Every doctrine has to start somewhere. Even this one.
Want to boost your repeat business, get tons of free referrals, acquire bunches of new customers and get lots of positive buzz for free? There’s a pretty simple way to do it that doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Can you guess what it is?
Simple: Purge your company of assholes.
In fact, let me share item #1 in my Better Business Doctrine with you real quick. Are you ready? Here we go:
The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.
That’s it.
A simple example, from the friendly skies.
Does this seem like common sense? Of course it does. And yet here we are, routinely forced to endure a passive-aggressive or plain argumentative jerks who would rather exercise their “authority” than provide customers – even stressed out customers – with pleasant experiences. Why is that? Let me answer that question: Because companies are still hiring assholes.
Let me give you a few examples just from the past week:
1a. The Continental flight I was on last week
Flight Attendant (sternly) to a passenger in the process of turning off their iPad, just not quickly enough: “SIR! I need you to turn that off right now!” (Stares angrily at passenger until the device is turned off, and walks away, visibly annoyed.)
This probably happens to flight crews 20+ times per day. Every time a plane pushes off from the gate and prepares its approach, passengers in the middle of a song, of a paragraph, of a game of Angry Birds or Brick Breaker take an extra 10-30 seconds to “comply” with the “please turn off your electronic devices at this time” announcement on the PA. I get it. It probably gets annoying after a while. But guess what: You’re a flight attendant. Asking people to turn off their electronic toys comes with the job. You don’t have to be an asshole about it. Case in point:
1b: The Delta flight I was on the following day
– Flight Attendant (with a smile, jokingly) to a passenger so absorbed by what he was reading that he missed the “turn off your electronic devices” announcement and kept his Kindle going: “Good book?”
– Passenger, sensing that he was the object of the flight attendant’s attention, looks up from his device: “I’m sorry?”
– Flight Attendant, nonchalantly points at the Kindle: “Good reading?”
– Passenger, smiling back: “Yeah. Very!” (Gets it. Laughs. Starts to look for the “off” button.)
– Flight attendant: “You can turn it back on as soon as we’re on the ground.” (Walks away. Stops. Turns around.) “The book. What is it?”
Passenger answers. Flight attendant repeats the title as if to remember it, nods as if interested, and returns to his station.
The difference between the two isn’t training or pay. It isn’t corporate policy or procedure. It isn’t even company culture. The difference between the two occurrences is this:
One of these flight attendants, at some point during the course of her day, week, month, year or career, decided to let her asshole flag fly. The other one didn’t.
How every asshole on your payroll affects your brand equity and impacts your business on a daily basis.
The impact of just one asshole’s behavior in a customer-facing role doesn’t stop with the one customer they treat poorly. Ten rows of passengers witnessed the exchanges on both flights, and I can guarantee that the ten rows on the Continental flight (30 passengers) were not impressed, while those on the Delta flight surely were. The ramifications of this are simple:
Whatever shot Continental had at influencing these 30 people to develop a preference for flying its friendly skies, for being more loyal, for looking to book future flights with them first, just flew out the window, not because of price, not because of delays, not because the plane was dirty. The price was great. The plane left on time and was impeccable. Continental did everything right except one thing: Someone there allowed an asshole (and probably more than one) to take on a key customer service role. Delta, on the other hand, scored some points.
And just to be fair, I’ve run into my fair of assholes working for Delta too. Few domestic US airlines seem immune to this phenomenon these days, except for perhaps Alaska Air, whose service and hiring practices, to my knowledge are still impeccable.
That said, my experience with Delta flight crews this week was stellar, and not just because of this little anecdote. (Expect another post about what else happened very soon.) The difference between the two airlines for me was limited to my experience, as it is for all of us. Before the recommendations and the word-of-mouth and the marketing, our own experience shapes our bias.
