RUDENESS BITES

By Hank Trisler

Last week a young friend of mine experienced an extreme act of rudeness on the part of one of his customers, and it really hurt his feelings.

My friend (we'll call him "Vern," for reasons that will soon become obvious) is the sales manager for a local branch of a well-known national hotel chain. He was on time for an appointment he believed to be at 10 a.m. with the Events Manager for a huge Silicon Valley electronics firm. (We'll call them "Gigantus Corporation.") After a suitable wait, he saw a young woman descending the curved staircase into the crowded waiting room. When she got within five steps of the bottom, she called out in a loud voice, "Is there a Vern Jensen here?"

Striding confidently toward her with a big smile and outstretched hand, he said, "That would be me."

"Your appointment was for 9 o'clock and it is now after 10. I will not tolerate tardiness. I want everyone here to know that Gigantus Corporation will no longer do business with Vern Jensen or the Snore More hotel chain he represents." She abruptly turned and ascended the staircase to corporate heaven, from whence she had come.

Crestfallen, Vern went back to his office and rechecked his files. Everything indicated a 10 o'clock appointment, not one for 9. Since he would rather have a good account than be right, he sent the woman a dozen roses and a note of abject apology, assuming all the blame for the misunderstanding and pleading for another appointment. The note was returned, unopened, with a "return to sender" stamp on the front. Vern was baffled by this treatment and called me to see what he should do to regain access to this account, poor misguided soul that he is.

I have no idea what to do to get his foot back in the door. I'm as confounded by rudeness as much as the rest of us. I'm not even sure I'd want to get my foot back in that door. Life is just too short to spend dealing with jerks. My only advice was to keep an eye on the account and contact her successor when she gets blown out. People who behave this way seldom do it to just one person and their evil deeds come back to get them.

That one account isn't really the problem, though. It's the psychic damage that accepting the rudeness of another does to us. I'll bet that in twenty years, long after other, kinder, gentler customers have faded from memory, that act of hostility will return to haunt Vern in the small, dark hours of the morning. I don't know why we forget some of the good times and remember every moment of all the bad, embarrassing times in excruciating detail, but we do.

Responsible to, not responsible for. As professional salespeople, we are responsible to our customers. We are responsible to be honest, punctual, credible and well informed. We must know about our customer's needs and how we can best fill those needs. We are responsible to do the best we can with little bitty tools.

We are not, however, responsible for our customers. We can't help it if sometimes they make bad decisions, in spite of our guidance. We cannot accept responsibility for their actions, or for how they feel about us. Some folks will simply persist in the mistaken belief that we are not the greatest things to come into their lives. They'll have to live with that, as it's just not our responsibility.

The Sympathy Note. I'm sure we can all understand, on an intellectual level, that sometimes people will behave badly and that behavior is their problem, but the intellect isn't where rudeness gets us. Rudeness bites and it gets us in the guts, down deep where it really hurts. I now bring you the Sympathy Note, which can be used to help heal us where we hurt.

Something like eighty-five percent of the people are pretty nice a lot of the time. They won't be rude to us unless they are pressed to rudeness by some external force, often having nothing to do with us. As soon as they have been hostile, the anger diminishes and they often feel a bit badly about how they behaved. The balance of the people are just hostile jerks that constantly employand fully understandrudeness. The Sympathy Note is fairly effective with either type of person and goes something like this:

"Dear___________,

"When I spoke with you today you were rude to me. I know it was nothing I said, as I talked to sixteen people and you were the only one who was hostile.

"I hope that whatever was bothering you is now resolved and that you are feeling better.

"I look forward to speaking with you again soon, with a better result.

"Sincerely,_______"

The nice people who realize they acted badly will very likely apologize when next you speak. The jerks will have a small, grudging admiration for you because you didn't take any crap from them.

"C'mon, does this always work?" Of course not. Nothing always works, but you are writing this after the deal has already blown, so what have you to lose? Besides, you didn't write the note to save the deal, but to save your self-image and allow you to face the next customer with your head held high.

What about Vern? He got his nice note returned. Yeah, and that's the beauty of the high-tech world in which we live. You have e-mail and faxes, which are a lot harder to ignore.

The bottom line: Rudeness bites and should never be used by us, nor should we tolerate its use on us. It is just not good business.

If asked, what would you have told Vern?