Less is More: Nonverbal Cues and Customer Service

I am slightly obsessed with the dying art of customer service and recently had a minor epiphany: The appearance of customer service is more important than actual customer service itself.

If you’ve ever spent hours navigating voice mail (which would surely be Dante’s 10th Circle of Hell), wandered aimlessly through a box store searching for assistance, or polished off three magazines and a Diet Coke while on line at the supermarket, you know my pain.

Sadly, I have learned to accept bad service due to the absence of a live person. What irritates me; however, are the visual cues that often accompany a sub-par shopping experience. You know what I mean: Four associates on the floor, but only one register is open. Waiters who refuse to make eye contact, bypassing your table. The list is endless.

As Beebe, Beebe and Ivy point out in their text Communication Principles for a Lifetime, nonverbal cues often make a stronger impact than verbal messages. I can still enjoy a less-than satisfactory meal, as long as the server appears apologetic. A long line at the bank? No problem, as long as the teller gives me an empathetic smile once I get to the counter.

Consider a few of my recent adventures in customer service:

At a Rite Aid drug store, a long line formed at the check-out counter as one of the cashiers took her break. Unfortunately, the young lady decided to spend her 10 minutes sitting on the floor behind the counter, in view of all the customers standing on line.

Two nights later, I dined at a local restaurant. After our water glasses had been bone dry for several minutes, I looked around for our server and immediately found her…sitting at a nearby table drinking coffee and sharing a dessert with several other waitresses. I felt bad interrupting her bites of tiramisu, but assuaged my guilt by reminding myself that the main function of a server is to serve.

The next day, I went to a Sport’s Authority store to pick up a new golf glove (it did not help my game). To help pass the time during the many hours I have seemingly spent on check-out lines at Sport’s Authority, I have taken up the habit of counting the number of employees I can spot who are not helping customers.

On this particular day, there were seven employees gathered around the store’s front end. Two of them were running registers, one of them was running to her break (at least she did not sit on the floor), and four others gathered around a closed register, deep in discussion (a move believed to be originated by employees of Staples).

I think the bottom line here is that I can tolerate inadequate service, provided I don't see employees who could improve that service simply by doing some work. If the Rite Aid clerk spent her break on her cell phone in the parking lot, the extended line would be bearable. If the waitress snacked in the kitchen, I would have managed to live without water (well, for a short while). And had the “Sports Authority Four” shared their laughs in the stock room, my wait on line would not have seemed so unavoidable.

Finding employees who truly care about pleasing the customer is becoming the Holy Grail of the shopping experience. This explains why many businesses, especially in large cities, gladly hire unemployed actors. These out-of-work thespians may not really care about the customer, but at least they can act like they care. And that’s good enough for me.