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Be nice

A few years ago, I was seated in the boarding area at Dulles International Airport awaiting my fate as a standby passenger on the last nonstop flight to Denver. About ten minutes after the last passenger boarded, my name was called and I was given a seat assignment and permitted to board the plane.

As I was the last passenger to board, all eyes were on me as I struggled to find space for my garment bag in the overhead bin. Just then, one of the flight attendants called down the aisle, “Ladies and gentlemen, we can only depart when this man is seated.”

She wasn’t very nice.

She seemed to find pleasure in using a perverse form of peer pressure to motivate me to quickly stow my bag and be seated. As I had yet to make any friends on the flight—and weary airline passengers can be quite unsympathetic—I settled into a most uncomfortable center seat for the ride home.

I understand the airline’s policy requiring all passengers to be seated with bags stowed and seatbelts fastened prior to departure but couldn’t this flight attendant have found a way to convey this message without admonishing me publicly? Couldn’t she be nice?

Too often, employee requests sound more like reprimands or, worse, threats. By simply adding a bit of empathy, humor, or tact, the same message could be presented in a way that achieves similar results without offending customers in the process.

Be nice.

It’s easy to do and you and your customers will have a lot more fun in the process. Just last Wednesday, on United Airlines flight 405 from La Guardia to Denver, a male flight attendant in an effort to expedite boarding, made the following announcement over the airplane’s intercom:

“We cannot close the aircraft door until all bags are securely stowed and all passengers are seated with seatbelts fastened. At this moment we are perilously close to closing the door late and relinquishing our place in line for takeoff. If that happens, we may remain on the (echoed for effect) tarmac, tarmac, tarmac for (echoed for effect) hours, hours, hours…”

A message that could have sounded like a reprimand, been met with resistance, and created tension among passengers (especially those stowing bags who had yet to be seated), instead was presented with humor, met with laughter, and broke the ice with passengers.

When I met the flight attendant later during the beverage service, guess what? He was nice. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Customer Service, Employee Engagement, Enthusiasm at Work!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.me-interactive.com Logan Niles

    Great article Steve. In today’s harried world it feels more and more like basic manners and politeness are slipping away.

    The above reminds me of a great book, I highly recommend everyone in business read, called “The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness”. It speaks specifically to being nice because 1) it’s the right thing to do and 2) because you just never know who will be effected by your niceness (or lack there of).

    Give the original “Ocean’s 11″ a watch and you’ll see how nicely handled social interactions could have lead to a much happier ending for all involved. I won’t give any spoilers away but rather use a line from the movie: “50% of a few million dollars is better than 100% of nothing”.

  • http://www.newport-enterprises.com Curt Newport

    Great insights, Steve. One additional thought for our readers (and their employees): Nice is free. It costs nothing. Mean is also free, but can cost a lot more in the long run.”

  • http://www.stevecurtin.com Steve

    Logan, thank for commenting and the book suggestion. I’ve seen it on the shelves but have yet to pick it up… Often, manners and politeness are a choice. Not always. Sometimes people are hired and placed in customer-contact positions requiring a certain amount of savvy and grace – and they simply lack the awareness to perform appropriately. In the U.S., with national unemployment around 9 percent, there should be a sufficient pool of job candidates available to avoid these hiring mistakes. In that case, the absence of manners and politeness has more to do with laziness and apathy than ignorance.
    In most cases, attributes like politeness, friendliness, engagement, etc. are simply choices made by employees. Those who make the choice to listen, smile, hold doors, make eye contact, or any one of a hundred other acts that demonstrate that they care, will make lasting positive impressions on those they serve. Those who don’t will convey indifference or, worse, disrespect. They too will make lasting impressions on their customers – though not of the positive variety…

  • http://www.stevecurtin.com Steve

    Curt, I agree. It costs nothing to smile, make eye contact, or add a bit of enthusiasm to one’s voice. These attributes are also optional, which is why most of us rarely experience them.

  • http://reallyjeannie.com Really Jeannie

    This is what’s nice about social media: people are teaching people how to be more human!

    We all need to remember who we are, and that we are all the same. No one is above or beneath us, and knowing this, it is so much easier to love one another. Even in the workplace, and wherever we serve. And that is all!!!

    Great post Steve, sorry about that unfortunate incident in-flight.

    Oh… now i remember a time when I was very mean to someone who wasn’t nice to me, and that brought out my claws. It was almost 22 years ago, when i was so mean to an airline employee. Yes he made a mistake, and too bad i was having a rough day. I hope he forgives me or has forgiven me, bad me.

  • http://www.impactlearning.com/blog/author/vasudha Vasudha Deming

    Stories that stem from real-life experiences with airlines seem to be in endless supply! Your experience echoes one I witnessed just two days ago on a flight from Denver. There was a passenger standing at the front of the plane waiting for the lavatory. A flight attendant got on the P.A. and announced the FAA rule that nobody is allowed to stand there. An entire plane full of people looked up to see the very embarrassed man. Why didn’t the flight attendant simply walk up to the passenger and ask him to sit until the lav was free? Like you say, not nice!

  • http://www.stevecurtin.com Steve

    Vasudha, thanks for your comment. It’s a shame that, when given the choice, the flight attendant opted to embarrass the passenger. You and I could brainstorm a long list of feelings we’d like our customers to have while experiencing our product/service – and embarrassment wouldn’t be one of them. A classic lose-lose. Nobody wins when employees are rude or insensitive.