Debit Cards vs. Credit Cards
Last night, I went to our local Goodwill store. As I handed my card for my purchase, the unfortunate cashier asked if I wanted to pay with debit or credit. I answered, “Debit,” and reached for the PIN entry console. The unfortunate cashier asked to see my ID. I corrected her, saying that I had stipulated “DEBIT” – she said that her manager insists on ID checks for everyone. Needless to say, I showed her my ID, and asked her to run it as a credit card. There was no way that I was providing BOTH my signature AND my PIN number.
I have since found that it is at a merchant’s discretion to require ID checks for anything. However, as a former bank employee and a fellow-consumer, please let me be first to caution those of you who use a debit card as a primary spending tool. Do NOT allow yourself to be put in a situation where you must provide more security/identity compromising information about yourself. Remember that your bank will only protect your checking and savings accounts to a very limited degree. This is a good time to review your fees and disclosures. If you’ve long-since chucked them, you can get another copy from any branch of your bank, and most have them online now.
What you are looking for is the maximum amount for which you can be held reliable if your card is stolen and used for fraudulent transactions. Typically, you are liable for up to $50 – IF you report the fraud less than one day from when your card goes missing. After that it goes up to $500 and up again to the amount in your account. Some banks will EVEN charge you for the amounts over and above your balances, overdraft fees tied to going into the negative and late fees and penalty charges on top of all that. PLEASE read your fine print.
Remember, if you carry your bank debit card in your wallet, treat it as though you are carrying your entire bank balance in cash in your wallet.
Empathy vs. Sympathy – Customer Service Week Diatribe
As part of the “celebrations” of this week, Customer Service Week, I am attending various Customer Service related webinars. Whenever I attend similar functions, I get extremely agitated by the constant pounding of the use of empathy; and the term is used incorrectly.
I have been in Customer Service for the last 22 years. In my various positions, I have been provided formal, informal, on-the-job and pick-it-up-as-you-go training in Customer Service techniques. Hammering home many of these lessons is the unspoken umbrella, that Customer Service Training does not teach you how to SERVE your customers, but instead provides instructions on how to MANAGE customers.
As Customer Service Representatives (Agents, etc), it is our job to “handle” the customer until we, or someone in our company, are able to “assist” the customer. All we really want to do is to deal with the personal face of the customer, while our company handles the request of the customer – whether that is repair, sales, service, or any other business to consumer transaction.
Therefore, we are taught all these new-age “Customer Service” techniques to handle our customers’ ire, impatience, dissatisfaction and other uncomfortable emotions directed squarely at US.
When it comes to Empathy, we are taught that our customers want us to be empathetic, to feel for them. Some Customer Service training, going one bit further, even teach us that we should not show sympathy, as that is a condescending emotion, and we want to show compassion, not pity. I would like to respectfully DISAGREE.
Empathy is an emotion whereby we feel what another party feels. Sympathy is an emotion whereby we imagine how the other party feels. Let me point out a real-time example to illustrate the difference, and why Customer Service Representatives should NOT show empathy, but should, instead, show sympathy.
Imagine your best friend knocks on your door and tells you that their father passed away.
Scenario one: Both your parents are alive and kicking. In fact, you just had a very enjoyable Sunday dinner with them and you plan on seeing them again soon. You are shocked by your friend’s news and you imagine how you’d feel if it had happened to you. Feeling that kind of sympathy, your arms immediately go around your friend’s shoulders, and as you guide them to a seat, you immediately want to ease their pain. You are completely there, in the moment, for your friend, who really needs your shoulder to cry on right now.
Scenario two: Your own father passed away not quite a year ago. As your friend is standing in the doorway, sobbing into their shirt-sleeve, you think back to your shock and grief when your father passed. You sink deeper into your thoughts as it is brought back into your foremost thoughts, that you will never share a joke with your dad again. You’ll never crack open a beer after tinkering in the garage. You distractedly guide your friend to a seat, and nod at whatever they are saying, throwing in some agreeable sounds, but your feelings of empathy are completely distracting you from your friend’s pain and though you are physically there for them, you are not emotionally all there for them.
If I had a wish, and could be part of the design team of Customer Service Curriculum, I would change the vocabulary from Empathy to Sympathy. My critics would harp on the nit-pickiness of this distinction, but it’s such a fine distinction between being all about your customer, and thinking about how you feel when that same situation happened to you not two days ago, and how you are fuming. You’re no longer 100 percent committed to solving your customer’s problem anymore.
Now, I am not saying that a person can’t squelch the reaction and still be a good and comforting customer service rep. I’m just saying that the more shared experiences that the service representative has with the customer, the rep will tend to veer towards empathy, and not sympathy.
