The soup was cold. The service was slow. And that was definitely Provolone, not Swiss cheese on the turkey club. But when the young girl at the register asks how everything was, you respond with, “just fine, thanks.”
Celeste M. Warner, of Dartmouth, Mass., isn’t buying it.
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Warner is a professional consultant and customer service trainer. And she wants you to start complaining – for the good of our nation’s economy.
“On average we don’t complain, not even a little,” she said. “In fact, some of us lie. When we receive poor service and are asked how everything is, we routinely say ‘good’ or ‘fine.’ This silence of ours could cost our country hundreds of thousands of jobs, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in trade.”
This silence, said Warner, is not deafening, “but it appears to be falling on deaf ears.”
I’m not sure if hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake — or if we are talking about billions, or even millions of dollars. But Warner makes a good case for the good that can come from a well-placed complaint.
The SouthCoast Economic Partnership — a collection of mayors, CEOs, business owners, educational leaders, and economic development officials from communities along the Route 195 corridor, from Seekonk to Wareham – apparently thinks there is something to what Warner says. The group has brought her on board to work with businesses and consumers throughout the area.
New Bedford Mayor Fred Kalisz launched the program last week. Soon, signs bearing themes like “Tell the Truth for SouthCoast Businesses” or “Show Your Love to SouthCoast Businesses” will be seen at the Hampton Inns of Westport and Fall River, Bittersweet Farms, Foodworks, Freestones restaurant, Lazy-Boy, Luzo Foodservice, Monaghan Printing, Gloria & Company Day Spa, JC Penney and Cardoza’s Wine and Spirits.
The signs will remind consumers that their feedback is welcome and will be taken seriously.
In addition to working with business owners on how to handle criticism, a big part of Warner’s job is to get consumers to complain. That won’t be easy. Traditionally, consumers hold their silence.
“We don’t believe it will make a difference,” she said. “And we don’t want conflict.”
And when consumers do complain, she said, it is usually when they are at their wit’s end. Emotions get involved, Warner points out, and little is accomplished.
But if we really care about quality, she said. And if we want to see our small businesses succeed, we’ll complain. And not to family and friends, said Warner. More importantly, we need to be telling the people who need the information – the business owners, who have the power to make changes.
“Our goal is to help people’s business from going out of business. We could complain. We could encourage our friends and families to complain. We could tell business exactly what we want from them. We could explain to them how we want to be treated by their employees at all levels. We could tell them that if they don’t change that we would no longer support them. We could rally around great businesses. We as consumers could put local businesses on probation until they shape up. We could take responsibility for helping American businesses stay in business.”
Customer service is the topic of Warner’s master’s thesis at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Asked how long she hoped the pilot program would run, the optimistic Warner replied “forever.”
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this SouthCoast initiative. Perhaps it will start a movement. If businesses become more profitable and gain long-term relationships with consumers as a result, the complaining will have served a noble purpose.
So the next time the soup is cold, tell the owner.
