On Friday night, I was running errands. My wife called and asked me to pick up a Diet Coke on the way home- she told me she was in the mood for fountain pop ("soda" for my East Coast friends). The closest place happened to be a Dairy Queen, which is a soft-serve ice cream chain.
Apparently, the staff wasn't prepared for anyone to request anything other than ice cream. The poor teenaged girl who took my order appeared mystified. Then, she actually asked for assistance from her fellow teenage-girl manager to ask what to do. She even consulted the manager as to whether or not the drink should have ice!
I was more sad than angry at this (what I perceived to be) debacle. It hammered home some reminders about what is needed in the work-force.
1) While you should (obviously) be open to training, it's okay to rely on your own experience, too. I can't imagine anyone in our society that hasn't fixed themselves a fountain drink in their lives. My elementary-school children are actually irked if they don't fill their own cups because they want to be "grown up." So, getting me a Diet Coke shouldn't have been any different for the Dairy Queen girl than fixing one for herself.
2) Workers, especially those who deal with the public (like sales professionals) need to stay adaptable. Giving the teenager the benefit of the doubt, she was so focused on her training as an ice cream dispenser that when asked to do anything outside of her routine, she apparently went blank. One solution, then, might be training her to be adaptable- to think outside the box... At the very least, not to panic when someone orders a Coke!
As salespeople, I'm sure we've all heard off-the-wall requests. How have you responded to them? Could you have handled them better? Because to the clients who ask you for help, their inquiries aren't unusual, and they are counting on you for an answer. Hopefully you're prepared for anything!
At Obbee, we count on providing the best sales leads in the industry. We use web-based tools and systems to garner prospect lists for the real estate, insurance, mortgage, debt settlement and loan modification fields. We don't, sadly, offer Diet Coke.
- Dave
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