It is much easier to say, “I can imagine your pain,” than it is to say, “I know your pain.”
HR Meeting – Reactions
So, we had an all HR Center meeting today, and I had a few gut reactions to some things, not in any particular order:
* New Positive outlook and vision – this is right up the same alley as my previous assertions. I want people to quit saying, “Welcome to the Government.” in a sarcastic way. I want them to mean it positively. The presenter of that segment phrased it by saying, “Welcome to the Forest Service.” I really want people to start thinking of the Federal service as a real place with competent employees and valid procedures. I really want to discontinue the views of the government as a joke – especially from people who are employed by the Government.
* We were implored to treat our (HR Liason) HRL’s differently, to expedite their requests. Although I, of course, personally treat each HRL as a colleague and try to do all I can to assist them, my knee-jerk reaction is this: Shouldn’t we be expediting the requests of our customers, the Forest Service employees? Shouldn’t we be taking care of the employees whose situations need processing and corrections? Just my two cents worth.
* Our center is going to be undergoing some revamping of our training programs, and we will be encouraged to take advantage of the training offerings, our Center Director acknowledged the tendencies to want to put off training in order to work through the workloads on our plates. I can’t emphasize enough how important partaking of offered and related training is to doing one’s job properly. You may feel that you can’t take time off to go to training, because you have 150 actions to process. However, the problem with not taking the offered training is that you are now processing 150 actions incorrectly, and you or someone else will now have to go back and correct 150 wrong actions!
* Leadership is specifically reversing one of our biggest procedural handicaps – our communications silo. Previously, we were told not to speak to peers in different departments, but to get our info via the chain of command. We are now being told that we are encouraged to consult with colleagues of different departments to resolve our issues at the lowest possible levels. I hope this is a real policy and not just a policy on paper. I think it will really enable the center to service our customers. A word of caution though, our consultations with our same-level counterparts should still be substantiated. If we are asking for clarification or definition of policy or accepted procedures, we should still be getting fact, not opinion, from our colleagues.
To conclude, I see the vision for our HR future, but I want to state that I am already very proud to work for HCM. I still think that we are supporting some of the best people in government, the Forest Service employees.
Love the Networks? Hate the Maintenance?
One of the key issues, aside from and never forgetting a good Social Media Policy, is the allotment of resources to maintain and monitor your various forums.
Many of the various forums allow you to port (import) or stream one thread platform into another. For example, I utilize FaceBook as my onestop center, and I had my LiveJournal blog stream into Facebook as notes, and my Twitter updates imported automatically in to my Facebook status updates. This is very handy, but it would be better if we could go the other way.
And today I read a tweet from Eric Neitzel (@ENeitzel) ( RT @ENeitzel Link Your Page to Your Twitter Account. You can now export your Facebook Fan Page updates to Twitter. http://bit.ly/Dd0mM ).
My own comment to my Facebook status of the above: “This got me so excited – but then I realized – it’s only for Facebook Fan Pages. This is going to be so great – for what the Forest Service has in mind, if we ever get the clearance. Can you imagine a one stop shop to get the word out about Forest Service happenings, with a minimum of fuss muss and maintenance? But I wish this was something we … Read Morecan also do for individual accounts, like mine.
I currently import my Twitter updates as my Facebook status, but it would also be handy to go the other way. Especially since all we do on Twitter is Tweet, and we do other things (like post blogs/notes, share links, and play Farmville) on FaceBook.”
For the purposes of this forum, this will be wonderful – Agency’s Fan pages can automatically update your Twitter status – and thereby cut down your dual-maintenance in pushing out alerts and messages. But I’m curious: What other obstacles have some of you encountered when it came to creating and/or maintaining your agency’s Twitter and/or Facebook accounts?
Further signs of Government Paradigm shift – right here in the Forest Service
As many of you know, who have been following my exciting journey into Government 2.0, the Forest Service is starting to pursue implementing a Social Media Policy and investigating how the Forest Service can utilize these tools in a practical and beneficial manner. I must admit that I’ve been kind of dubious whether we’re really going to get anywhere with this, but we still seem to be on track.
We, my team, attended YAW – Yet Another Webinar. This one was very informative and educational, but I would love to help our team out by conducting some of these sessions in house. We definitely have a multi-generational (not necessarily ages, but mindsets) workforce, in our little microcosm. I think before we can move forward in using Social Networking, we need to get everyone on board with what they all are.
Today’s webinar was very informative. The presenter was very clear with his definitions, and had basic examples to show. He also managed to very concisely present how each venue could be used, including pros and cons of each. His primary point was how vital a Social Networking Policy is to develop and implement. He also pointed out the need for resources to monitor/maintain the accounts.
