Dates. Mark Alphonso Dates. Mr Dates to you who serving the public.
Dates’ recent experience at Ace H&B Hardware is one more indication that this country that was known far and wide for its decency is now becoming known for its boorishness.
There has been a general lowering of concern about how we treat others. Let me mention one area that is, to me, symptomatic.
Time was when the only individuals who would curse at all or unapologetically around people who were not their bosom (or drinking) buddies were those thought of as having no broughtupcy – the few “viragos” and “fire galashes” and “vagabonds” and “bad johns” who were so designated because of their “blackguardish” behaviour.
Such behaviour was widely seen as the crassest, most intimate incivility. Not anymore.
Nowadays the behaviour of many people – not least those who sport expensive brand name gear, wear $400 dresses and pearls (pearls before swine, somebody said?) and got all sorts of credentials and “big” jobs – bears the unmistakable marks of “blackguardish”.
People who want to hold politicians, teachers, journalists, tout monde to high standards don’t apparently hold themselves to even the most basic ones. And they like to use the word “hypocrite”.
They complain about the behaviour in the PSV (ZR and minibuses) sector, the flouting of the law, the recklessness, the disrespect, but don’t seem to see that their own behaviour in many instances is a small-scale version of that which has fallen upon us from that sector.
Dealing with the broader situation is somewhat complicated. But, in another area in which targeted action ought to be less challenging, the workplace, what we see is weakness in will and strategy or general indifference concerning getting workers to treat others with dignity.
What about you? Is your de facto national motto more like “I en cay ’bout a fella” than Pride And Industry?
Now, in the matter of poor customer service, I am not like those people who say, “I don’t blame the worker; I blame management”. In this regard they are in the igrant company of those who, if a woman in revealing wear is accosted, or worse, sexually assaulted, say, “She encourage it”. Or if someone left a window or door open and a burglar does what burglars do, remark, “He deserve it – he en had no right leaving he place open”. Not blaming the actual offender at all sounds morally obtuse to me.
All the same, re customer service, we do have to knock management. In many cases they are, in fact, facilitators of bad worker behaviour – especially through their failure to act.
I know that, as usual, we talk (oh, how we talk!) about training. A company spends money for somebody to come in and tell its workers how to function better. They sit down and listen. And go back to their work stations and carry on in the same ways they have always done.
’Cause we don’t seem to understand that training is a package. It is not just a presentation. It is not just telling.
It involves – among other things – effective selection of “trainees” (some sage once said, “No real learning takes place unless the learner is himself in pursuit of it”); nurturing commitment to the training; and clear indication of post-training expectations.
And the actual execution requires: focusing on “do” capabilities rather than “talk about” knowledge; and training activities that mirror the actual job situation.
Not forgetting: methodologies for transfer of learning into the actual work situation; post-training support; accountability set-ups (including consequences); and adequate monitoring systems.
In any effort to bring about change, accountability is key. Those who interact with customers must be monitored.
Some companies elsewhere use mystery customers and mystery callers who then report to management. And there is serious follow-up action, sometimes the ultimate consequence.
A word about “internal customers”: if you can get away with treating fellow workers badly right under the nose of your superiors, you could be forgiven for thinking that there are no consequences to treating patrons badly too.
In Barbados, also, offended customers are not usually going to run to THE NATION or Voice Of Barbados or CBCTV8 to make you the target of shaming or worse.
Mr Dates did. And “Bizzy” Williams was falling all over himself apologising. Ads in the paper, spots on radio and TV.
I just wonder though: did all that come with a real (without any ifs and with an unmistakable identification of the wrong done) apology from the offending manager himself and a commiserating set of hardware products or money for Mr Dates?
In many other countries, even if Mr Hinds had invented hardware, he would have been fired forthwith. My jury is still out in this case, but wasn’t Steve Jobs fired from the company he started?
More of us have to tell our sad customer service tales to the newspaper and the radio and television. And withdraw our patronage. Sometimes even make a big noise – not “blackguardish” though – in the very place itself (it is one of the best ways to get management to show their faces and act in your interest).
We wouldn’t have to take such drastic steps if workers made excellent service their aim – and if management held them to it. Looka wha’ Barbados has come to!
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• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor.
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