Every positive experience creates positive associations with a brand, while every negative experience creates a negative association with a brand. More positive than negative = positive bias, preference, even loyalty. Consistent negative experiences (especially those that repeat themselves, like frequent delays, rude employees, apathetic managers, or being talked down to by an unprofessional asshole) = negative bias, preference for your competitors instead of you, and cynicism towards your brand.
The wheels of this mental equation – more emotional than empirical – start turning every time the thought of your brand comes up, and you need to understand it isn’t linear. The way we process the negative and the positive isn’t as balanced as you might think. For whatever reason, until you have grown into a loyal fan of the brand, the equation tends to be heavily weighed towards the negative: What you did right six months ago – or for the last thirty years,- doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you did wrong yesterday or just last week. That’s part 1 of how the mental math of brand experiences work. Part 2 is this: People will easily forgive incidents and accidents: Lost luggage, no available upgrades, long lines at the counter, mechanical problems, etc. Those things are out of your control, and once the anger and frustration subside, they’ll get it. Those negative impressions will evaporate. But one thing customers won’t forgive of any company: Being deliberately treated badly by an asshole.
Just as being an asshole is a choice, – especially when dealing with a customer – hiring an asshole and keeping them on staff is also a choice. Because of this immutable fact, every company bears its part of responsibility in the hiring and promoting of assholes. Customers instinctively understand this, which is why when they run into one of your company’s assholes, they don’t blame the asshole for treating them poorly, they blame you. They blame the brand. The negative association they take home with them isn’t with that person (whose name and face they will forget inside of a week), but with you. Your assholes are faceless. All customers remember is the context: You. Your company. Your brand. The asshole just goes on being an asshole day after day, happy to have a job that pays him – even rewards him – for being a complete raging asshole all day long.
At the end of their shift, what you have to understand is that assholes in your employ don’t lose customers. You do. You spend your resources bringing them to the cash register, and every asshole on your staff spends all day making sure they never come back.
For this reason if none other, choose and evaluate your employees carefully.
The real cost of letting assholes poison your brand from the inside.
If you are in business and have employees, let me be VERY clear about this: You are always only one asshole away from losing your best customer. The more assholes you have on staff, the faster and more often this will happen.
Not only that, but assholes tend to turn off, not only the one customer they happen to be unpleasant to, but everyone within earshot as well.
And today, ladies and gentlemen, “within earshot” isn’t just the ten rows on the plane or the ten people in the store waiting to check out. It is also potentially the hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter users who might get a glimpse of that negative experience and be turned off in turn. Even millions, for that matter. (See previous 2 images, inspired by David Armano’s “Influence Ripples” theory (Edelman), below:)
Let me give this a financial angle for you: Over the course of a year, one asshole on your staff, just one, can invalidate every dime your company has spent on advertising, marketing and PR. That’s the real liability of assholes. For small businesses, an asshole might only cost you $10,000 in wasted marketing, messaging or brand positioning. If you’re a bigger company, the same asshole (or a whole army of them, which is more likely) could cost you hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted marketing and brand management dollars.
That was part 1 of that equation. Part 2 is measured in lost revenue from disappointed customers taking their business elsewhere (your competitors thank you), lost revenue from all of the net new customers delighted customers would have recommended you to (but didn’t, because your assholes chased them away), and so on.
As a result, the higher the proportion of assholes to caring professionals a company has on staff, the more likely it is to have to spend more and more on marketing (with increasingly diminishing returns), while customer retention falls flat and even starts to dip into the red. Assholes aren’t just bad for customer service or your brand’s image. Assholes are bad for business. They are a counter-current to your hopes and dreams. They are the cancer that first weighs you down, then eventually makes your brand begin to fail, then wither, then die.
So let me repeat today’s lesson: The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.