One of our team-members was commenting that he felt this was the beginning of a paradigm shift. This sentiment merely reflects what I’ve been saying for the last few months. The team agreed that we are on the cutting edge – I just hope that we don’t have to wait until 2012 to see a real shift.
Returning to duty after the hour-long presentation, I answered a phone call from Mountain Quest Institute, who are working closely with the Forest Service to develop our Knowledge Sharing and Conservation platforms. They had retrieved my name from GovLoop, where I’ve begun to document some of my journey in this direction. I forwarded that email to my supervisor, since they were requesting information from me as a Subject Matter Expert in my department. I would be glad to consider myself a Subject Matter Expert in the areas of Social Networking and the use of the Internet to power business, and further missions. However, I am new to my team and though I hope I play a central role in our growth as an agency, I am not a policy maker.
Also following the webinar, I was approached by a team-member to further explain how Twitter works and how it can be used. I took the opportunity to share with her how Linked-In and GovLoop work as well. I would love to expand these little mini-lessons into a sharing session with my entire team, and get everyone onto the same page.
To conclude, I am encouraged by the constant exposure and seeming progress towards our own adoption of Social Networking tools in my agency; I am, however, quite impatient, understandably, when I can see all the possible ways we could be utilizing these same tools already, and how much more streamlined our day-to-day processes will be – as well as how much more value we can add to the service we provide our employees, and our public.
Hello world!
Now I am on WordPress.com. I’ve imported my blog from LiveJournal – I guess that is not as well-visited as WordPress. I will be posting here now instead of on LiveJournal.
Can’t wait to see if this is a better received forum.
Protected: Existential Blues
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Self-Esteem and Facebook/Twitter
October 23, 2009 at 5:55 PM (commentary) (facebook, linkedin, twitter)
We all remember the pseudo-psychology of the 80s when Self-Esteem issues were identified and the concept beat to death as a crutch for young up and coming emergent adults when we suffered failures in life. As we approach the end of this decade, the first decade of the new millennium, it would be interesting to see what the newest statistics are showing – as far as the levels of self-esteem, especially in the young adult age range.
We are privileged to live in such a well-connected society, that we even surpass international boundaries. I felt the need to take a step back and examine where we are, as compared to where we’ve been.
Many of my co-workers are very cyber-resistant and tasked with the responsibility of examining our established and emerging Social Media tools, and I frequently suggest that they get a Facebook account, simply to familiarize themselves with the topic of discussion. All too often, when I suggest that they look at Facebook, they immediately answer, “But I don’t have any friends.” Well, Ladies and Gents, neither do I. So, let me tell you a little bit about myself, then and now.
I graduated high school in 1990. I have to let that delicate piece of information slip, in order to make my point. In my heyday of teen angst and budding young adulthood, it was easy for not-so-outgoing folks to develop low self-esteem. It was hard to make friends and get out and go places. As I entered college, and had “places of my own,” it was even more difficult. It felt as though one had to constantly reach out and maintain those relationships in order not to lose them. If you were studying hard for an upcoming exam, or writing a paper, or were sick for a week, it felt as though the world moved on without you.
For some of us, those introverted ones especially, it was so easy to sink into the abyss of self-pity, self-doubt and self-hate. “Nobody cares about me,” we’d say. “Everybody is having a good time, and they don’t need me.” With our ever-spreading college choices and career moves, we left home to go to school, then followed job offerings in places far from our home and college towns. We promised our dearest school chums that we would definitely keep in touch, and we did, for the first few months, even years. Then we drifted apart. The self-pity continued. “I’m all alone in a strange town, and nobody loves me.”
In the last few years, Facebook (and other Social Networks) have emerged and offered us the opportunity, not only to create and maintain connections with our new friends, coworkers, family, but also to retrace our lives and pick up some dropped threads from the tapestry of our relationships. I have several hundred friends on Facebook. Are they ALL friends? No, of course not; I have some professional pages, some businesses and public figures. Yet, I have a ton of my high school, college and former and current business contacts. I have also used MySpace and Facebook to dig up some relatives with whom I had lost contact.
I also have a presence on Twitter. Between my posts on Twitter and Facebook, I am keeping all these folks up to date with the minutiae of my life. Thanks to my newsfeeds and followed tweets, I am included in the day to day highlights of all my friends’ lives. I experience such a thrill when a friend comments or responds in some way to something I posted. I have been affirmed; I do exist – I matter. Although I can’t honestly claim that I am bosom buddies with each of my hundreds of friends, I am certainly convinced that our circles are definitely widening and that our world is definitely growing tighter. And I’m right in the middle of it all – how’s that for self-esteem?
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