear in their announcements. I hear aggression, anger, annoyance and frustration. So if I’m even half correct in my assumptions, then why would any company want an employee making announcements to the general public?
I know budgets are tight and the TTC is old. It takes a lot of resources and time to upgrade. I just want to tell them that almost every time I hear an announcement from a live operator on TTC, I feel sorry for them personally (job stress) and I feel that the TTC will have an even harder time of improving their image as a caring, friendly way of travel.
This is a great interview of Larry King by ‘guest host’ and YouTube sensation Asa the comic. If you watch part 2 as well there is a very deep story about an interview Larry did with a paralyzed police officer many years back – powerful story. Larry is truly the king of interviews. Excellent voice and great story teller. Asa holds his own even though he was obviously nervous. (I would be too!) Good job Asa!
Today in the mail I received a Thank You card from Leon’s. Inside contained a hand-written note from Mike, the salesman who sold me my sofa a few weeks back (see previous post Mike Does Right at Leon’s).
I think it’s great that a company is sending out thank you cards, and I think it is also great that the sales rep is personally writing and signing the note. It’s classy, and it carries positive emotional weight. I bet you are not surprised then to hear me say that I will be returning to the same store in the future for my furniture needs.
Cheers!
This story is about a harsh lesson learned for one Toronto waitress.
A long time ago, maybe back in the early or mid-nineties, some members of my family were visiting Toronto (they don’t live here) to see a Blue Jays ball game. They stayed at the Skydome Hotel. That’s right – this story happened before the name change to the Rogers Centre. Anyway I was not there at the time, and I don’t recall why. Perhaps I was at University, or overseas, or busy in some other way. Nevertheless this is a classic story which is still shocking to me today.
Essentially the story goes that after spending an exciting but expensive weekend in the big city, the family (probably 4 people) went down for breakfast at the Skydome Restaurant. My uncle joined them for breakfast as he lives in the city. Anyway, what I heard was that my uncle ordered the breakfast buffet special, and others ordered straight breakfast dishes. Uncle got up and collected some items from the buffet to put on his plate, and returned to the table. He maybe returned once more to the buffet table. So everyone is laughing, enjoying a big breakfast and reminiscing about the good times had in Toronto. My uncle, who has never been a big eater, had not touched his danish on his plate, and didn’t want to waste it since he was full, and offered it to my brother. So my brother accepted it and put it on his side plate.
Apparently, from out of nowhere, the waitress dashed over to the table and aggressively commanded that he (my bro) could not have that danish as he did not order the breakfast buffet! Even as my uncle was attempting to explain to her that he was full and didn’t want to waste it, the waitress picked up the danish (with or without the side-plate I just don’t know) and runs off with it!
My family sat, amazed at the extent the waitress would go to in the enforcement of the buffet rules. It was a 10 cent danish! It’s not like my uncle was grabbing things up and feeding the whole table! It’s not like it was roast beef! It was a danish!!!
So my brother, who generally has a really good disposition and is a happy guy, was not amused.
When the group had finished eating and requested the bill, the same waitress brought it over to the table, and asked “Who gets this?”
My brother looked at her and said “Me.”
As fate would have it, it was indeed his turn to pay (as the ‘rents had paid for dinner the night before) and he was more than happy to pay the bill. He added a 1-cent tip to the bill for the waitress.
It’s a sad story to some, a funny story to others, but a good learning lesson I think to all waitstaff: think carefully before you steal food from a paying customer! Is the reason in your head really worth it? Maybe discuss your idea with a manager beforehand if possible.
I’m glad I wasn’t there.