Unintentional splits & complacency

The good news is that I did the splits the other day!

The bad news is that it was totally unintentional.

I was walking into a local shoe store and as I made a few steps inside, my legs decided to betray me.

They both went opposite directions, and I am pretty sure if it had been quiet enough you could have heard the seam of my pants crying.

I did what anyone would do and said the dumbest most obvious thing that I could.

“Whoa, slippery here.”

Riveting Nanci. Just riveting.

Here’s where the story turns though.

There were four people in the store.

One employee and 3 patrons.

Not one of those people offered to help me up.

Instead, the employee pointed at the “Wet floor” sign and said, “Yeah, that’s why that’s there.”

She then proceeded to watch me crawl to a carpeted area and end cap to gain enough leverage to get my rear off the ground.

Ooof.

Where has customer service gone?

Or even common human decency?

Now I am the type of person that would have helped the person.

I realize that not everyone is outgoing nor comfortable doing such a thing.

However, that employee.

W-O-W.

She didn’t even bat an eye at my fall.

She could have at least held up a card with a “10” on it because the fact that my legs did that was a dang miracle.

I think customer service has always struggled, but this ongoing pandemic hasn’t helped.

It has caused complacency.

Oh, she fell.

Guess I should mop.

Literally, that is what happened.

After the employee pointed out the yellow wet sign, she then got the mop and sighed heavily as she slopped even more wet water over the crime scene.

I continued on to purchase shoes there.

She was just as friendly at the register.

Glowing with personality.

Also, I am being sarcastic.

The employee shortage has caused the employees to quite literally have management by the tail.

Management needs bodies to run their companies and employees aren’t a dime a dozen.

I’m not sure that customer service issues and employment haven’t always been an issue, but Covid has certainly brought it front and center.

The bright light shining on the folks that are working isn’t all that fun to look at lately.

I went to the grocery store the other day and watched an elderly man struggle with a self-checkout station.

After I helped him when the employee standing post at that location obviously wasn’t going to, she came over once he left and said..

Some people shouldn’t use the self check-outs.

To which I replied…

And some folks shouldn’t be in customer service.

I am pretty certain she was expecting as fist bump or “I hear ya!”, but she was never going to get that from me.

Customer service.

Member service.

That’s our secret weapon.

As credit unions, we should not only show people the difference, but they should without a doubt feel it the moment they enter our lobby or drive-thru.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of examples of how NOT to treat people happening all over.

So much so that I feel COVID should list complacency as a side-effect by now.

However, this gives credit unions a huge moment to shine.

When you treat people like they matter and you make people feel like they matter, that begins the process of loyalty.

It’s up to us from that moment on to continue that trend.

It’s who we are.

It’s who we have always been.

It’s who we should ALWAYS be.

I can’t help but feel that if I had done the splits at my credit union, they would have helped me up.

We would have laughed about it later and they would have commented on my amazing split skills.

I would have felt comfortable knowing they cared.

Instead, I crawled my way to safety and quietly stood up feeling invisible, ignored, and embarrassed.

Yes, we have an opportunity folks.

An opportunity to continue to shine in the areas that we have always done so.

An opportunity to tell this pandemic that we can’t be bullied into complacency.

We are credit unions.

We are the difference.