Don’t believe me? Ask Zappos. If you have never heard of Zappos, they sell shoes on the internet. That’s it. Well… LOTS of shoes. So many in fact that Amazon bought them for a pretty penny. Not only that, but Amazon decided not to make any major changes to Zappos’ leadership or culture. They left Zappos alone because the model works well just as it is. What’s Zappos’ secret? The customer experiences they create are stellar. Why are they stellar? Because Zappos pretty much has a “no asshole on staff” policy. Their hiring practices focus on this, and for good reason: They know that a happy customer is a loyal customer.
The simple truth (and we all know this) is that happy customers are good for business. In fact, no. They are GREAT for business: The happier a customer is, the more likely it is that they will come back, spend more, spend more often, and recommend you to all their friends. This is what you want. This is what makes businesses insanely successful. This. You don’t have to invent the iPad to be a huge success. Zappos just sells shoes on the internet. Virgin Airlines just flies people from airport to airport. Intercontinental Hotels (disclosure: client) are basically just… hotels. We’re not talking space walks or time travel, here. Your favorite restaurant, your favorite coffee shop, your favorite mechanic, none of them necessarily reinvented the wheel, right? They didn’t win a Nobel prize for revolutionizing their industries. No. What they did was this: They figured out that a happy customer is good for business, so they focused on that. They earned your trust, your respect and your loyalty. Want to know how they did that? By giving you theirs.
Let me let you in on a little secret: An asshole doesn’t think that way. An asshole doesn’t think about happy customers. He doesn’t care about happy customers. An asshole only thinks about himself: His own mood, his own frustrations, his own personal dramas, his own power trips. An asshole doesn’t give anyone their trust, respect or loyalty. Assholes just don’t think that way. And that is precisely the rub: No matter how well you pay them, you can’t make assholes give a shit. And that is bad for business. Very bad.
A fork in the road for every organization:
Do you know one way to make sure your customers are always happy? Only hire people who want your customers to be happy too. People who want to be helpful, who want to fix problems, who take pride in making someone’s day better instead of worse. People who genuinely want to see the company do well. People with pride and self respect and ambition beyond their own bank account or advancement. Do you think this is too hard? It isn’t. Just hire better.
Want to guess how to guarantee that your customers will not be happy? Hire assholes to take care of them. (It works every time.)
That’s your choice: Door A or Door B.
Door A: Hire super nice, helpful people and your business will soar.
Door B: Hire assholes, and your business will forever struggle to stay afloat.
Every time you run into one of your employees (or candidates) and he or she acts like an asshole, I want you to think about that. I want you to think about how much harder you want to have to work to make your business successful once they start pissing off every customer and client they come in contact with.
Taking a step back so you can see your entire business now, how many assholes do you really want on your payroll, and how many customers do you want to put them in front of? Pull out a piece of paper and write down a number. Do it. Write it down. How many assholes do you want on your payroll?
Next to that number, write down how many assholes you have on your payroll now. Go through your mental org chart, and start counting them in your head. When you’re done, write down how many assholes you know are in your company right now. If that number is higher than the first number you wrote down, you have some cleaning up to do.
In closing, let me leave you with the top 5 ways to make sure that your company starts becoming asshole-proof.
Top 5 ways of asshole-proofing your company:
1. Don’t hire assholes. They are bad for business, and they breed inside organizations like weeds.
2. Don’t promote assholes. The only thing worse than an asshole is an asshole with authority (including the authority to hire and promote assholes when you aren’t paying attention).
3. Give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor. Do this immediately. Make sure the door doesn’t hit them in the ass on their way out.
4. Once removed, replace your former assholes with nice, smart friendly people. (They’re out there and they want to work for you, but your assholes probably already turned them down. Go find them and invite them back.)
5. Reward all of your employees for NOT being assholes.
That just about takes care of it for today. Any questions?
Inspired (in a good way) by conversations with Julien Smith, Geoff Livingston, Keith Burtis, Chris Brogan, Kristi Colvin, Tyler Durden, Jeffrey Jacobs, Peter Shankman, among others.
