Being Nice Gets You Further

When interacting with people, you always have a choice of how to go about it. You can be nice and friendly, you can be rude and mean, or you can fall somewhere in the middle. Based on experience, I have found that it usually pays to be nice when you are dealing with people, especially in a customer service type of situation, whether you are the customer or the employee. Below are a few real examples to help illustrate this point.

I currently work for a website that provides online customer service to people who either have questions on products or need help with just about anything. I deal with a wide variety of people. Some are friendly and nice while others are well, not so nice. Even though I strive to provide the same service to all customers, it is so much easier to go the extra mile to help out a customer who is courteous and appreciative verses one who is angry or just plain rude. In a situation like this, the nice customer is almost always going to get better service even if they are both asking about the same thing.

Another example is when I used to work in food delivery. Tips are a big part of your income when you work for a job like this so they are very important. When you work for a restaurant for a while and start to get repeat customers, you remember which ones give good tips and which do not. The customers who give good tips are going to get better service whether it be faster delivery or better care when preparing the food. So always remember to give a good tip especially if you are going to be a repeat customer.

An example from the customer side happened recently when I got over charged for a bill on my internet service. I contacted my provider and was sure to be extra courteous and nice to the representative. Usually getting billing issues like this resolved is difficult, but by being patient and kind, the representative was happy to assist me and within no time, the billing issue was fixed! So overall the message is clear, that being nice will get you a lot further than the contrary especially when it comes to customer service situations.