Yesterday I had a frustrating and enlightening experience.
My son is starting driver’s ed. at school this week and we have been told to visit one of our driver’s licensing offices (MPI) ahead of time to pick up a customer number. He will require this to write the written test in a few weeks and they highly recommend you pick it up right away.
This process requires very specific identification, but since MPI recognizes this is challenging for most teenagers, they have created a guarantor form to vouch for the child. This form is very similar to the passport verification one and must be signed by a qualified professional who’s known the applicant for at least two years.
Being a keener, I got right on this task and had the guarantor form taken to our Chiropractor in a town about forty minutes away. I carefully read through the MPI brochure my son had brought home and made sure we had everything we’d require. As soon as my son got off the school bus, we grabbed our papers and headed in to our closest MPI office.
Here’s where things got frustrating. I won’t bore you with details except to say that the driver’s ed. people had given out both an old brochure and an old guarantor form. The time I had spent getting things organized was all for naught and we were told we’d have to get a new guarantor form signed and then return to go through the whole thing again.
Here’s the enlightenment piece. Although I’m sure the lady at the MPI office thought she was being very professional with us, she managed to take what was just normal frustration and make me want to explode. She did not care that I had gone to any effort to get the forms signed and appeared to take great pleasure in circling the little numbers that showed the date the form was printed.
“These forms are outdated, they’re no good,” she stated, circling the little 04/07 as if that explained it all. “MPI is very particular – they’ll refuse it so you’ll have to get another one signed. It’s no big deal just get the new one signed by…” she rambled on oblivious to what her tone of voice and problem solving focus was doing to me.
What’s important to note is that by not even trying to put herself in my shoes, she took my frustration at having the wrong form and turned it into anger directly focused at her. I was not ready to problem solve…and it was a big deal! Minimizing the problem did not work in her favour and made me want to snap.
I managed to assertively tell the woman, “I am very frustrated at the moment. I do realize this error is not your fault however that doesn’t change how I’m feeling.” With that I grabbed my forms and walked out of the office, shaking, but with my dignity intact.
My point…this really didn’t need to be a big deal. With just the basic understanding of how to empathize and connect with people I would have been frustrated with the situation but not with that agency or staff person.
These are life skills every person working in customer service need to know. I'm not an easily angered or volatile person…but this situation definitely showed me how things could go in a negative direction. I know I'm responsible for how I feel and behave, but why make it harder on a person?
Those are my thoughts…thanks for listening
No comments:
Post a Comment