The Four-Letter F-Word

Oh you’ve used this word too so stop being so offended. In fact, you’ve witnessed other people use the word and you don’t get offended. So what’s the problem here?

You see, you’ve used the word when you get lousy service in restaurant, get a lousy night’s sleep in a hotel and even when someone asks how their salesperson handled your complaint. You use this word freely and it seems not enough people take offence when you use it – well, the right people anyway.

The word I am speaking of is the word “Fine.” And if you use that word to describe someone’s service, they should be offended. If anyone has ever used this word to describe your service, you should be doubly offended. “Fine” is the word of indifference to describe your opinion. People use this word when they don’t want to hurt your feelings or they don’t want to seem a bother. But you sure didn’t give them any sort of “wow” factor.

• How was your meal?
• How was your stay?
• How did that rental car work out?
• How was our salesperson?
• How did we do in responding to your concern?
• How was your experience with us?
• How did we do in solving your problem?

If you use the “F-Word” as an answer to any of those questions, then the owners/managers of those businesses had better be shaking in their boots. “Fine” means nothing. It doesn’t say “great” or “lousy.” It just means you didn’t provide me with an experience that is memorable and I don’t want to be bothered to answer a question whose answer you really don’t care about anyway. I don’t want a clerk or server gushing “sorry” all over me when they aren’t the responsible party. (When was the last time your hotel checkout clerk was responsible for the lousy night’s sleep you got? Why would you dump on them? Be respectful in your answer but be clear.)

I refuse to use the word “fine” to describe any service encounter. If I know that at the end of my experience I am going to get asked that question, I begin preparing my answer at the beginning. Hey, if they’re going to ask, I’m going to answer. If the only reason they’re asking is so that I can blow a little smoke up their skirts, then they’ve asked the wrong guy.

In fact, in recent weeks, I have stayed at a number of hotels who have asked me the question at checkout. In both instances, I have asked the clerk what they do with my answer to their question. I was, on both occasions, met with an uncomfortable, stammering clerk (as though they were expecting “fine” to be my answer).

“No, answer the question,” I asked. "What do you do with the information I give you?"

“Umm,” the clerk started. “We tell maintenance if something is wrong.”

“Well what if it’s not a maintenance issue?” I asked.

“Uh, we tell a manager?” She asked in question-form as though only I knew the right answer and she was answering her high-school History teacher’s question.

“Good answer.” I offered. “Now get a piece of paper to write these things I am about to say down.” And she did.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Look, if you don’t want an honest answer, don’t ask the question. Otherwise, if you’re going to ask customers to describe their experience, be prepared to take notes. Don’t make your “Satisfaction Survey” empty and vacuous. It's patronizing and you’re wasting your customers' time.

Also, if you’re going to force your front-line people to ask the question, then you had better prepare them to handle the answers. It amazes me that so many organizations will force their people to ask but then it becomes clearly evident that they have not been trained to handle an answer other than “fine.” What's the protocol when the answer is other than "fine?"

Not preparing your people to handle an answer other than “fine” means that you really don’t care how your customer experience was or you would have armed them with the tools to fix it or at least tell the customer right away that they're taking this information upstairs. A "Service Attitude" means understanding that the whole reason for being in business is to serve. If you don't care about customer answers and instead just want to be placated, then you don't get the whole "Service Attitude" thing at all.

If your people don't know how to handle your customers' truthful answers, stop asking the question. It’s embarrassing to you.