Greetings, Miss Manners I am 21 years old, and since I was 17, I have worked in a variety of customer service settings. I work in banking today, and a lot of the time a customer asks a question that I don’t know the answer to.
I have to leave the service area to ask my supervisor about this. Should I tell my boss, “This lady (or gentleman) wanted to know…”?
I ask because I find it strange and somewhat patronizing to refer to the individual in issue as this lady or this guy, and I’m not sure how the customers feel about it either.
PERSONAL READER: Although you are worried about formality, it always feels strange to use the third person when speaking about someone who is in earshot. Some people will also criticize gender.
Miss Manners will propose that this customer is a perfectly serviceable substitute before anyone suggests that you stab the poor customer in the general vicinity.
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Greetings, Miss Manners Thanks to my amazing periodontist, my smile is now intact. He is kind, engaging, and professional.
His front desk manager is extremely unprofessional, impolite, and repulsive. I dread going into the office and dealing with that person because it has gotten so bad. Although I’m not sure how to do it, I feel compelled to let the doctor know about the conduct of his employees.
GENTLE READER: This will be an opportunity to show off your smile and isn’t too difficult.
Be sincere, objective, and emotionless: You are providing an employer with information that he needs to run his company. You’re not advising him how to manage his workplace or placing blame on him. Naturally, you are also thanking him again for his own services.
Miss Manners acknowledges your worry that you are preparing him for awkward future interactions with his employee, but she reassures you that those discussions were inevitable, whether or not you were present. Because he will have more information, your intervention might make things go more easily. It might also happen sooner, before he has lost more business as a result of this person’s actions.
Stories by
Judith Martin
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Miss Manners: Courtesy requires you swallow what you’re eating before answering a question
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Miss Manners: Husband s discourtesy to his mother-in-law is rubbing off on his children
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Miss Manners: How can I keep my loudmouth teen nephew from snooping in my bathroom cabinet?
Greetings, Miss Manners I’ve worked in hospitality my entire life, and I think I make a fantastic greeter in any situation. The phrase “Welcome in” was the typical greeting at a new workplace a few years ago.
I thought it sounded strange and didn’t make any sense. The phrase “welcome” has been used more and more since then, in the same casual tone, as though it had always been the accepted greeting, even though I’m positive it hasn’t.
Is this a brand-new, widely shared example of hospitality? Or have I misplaced this information in my bruised brain from customer service?
GENTLE READER: It seems to Miss Manners that someone at this workplace traveled through a German-speaking nation and misinterpreted everything that was stated.
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