THE MOST RECENT campaign by the National Initiative for Service Excellence (NISE) was dubbed a success after much on-point public relations, including large billboards of a polite pig coupled with advertisements and stories in the media. But how do we define success?
What I would give the NISE co-ordinators points for is bringing into national awareness the importance of politeness on and off the job, and for almost making it mandatory that employers instil in their employees polite verbal responses to customers and clients.
Courtesy must start somewhere – preferably the home, but that institution has failed – and rehearsed answers may be a good place to begin; but one hopes NISE’s much touted “success” does not end here.
Barbados has a long way to go to reach NISE-ness, as I will try to illustrate.
I and many other Barbadians have either called public or private sector entities or entered restaurants and other places of business in recent times, and have been delightfully surprised at the initial reaction of staff.
The telephone greetings are impeccable, and the offers to help upon meeting a member of the public seem exceptionally warm; but what happens afterwards?
More often than not, if the customer has to seek any further information or challenge the staff member in any way, everything that is NISE or nice instantly goes out the window. The response then varies from awkward and uncertain silence, obvious discomfort via body language, or downright hostility.
“How may I help you, sir?” seems to be almost immediately replaced by an attitude that asks: “Why the hell are you bothering me?”
Just last weekend I saw such an example in a City restaurant which, in former years, would not even have been associated with bad manners far less employ staff who display garish tattoos on their hands while serving food daily.
Yes, the young lady’s smile lit up the room as she asked how she could assist, but as soon as one customer asked for a particular item that was not readily visible, the dismissive attitude and sudden sense of hurry wiped away the effect of the smile and left the customer feeling like the smelly remains of long-digested food.
Having heard of NISE since 2004, I wonder whether any further training can be done to teach front-line workers who daily interface with the public how to respond in scenario where a conversation or query must take place.
A rehearsed and almost mechanical greeting makes absolutely no sense if it is followed by a response that makes the customer sorry he or she ever called or entered the business place.
In fact, it is acutely vexing and demeaning, and could be a business’ recipe for disaster in this era of recession when people are far more discerning as to how and where they spend their hard-earned money.
Clearly, the modern-day approach to service by many Barbadians is equated with servitude and has nothing to do, as in former times, with taking pride in one’s work. How could there be any sense of pride when it is the norm to see cashiers and other staff in companies across Barbados engaging in all kinds of banter behind the counter, as delayed customers have no choice but to look on or listen in bridled annoyance?
NISE-based training must therefore reiterate to frontline staff that it is well-nigh impossible to concentrate on the job at hand if one is chatting about last night’s fete or a grand time in Oistins.
Such conversation should be the spice of a lunchtime exchange or after-work limes; not in front of customers whose only reason for being on the premises or on the phone line is to get their business transacted as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Another example that is not so nice is that, in what has been described by experts as a service-based economy, nearly every company on this little rock has installed telephone systems which make it difficult or impossible to contact the actual worker. Calls to essential public service entities can end in the frustration of having achieved nothing unless one’s patience is akin to Job’s.
Private firms started this North American-European trend here, but at least in those developed countries there are backup systems to ensure that business gets done.
However, the failure to interact with another human being in the Barbados business environment leaves the customer with little or no recourse and significantly delays what should be a quick process.
NISE therefore has its work cut out in order to change what has in recent years become a culture of mediocrity and bad manners, mainly rooted in mimicking the ghetto-like attitude that is the TV and Internet diet of nearly every young Barbadian.
Furthermore, in a dynamic society like Barbados, workers are coming from a wider array of backgrounds and facing a wider spectrum of issues than, say, 30 years ago; so for NISE to truly make a difference, it has to partner with those engaged in areas of motivation, esteem-building, counselling and the like.
Today, with the debate over Bajan superstar Rihanna swirling across the globe, I too have wondered what all the fuss is about. I don’t recall Madonna or any recent risqué artists being banned from 11 countries at one time, but I guess somebody has to be a scapegoat in the modern music arena, especially when it’s being dominated by a 22-year-old from a Caribbean nation that is smaller than New York.
For us in Barbados, there’s probably nothing more vulgar about the S&M video than what we have seen over the years in the Party Monarch, at Crop Over fetes, at dancehall shows featuring the likes of Mad Cobra and Beenie Man, in comedy shows or on Kadooment Day.
In those events, simulated sex goes on for hours without a cry of dissent; but somehow observers in Barbados want Rihanna to be their children’s role model simply because she was given the title of cultural ambassador. Our children’s role models should be us – their parents.
Stop the hypocrisy!