When I was growing up with my 2 brothers we would often get into arguments, fights and disagreements, usually over nothing, but caused by a bad attitude. Boys will be boys. Often we’d try to “get one over” on the other to prove our point, and whilst I was the youngest I’d often get away with “murder”!! But some Motherly expressions would remain throughout my life. This one being “two wrongs don’t make a right”, or being politically incorrect “two blacks don’t make a white” (this has nothing to do with skin colour, but simply colour!). The point is you cannot correct something by doing yet another wrong. Just because your brother hits you, and you hit him back does not make it right (just equal, in my books!!).

Well we’ve all grown up a bit and should be much the wiser with each passing year. However in some things I just don’t see the maturity. Let’s look at Customer Service for a moment. No matter if it’s service from a waiter, a bank clerk, a car mechanic or an IT Service desk we all experience the same - “a response”. However this response appears to be directly proportional to the initial contact. So if you’re having a bad day and out for dinner, you want to take your frustration out on the waiter, and become initially rude or disrespectful. The result –often poor service where the waiter will only do the minimum required whilst still keeping his job. Whereas if he was trained to create the right attitude, behaviour and highlight the culture of the restaurant, he or she would ensure the disgruntled patron left in a better mood than they arrived with. Or calling into the IT Support centre and venting your annoyance and frustration at a piece of technology not working as you’d like or expect, the support personnel will simply deal with the call by doing the minimum necessary whilst attempting to remain polite and calm. Venting their anger back will not make the situation better, in fact it will make it 10 times worse, as both parties now escalate one after the other, with the “customer” (who is always right!) pulling their trump card by complaining up the management ladder, or worse leaving never to return and ensuring his sphere of contracts don’t return either!

Why am I relaying all this to you? Well, it’s because I see this “anger” trend becoming more and more prevalent in our society and in particular within the workplace. We need to start and bring back self-discipline and control our angst when dealing with and talking to others, no matter what level of society or organisation we come into contact with. We need to start focusing our management skills a little less on software, technology and processes (all of which are important) and onto the People element. If we revisit the Attitude, Behaviour and Culture (ABC) of our colleagues, teams, departments, organisation we can begin to understand the less tangible elements of our business and how they actually operate internally and externally. This focus can singlehandedly transform the service we provide, the way we provide it and the way our customers interact with us.

As more and more organisations become more standardised on Business and IT processes, automation, piped in solutions (SAAS, cloud etc) the ONLY real differentiator will be the staff we employ with their Attitude and Behaviour creating the Culture your business will operate under. Customers will then choose based on the AB of the people they come in contact with, more than the product you sell (unless it is a unique product or service with no competition). Not only on the human level, but also on the human interaction level, by which I mean the Website experience, the engagement experience, the sales experience, the delivery experience, the after sales experience and so on.  Let’s get back to basics and focus more on the attitude and behaviour of our staff and services to create a model culture that engages and promotes customers to come back again and again. No matter how bad your day has been, remember two wrongs don’t make a right.  Let’s start the revolution to become more polite, more human and more engaging.