As I have written about in the past, I am a fan of reality shows. My wife recently got me watching Undercover Boss. For those unfamiliar with the premise, a top executive at a company gets disguised and goes around working with various ground level parts.
In a pair of repeat episodes shown the last couple of weeks, the undercover boss discovered major customer service failures at
Episode No. 1 showed the founder of a chain of franchised gyms going undercover. At one of the locations, he met an employee who worked the customer desk but was rude to the clientele.
Yet, after the boss revealed himself at the end of the episode and confronted this employee about her behavior, her response was she did not do anything wrong. While the decision to terminate the employee was probably made before the confrontation, her lack of remorse made it easier for the boss to go ahead and fire her.
In the second episode, the owner of a resort hotel chain just bought a competing chain which had been underperforming. He went to see what was happening at this new acquisition (so new that it still had not been integrated).
There was one hotel in that chain which was the exception to the last statement. Management at this particular property had been advised of the change and was supposed to have advised its staff on how the new owner expects its members to be treated. (Note: based on what the undercover boss said, this one property might have been entering into an affiliation agreement prior to the opportunity to buy it.)
A guest who was a member at the new owner’s chain came to the desk. The desk person’s treatment of this person did not meet the undercover boss’ protocols. So in the middle of the mission, the undercover boss broke character and revealed himself to the guest.
He was careful to note the failure was not at the desk person level, but at the resort management level. Still, during the reveal portion, where the person who the undercover boss works with gets rewarded (or as in the case above, fired), there was no mention of the desk person and an associate.
The main point is that you as the boss, even if you are just a mortgage loan officer, you need to make sure any person who works at the point of customer contact needs to treat clients appropriately. Any training in the matter falls on you as the boss.
If they do not treat clients in an appropriate manner they need to be held accountable. But also the person responsible for teaching them how to interact with clients also has to be held responsible.