* * *
And in case you haven’t picked one up yet (or your favorite client seems to be having trouble figuring out how to bring social media into their organization), you can pick up a fresh copy of Social Media ROI at fine book stores everywhere. If you have sworn off paper, you can also download it for iPad, Kindle, Nook or other e-formats at www.smroi.net.
(Click here for details, or to sample a free chapter.)
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
I freaking love this, Olivier. The Delta example is killer. This totally fits with the new PR/Tweetable/Social world we now live in. Everyone who works at a company is representative. I bet that scares the bajeezus out of F500 executives.
If it did, their front line employees and managers wouldn’t routinely act the way they do. I don’t think the connection between “you have assholes working for you” and “you won’t make 100% of your bonus this quarter (again)” has been clearly established. 😉
Olivier,
I really enjoy how you simplify such an experience everyone can relate too and keep us engage on a long post. I have to agree one of the reasons I fly @jetblue is because they have less assholes on the Payroll. When I find one I make sure I let them know and they are always listening.
On the other side I have to agree that the worst thing is getting an Asshole promoted or in a leadership position.
One of the reasons I left the Army was because I saw too many assholes with Rank and I decided I need to go where there was higher probability for Assholes to be filtered out.
I like working along clients that are not Assholes also. It makes my life easier. My business might not be as profitable but I can sure say I sleep a lot better.
I guess many people are selfish in their own ways but an Asshole is selfish in many.
Great post!
Exactly.
I’ve worked for two kinds of bosses: Assholes and non-assholes. Invariably, the assholes made everyone’s jobs more difficult. They wasted resources. They drained morale. In the end, they got in the way of their own employees doing their jobs.
I’ve also had assholes work for me, and that made my job more difficult. Having to fix their messes (or making sure they did) distracted me from more crucial tasks. Assholes monopolized way too much of my time, and slowed down the entire team’s process. We still got the job done, but it was harder to get there (in other words, more expensive).
And not having to work with asshole clients now is a breath of fresh air too. I’ve run into a few in my time, and the experience was always this: They monopolized most of your time with incessant demands and always turned even the most simple projects into an absolute mess. No thanks. It has been a very long time since I have done business with an asshole, but if I ever do again, I will make sure that our contract outlines the various asshole surcharges they will incur if they decide to become difficult. 😉
Cheers.
Excellent. This is perhaps the most important piece of advice that any future manager can read, or know. It should be required reading at University- regardless of major.
As simple as it is, yes. If companies get this right, 80% of the battle is won.
Cheers. 🙂
wait. I resemble that categorization. I am often cynical, counter-intuitive,anti-social, rock throwing, sheep tossing (and sometimes roasting), pugnacious, and contractually obliged to start a fight with anyone who pre-diagnoses their condition with a quick round of crapswag.
as a matter of fact…..
‘I want you to hit me. as hard as you can.’
but, I gets where you are going with this, the polite, or at least, amusing, guy is MUCH more likely to get the girl. or the return client. hmmm. praps I should work on that, hine some of the rough edges off.
un.
likely.
okden, see ya on paper street.
I should write a follow-up to clarify the difference between an asshole and a smartass. 😉
This is excellent … Makes total sense
I know, right? 🙂
Hmmm. You’ve never (or maybe, that’s where you got your insights) worked in France.
But that’s not my question – how do you recognise an ass-hole during an interview?
1. Yeah, I know what you mean. Paris especially tends to push the boundaries in this regard way past their maximum elasticity. But guess what: The reputation of the entire country suffers as a result. That can’t be good for business (or for tourism as a whole). I have been on the receiving end of rude waiters at restaurants and cafes (until they realize I am actually Parisian) so… all I can say is yes, there’s a lot of work to be done there with that. Go down to the Riviera though (and most of France outside of Paris) and the rudeness goes away.
