Kate arrived in a snit.

She threw her purse on the floor, unbuttoned her jacket and blurted, “I will never trust a clerk in that store again. Not ever!”

Only Rob has the nerve to talk to her when she is in one of those foul moods. He drawled, “Lawzee Ms. Katherine what has fashed you so unduely?”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed and said, “Fashed? Where in the plu perfect did that come from? If you must know I was shopping at a store around the corner where it says right on the window that it will be an unforgettable experience.”

“I take it that it was an experience, just not what you expected,” said Rick.

“Boy, you can say that again,” Kate said. The problem is that I know the owner and I was doing a sales test at her request. They have been trying to get the staff to understand how important it is to build and keep customer trust in order to maintain the reputation of the store. All it takes is one action that is at odds with what people are being told to ruin a reputation. People talk. They will tell as many as ten or 11 people when you screw up. It’s like handing them a bull horn except most will do it quietly and you won’t know until the sales drop off.”

“So what will you tell the owner?” I asked.

“The truth,” Kate replied. “I’ll tell her she has problem. I’ll tell her that what people do matters more than what she or any of her people say. I’ll tell her that actions speak louder. Then I’ll talk to her about how we remedy it.

I’ll talk to her about how sales clerks get an attitude… not from customers but from owners and managers and people that are senior to them. They copy behavior. You can’t talk your way out of it. You have to take action. And if attitudes don’t change you fire the ones that have got it wrong… including the owners.

“Wait a minute,“  Rick said. “Are you saying that even though a clerk ticked you off you might recommend firing the manager or even the owner?”

“Correct.”

Rick looked non-plussed and said, “How do you fire an owner?”

“I can refuse to work for her or him,” she said. “That’s the coward’s way out or the last resort. One way I use is to do a training using role play with a full mix of customer handling people in the class including the owner. Usually I’ll have the people in training come up with the worst customer they’ve ever had and then we’ll role play it with them as the customer. I put them in the customer’s shoes. I make them think about why the customer is acting that way and then I’ll do the same thing with them as the clerk. Once they are forced to think about it their viewpoint shifts and the owner can shift it even more by giving them permission to handle things on their own.”

Things should be calmer next week when the lunch bunch gathers to talk about a marketing conference they are all attending.

Jerry Fletcher has added another testimonial to his new mobile viewable web site. www.JerryFletcher.com

He will be speaking for the Wilsonville Chamber on April 16 in a rare Portland appearance. The topic is Big Time Marketing for the Little Guy register at www.wilsonvilleChamber.com