Irrationally Rational

The thing about bad customer service is that it appears erratic and accidental. What if it’s not?

Recently, my family dined at our favorite Mexican food restaurant and had a really poor, painfully long waiting experience. (I won’t name the place because I still like them.)

It’s easy to look at one bad customer service experience and dismiss it as an accident or a one-off encounter. But what if it’s intentional? Employees have to feel in control of the situation somehow and if managers/supervisors/bosses remove control through the loss of morale, employees will impose control in other ways. Perhaps a way to impose control is to slow down the process, or to misplace an order, or to overdo an order. (To overdo an order is to make the customer really happy temporarily, but it overuses resources and it creates false expectations for the next visit.) The results appear erratic, but what if they’re calculated?

What if unwavering adherence to rules (that may look like unreasonable cruelty toward customers) is reasonable?

Benedict Arnold is widely remembered as a traitor to the US in the Revolutionary War. What almost no one remembers is that he fought for the US and was promoted to Major General. What made him turn? What if his defection was irrationally rational for him?

Okay, that’s fine for enchiladas, but what about you? If you see this behavior in people you lead, it’s a great time to assess how to give them more control and give a fresh infusion of morale into the situation. ("Thank you" is a great place to begin.)

If you feel this tension in yourself, maybe it’s time to ask why you feel this way. What is it about this situation that creates in you a foul spirit?

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