2. If you can’t spot an asshole during the interview process, you probably shouldn’t be a recruiting manager. 😉 There also tends to be a probation period with every new hire, when they train and start to be integrated into the business. That is a great opportunity to observe them and look for red flags. If it takes 10 months to realize they’re an asshole, so be it. It takes that long. The question is, once you find out, what are you going to do about it? A) Let it go and hope it goes away? B) Work with the employee to correct the behavior? (Assholes can be reformed.) Or C) Begin the process of helping them find a new job?
Cheers.
Hmmm. You’ve never (or maybe, that’s where you got your insights) worked in France. Yes, then again your name is French…
But that’s not my question – I wonder – how do you recognise an ass-hole during an interview?
I get what you’re saying, sir, but given the typical experience endured by Americans enduring the miracle of manned flight in recent years, it’s not a stretch to think we – the customers – play a major role in bringing out the asshole in any customer service staffer we meet.
Next time you’re standing in line at the airport – any line – pause for a moment to look around and see just how much contempt is in the air, on YOUR side of the counter.
As painful as it might be, our time in each of those situations is relatively short and painless. Imagine what it’s like to be the official company representative on the other side of that counter, being stared down by hundreds of asshole customers every hour.
I’m not saying it’s right, but I understand.
So, is the problem really that companies are hiring assholes? Or that self-absorbed executive types (read: “decision makers,” who fly privately, I’m sure) just don’t give a shit about the consumer beyond marketing hype and lipservice?
I agree with you 100% that being an asshole should be a fast-track ticket to the unemployment line, but I’m thinking management should pay more attention to not creating processes which turn “top talent” into run-of-the-mill assholes.
You know, I hear you. 100%. But…
1. Reacting negatively to a rude, condescending customer is one thing.
Being rude and condescending to all customers by default (unprovoked) because you have begun to look at all of your customers as a nuisance is another. What I see more often than not is the latter. THAT is what is bad.
Assholes take an excuse and turn it into a reason. Professionals sometimes lose their cool, but these tend to be isolated incidents. Big difference.
2. Having said that, the customer is always right.
Let me say it again: The customer is ALWAYS right.
When a customer is being an asshole, your job is to help them. You don’t have to go out of your way, but it’s your job to do your job. Part of that is to be courteous and professional. Always. No exceptions.
First of all, being an asshole back is not professional. Second, it doesn’t help the situation. It makes it worse. Third, as a representative of your company (employer) being an asshole to a customer, no matter what they have said or done, is never okay.
This doesn’t mean you should take abuse from a customer. There are things you can do to make them sit down and shut up. Being rude (or acting like an asshole) is not one of them. 😉
Unless you’re French and own a restaurant.
Cheers.
Brian, I must say I really agree with you ( and Oliver here) – hiring an asshole can kill a company from the inside and outside…but the airline industry is a special beast – there is so much abuse and treating of airline people like crap these days its almost a shame. Its a sad state when you hear some of the ways these people get spoken to. Maybe we can all meet in the middle somewhere, attendants act nicer and we “flyers” can cut them some slack.
LMAO…this is the Tao of Life, aint it? Purge yourself from assholes, not just your company.
Seriously tho…Im a huge fan of this doctrine. I even have it in the submission guidelines for guest posts on my blog. Black on white, it sez “Dont be an asshole”…among few other, less important points 🙂
It’s a simple yet often overlooked little thing.
Brian you have a point. Who has the fortitude to be stared down daily by folks who HATE a situation the cust serv rep did not create.
So, what is the answer?
Too many times even my favorite Southwest air has given me 85% great and that one flight attendant who needs her panties unwound is enough to make me tweet a storm. The unnecessary way she takes a tone with you like we are going to the principles office, and they know if we object too much to their attitude, they can say we were causing a problem and throw us off the plane.
Thanks Olivier! Dialogue has begun.
See my answer above. 🙂
“There are three kinds of people: dicks, pussies and assholes.
Pussies think everyone can get along and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinkin’ it through. But then you got your assholes, Chuck. And all the assholes want is to shit all over everything.
So pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while because… pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, Chuck! And if they didn’t fuck the assholes, you know what you’d get?? You’d get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit!!!”
I don’t know why, but this quote from Team America seemed to fit here. 😉
Love this, Olivier, absolutely love it. And if businesses STILL don’t understand this mindset – well, they only have themselves to blame when (not if) they fail.
Bowing to you, sir.
You came so close to it that I was sure you were going to say it but you didn’t.
“The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.”
Yeah, but let’s take the next logical step, shall we? If you pay the front-line employees like they are easily replaceable, relatively unskilled workers? That’s what you get. It’s an attitude: that those working in customer facing positions get paid less than those in the corner offices because they aren’t worth much.
If you pay someone $10/hr to be the face of your company? The face of your company is someone who is just barely making ends meet, knows that you don’t value what they do, and gets jaded pretty quickly.
Customer Service reps, waiters/waitresses, receptionists, store sales clerks – these are all under-paid, over-worked, under-appreciated faces of the companies they work for. Makes you wonder if some people have a clue.
This is true. Treat your front line employees like commodities, and they will treat your business like one too.
Though I would argue that underpaid but valued will work well enough while they are there. Treating your employees like they matter to you = loyalty. Paying them well on top of that = longevity.
Thanks for pointing this out. You’re right.
Gpt your point, but i don’t really think that a customer account specialist, how nice and respectful he can be, will make up for the bad commercial strategies, that some flagship companies (canalsat, Orange, SNCF etc..) adopt.
Customer facing situations more and more happen on the phone, and you feel more than ever just being a number..
Right. Well, you have to start somewhere. My experience with companies with horrible policies is that when employees improvise and get around the rules to help you, bad policies evaporate and your relationship with the company shifts.
You can be cynical about an airline or bandwidth provider, and yet have a good enough relationship with a few of the company’s employees to feel positive about it. It creates a richer context for the brand in your life, but that isn’t a bad thing.
I would say start with face-to-face employees, then fix the phone and online support, then fix the rest. The important thing here is twofold:
1. The company has to acknowledge that it has a customer experience problem.
2. The company has to want to fix it.
If either of these two points is missing, eventually, good will by a few courageous employees won’t be enough. Agreed.
Cheers.
Filter out the toxic.
The Delta story above underscores that even the IMPRESSION of giving a shit can often go so far it’s scary.
But your comment about the direct link between front line giving a shit and the C-suite bonus is absolutely vital. Businesses gotta get there…
Great stuff.
Filter out the toxic.
That should be a T-shirt. Or a motivational poster, at the very least.
Cheers!
Dear Oliver,
100% right when talking about those people within an organisation that have direct contact with clients. But try to apply the asshole-rule to the part of your organisation where disruptive ideas (products, concepts, campaigns etc.) are supposed to come from. After 25 years in my line of business (advertising/marketing) I am pretty sure that rule wouldn´t work. I´ve met more brilliant creatives with somewhat underwhelming social skills than really nice ones. I´m not talking about those overrated guys with big international titles and a seemingly inborn right to be an asshole because of it. I´m talking about the introverted Art Director with brilliant ideas and no interest in socializing with his colleagues. I´m talking about the arrogant but brilliant copy writer who delivers again and again but couldn´t care less about his fellow “suits”. It seems to me, there are pockets of work where being a bit of an asshole comes with the territory. I´d rather create an environment, where they don´t hurt others then not having their ideas…
By the way: Some of the most revered entrepreneurial heroes of our times often live with the reputation of being at least part time assholes.
That’s why I was careful to say “The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.”
Emphasis on customer-facing.
Now, I will still argue that being an asshole gets in the way of both brilliance and results. I am not talking about being sometimes difficult or picky or exacting. Some of my favorite bosses and peers are people who run a tight ship and are often irreverent, coarse, and demanding of their staff.
