I Can Help!
I can’t help you.” That’s not what I wanted to hear from the bank teller.
“My request was simple enough: Please make sure the funds from this check I’m depositing are immediately available. However, she insisted she couldn’t help me. My money would not be available until 24 hours after my check cleared.
I pulled the “loyalty card” by explaining I’d been with her bank for over 18 years –through many name changes. It was no use.
“Sorry.” she explained. “IT set the system up that way – I can’t help you.”
That started an argument. Not between the teller and me, but between the teller and her co-worker, one window down.
“I can help him!” declared the neighboring teller.
“No, you can’t!” replied “my” teller.
After a minute of increasingly heated discussion, I appointed myself the only adult in the room and inquired as to how she could help me.
“I’ll cash your check then deposit the money into your account. The funds for cash deposits are available immediately.”
So ended the argument with my need creatively solved.
This slice of 21st century customer service started me thinking how to lead employees to act like more like my creative, problem-solving teller:
Communicate a true sense of urgency to your team.
Misplaced urgency is rampant in most businesses. When leaders make procedure, technique and policy the priority they get compliant, predictable employees. That may satisfy their “elimination of variation” addiction but crucial relational outcomes may suffer – which means your customers suffer.
Train your team to “read the moment”.
Obviously my request was not the first of its kind – the first teller had addressed it before. She had been taught, and was following company policy – end of story. Wise leaders train their teams to create raving fans by shaping customer experience according to the moment and circumstances.
Nurture creative problem solving.
Many times leaders shut down creative problem solving out of fear of the unknown – trying something different than accepted company policy. Insist everyone on your team is intimately familiar with the mission and knows exactly what outcomes you expect. That’s your job.
Embrace ambiguity when it comes to the “how” of achieving success. If success involves deepening relationships with people like customers and employees, finding the creative “how” that matches the moment is a must!
I’ve written about the need for creative leadership before. Helping clients deliver uniquely relevant branded experience is what I do. This week I spoke to 50 young professionals on this very subject. They get it! I hope their bosses do.
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August 29th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I’ve never seen training centered around “but that’s the way ‘they’ told me to do it…” Maybe (just maybe) THEY hoped YOU’d think outside the box from time-to-time.
Okay, I get it. Structure is good. It’s stable. Comfortable. Safe. “Owning the Brand” isn’t always so comfortable…
Be Engaging. Teller#2 “got it.”
Who thought that teaching someone the way to do something would hinder the process of creating an engaging brand?
Great story. Good to see you back, Mike.
Keep Cooking!
Andrew
September 1st, 2008 at 9:44 am
It is possible to think and work at the same time…
My hunch is that Teller B isn’t really all that much less productive than Teller A, even if she is occasionally willing to take a few extra minutes to solve knotty customer issues. At the same time, Teller B is probably worth a lot more money to …
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
There is nothing I hate worse than the word can’t. Why limit yourself.
Great post!
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Mike:
It would have been an even better story if the second teller would have asked the first for a second, quietly suggested how she did it and let her colleague be the hero. Instead, she just looked childish, and made you question the entire brand experience.
Thanks for the example, as always.
-Mark
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Andrew - thanks for the comment! You’re right, teaching people how to do something should not keep them from advancing the brand experience. But it does for some!
One reason this happens is that many employees live in a kind of self-imposed immaturity that limits thought and action to what one has been told to do.
Matt, thanks for the encouraging word. You ARE RIGHT about “can’t!”
Dawn, thanks for the link and very encouraging commentary. What a insightful observation you make about a kind of false productivity many are settling for.
Mark - excellent “build” on this post. Protecting human dignity while guiding employees, even co-workers, is always the way to go. I can really see your “soccer coach’s heart” in this comment.
Thanks to everyone for enlarging the conversation!
Keep creating…a brand worth raving about,
Mike
September 5th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
[…] I Can Help! […]
September 8th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Mark,
Unfortunately, that likely wouldn’t have become a story if handled in such a discreet way. But you are correct that it would have been a better approach for the teller.
Mike,
Welcome back!!!!
My wife and I occasionally have done this ourselves. It seems silly because it is essentially two transactions for the teller to handle, but it is the only way we found to make funds available immediately.
Creative problem solving is almost a lost art, it seems. We train people on what to think, but not HOW to think. I think it is a difference between autocratic leadership and axiomatic leadership. Leading by rules vs. principles.
Great to see one of my favorite blogs is active again.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I’ve been in this kind of situation before, while working at a retail store. Instead of arguing over whether something can be done, I just showed the other clerk how to get around the problem. She did the problem-solving at her register so she learned something, and we both got credit for helping the customer this way. Then, the customer thinks that we are both capable of giving good customer service which enhances our store’s brand.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:02 am
I hate people who are not creative enough in solving the problem. I’m glad you made it.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:39 am
Thanks for adding to the conversation.
You’re reaction is my reaction —when I encounter persons that either just give up or are mindlessly compliant to a situation that calls for creativity, it drives me crazy.
Why? Because they could summon their creative abilities, but have let that part of them go to sleep.
Keep creating…the next new solution,
Mike