What I am talking about though, are assholes. Real assholes.
I can be difficult sometimes, but I don’t purposely take out my frustrations on people. I don’t mistreat employees or customers just because I can. I try my best not to be rude to anyone even when I have every reason to be. Assholes, real ones, don’t care about that. Assholes treat other people poorly because they either like to or don’t care. That’s what sets them apart. It’s a different breed altogether.
😉
Sometimes, sure. If your most brilliant designer also happens to be an asshole (and you’re okay with his behavior), then fine. Let him do his thing, stay out of his way, and have fun. Just don’t put him in front of clients, keep him away from sensitive employees, and you’ll probably be okay. But if your front-line employees are assholes, you have a major problem.
One last thought: Remember that in this day and age, anyone in the company can suddenly become a front-line employee. Even the CEO.
Cheers. 🙂
Hi. This is the first time I have been to your blog. I liked this post so much that I signed up for the email updates.
I think you make many excellent points and I agree with your take on it all.
Unfortunately, as is seen in many industry leading companies, you can fill your organization with assholes and still stay on top. I’m guessing that it is just because those corporations have reached the 800 pound gorilla status. I just know that threy are many successful companies out there that are filled with assholes and that don’t seem to lose any business because of this fact.
I think that’s what Circuit City, Blockbuster and countless airlines probably thought too. 😉
You might be able to ride the momentum of decades of success for a while, but eventually bad practices catch up with you.
Cheers
I think this article is the BEST!
Well put and well delivered.
Wow, love the post. The illustration of the flight attendants makes the point crystal clear. Everything is marketing, right down to how we look when someone asks us a question.
Someone once asked me what my career goals were, and I said “don’t be a jerk.” It seemed funny at the time, but looking back I made a much better point than I originally thought.
Looking forward to part 2. Now I have to go read some more Social Meida ROI.
That’s a good start for sure. 🙂
Kind of says it all …
I used to pay Frontier to fly my daughter to Denver from Sacramento – spent several thousand dollars on airfare. Tried an experiment, using her aunt’s “buddy pass” privilege. Long story short, after 9 hours in an airport, and no return trip for an important event the next morning, I ran into an asshole at Frontier (there are many).
I, rightly, asked for some attention to my grievance, and was told that since my daughter was flying on a buddy pass I only paid $62 for, I should just shut up and go away. In fact, they threatened the job of my daugher’s aunt, and suggested they would sue me for libel if I posted a blog post about it.
So one of Frontier’s assholes cost them a couple of grand a year in airfare from my pocket, and I give my money to other carriers quite gladly …
Great post.
K
Yep. That was pretty stupid of them.
What a great post, Olivier … I give ‘good customer’ so expect to get ‘good service’.
Here’s a little story: I don’t have a lot of dry cleaning needs; I take a few items to a major chain. No eye-contact, no ‘thanks, have a nice day’ … I think the employee’s name was Curt Brusque. I walked out of there feeling like I had done something wrong … perhaps I wasn’t polite enough?? But they have 24 hr turn-around and I procrastinate so was stuck with them.
One day they were closed so I dropped some stuff off at a little cleaners hidden away in a strip mall. When I came back a week later, the owner took one look at me (not at my ticket), walked to the back and returned – carrying my clothes. I asked her if she remembered everybody. She shrugged and said, “Of course, you’re my customers.”
Beth Harte wrote a great post about companies who encourage “Face to the CEO and backside to the customer” (we coined this ‘assitude’) and as long as the shareholders are happy, assholes remain on the payroll.
Thanks for this – what a fantastic read!
(and I don’t think I’ve ever read the word ‘asshole’ this many times in one sitting)
Great story, and yes: Assitude.
The guy who remembered you is good business personified.
Awesome post – I wouldn’t worry too much though – that deep sucking noise you’re hearing is the sound of EasyJet sucking all these assholes to them – soon enough, they’ll all be working there I suspect 🙂 It’s cleansing at its best…
Ha! 😀
Olivier —
What a great post.
I’m always amazed that companies don’t drill into their employees that they are the company’s chief marketers. How they interact with the public will most definitely have an effect on future sales. I spend lots of money at Zappos because I know they’ll always take care of me. If there’s any issue about something they’ll help fix it regardless of whom was at fault.
Like most people, I have a low tolerance for assholes. If you treat me like one I’ll take my business elsewhere. Ironically, I bet most assholes also have that same policy.
Yep. But the difference is that assholes look for opportunities to turn a bad customer service experience into a power trip. They’re the ones who will dress down a cashier or a waitress in front of as many people as possible. Their glass isn’t spotless. Their steak was too rare. Their receipt is wrong (even when it isn’t).
The rest of us don’t want to dwell on a bad experience. It’s bad enough that we’re unhappy about something without turning it into a melodrama and a public scene. We just want whatever it was to be fixed. We look for solutions and resolutions, not conflict. 😉
Good observation about Zappos too. Everyone has a similar story. These guys get it and it shows.
Cheers.
“Remember that in this day and age, anyone in the company can suddenly become a front-line employee. Even the CEO”
B-I-N-G-O
Isn’t that the (or a) revolutionary reality of today’s social business? Making a shift to hiring (and training/supporting) employees as brand ambassadors is a functional outcome of social business. To do so requires an understanding the social amplification reality of walking the social enabled model. [Clearly I’ve been drinking the @jaybaer, @ambercadabr kool-aide of The Now Revolution.]
And as much as that seems “new”, isn’t it truly the same foundation as Jim Collin’s speaks to in the legacy Good to Great? Build a bus of ambassadors and empower them with the social tools and skills to appropriately BE your brand day in and out.
As with many things, the more it changes, the more it stays the same. Social media simply accelerates outcome awareness, which helps make asshole avoidance a mantra of a social business.
Perfectly put. 🙂
“No matter how well you pay them, you can’t make assholes give a shit. ”
Dude. This is beautiful. Thanks for writing all of this down.
E
You’re very welcome. 🙂
Nice well define doctrine . Recently came across new social media website http://www.jinglebird.com. It will be very helpful to create local community that change the way small business trying to reach people in local community. Very interesting…
Congratulations!
That is officially the worlds longest post about assholes.
You have now won the internet.
Please pick it up at the front desk on your way out.
(kidding. I loved it: )
Awesome post….and in case you’re wondering if you’re an a**hole, Denis Leary describes them here:
Great information. Look forward to reading more.
It’s almost like this perverse reverence we have for talented jerks, that most people just let them get away with their crummy attitude, which just baffles me to no end. I firmly believe that a person’s attitude and civility outshines any talent or skills a person can have.
I was recently dealing with my bank whom I chose to stay with after a move.
I don’t need their business but I chose to give it to them even though they are no longer local to me. I make it work – it would however be easier to switch.
I have several accounts with them and have been a customer for 10 years.
Recently I negotiated for a better rate and had to jump through a number of hoops to do so. That wasn’t the issue. The loan rep was so condescending and rude after I asked her to repeat a list of steps (so that I could write them down).
She spoke slowly and sarcastically. I decided its time to look for a new bank.
One other critical thing about this – great employees will not work for assholes. So in addition to losing customers – you lose the potential to make the company even better by losing great employees. Who tell their great friends about what a crappy place it is to work…. and on….and on….
Really great article. Simple. To the point. Spot on.
Sometimes, they have to though. I’ve seen incredibly smart, talented, motivated people waste years working in very frustrating professional environments. Sure, they could have quit, but they wanted to make a career at those particular companies in spite of the asshole they were working for. So yeah, there’s that.
Imagine being a company and having some of your best talent leave because of assholes in your management structure. That’s tragic. Huge waste of opportunity. Strategic disadvantage.