A Critical Perspective: Why Teaching Isn’t Customer Service.
What’s something most people don’t understand?
Calling teaching customer service is insulting.
Now you’re probably wondering who in their right mind would put teaching and customer service in the same basket. That answer would be the Palm Beach County school board. Last year we were required to complete a training called catch the wave. I nearly fell out of my chair when they referred to our students as customers. Students are not customers in any sort of the word. I would know I spent my teens and twenties working as a CSR.
At 16 I landed my first job at Pacific Sunwear. As a mallrat, I basically lived in that store. So much so that the managers knew me by name and the week I turned 16, they handed me a resume. My interview was sitting down with my boss and him explaining how schedules worked and if I needed to take off for school how I would do that. He already knew I knew the product and the store’s history. As I worked there, I learned how to create full outfits from top to bottom. That encompassed selecting tops, bottoms, socks, and underwear for girls; shoes completed the outfit. We were always thinking about how we could up-sell each customer. I learned how store design uses color to draw customers in and lead them through the store.
Working retail is about selling products to your customers. It’s about convincing them to spend more than they intended. Each store has a daily goal to be met, and they wanted you to do it any way possible.
When I moved to the register, I needed to learn about our more expensive products. We had carried Spy and Arnette sunglasses. I needed to know why and how to convince the customer that they should buy the 100 dollar polarized glasses over the 15 dollar glasses that were on the tree next to the line. It was the same with the fossil watches we had in the locked case. The last thing that I had to know was the ins and outs of the story credit card. We got bonus points and other things for how many people we signed up for that day.
It wasn’t hard to learn what type of customer came through the door. Teens just browsing, we watched to make sure they didn’t shoplift. If it was back to school and moms were with their kids, we always added in an extra shirt or pair of pants that completed the outfit. When people were looking at shoes, we made sure the customer knew we had socks nearby and most people would scoop up a set before heading to checkout. But as sales associates, we didn’t care about the customer outside of what length pants they need. Did they need a size up or down on the top they brought in? Most importantly, when the customer left the dressing room, were the same numbers of items being returned to the employee.
For two years, I worked at the same store. Other mall rats filtered in as employees and soon I learned about different customers. But it wasn’t them as humans that I remembered, but how much money they spent. Those who I knew would drop a few hundred to thousands of dollars were the ones we gave our attention to.
When I moved to Boca and switched from Pac Sun to Gap Body, I learned that is how Gap functions. They break customers into categories. The sales shopper, the bargain shopper, the trendsetter, and the one who will return clothing. I’m probably remember the names wrong but it’s the same idea. Transitioning from a store’s fair treatment of all customers to a focus on maximizing spending from specific individuals felt wrong. Yes, we were to greet everyone who came in, but it wasn’t expected to go past that. I was to make sure the tables were stocked and only engage with those who looked as if they were going to spend lots of money. I didn’t like this kind of treatment towards any customer. My thought process was if someone was spending money, no matter the amount, they deserved respect.
One of the strangest encounters was a woman who brought back three massive bags of clothes. She wanted to return it all. It was obvious the clothes had been worn at least once. But she kept the tags on them all. She even had the receipt. The clothes were bought the season before. At my old store, we wouldn’t even entertain the idea of returning clothes from that long ago. But at Gap, not only did they take back the items, they gave her full price on clothes that were marked down to nearly a dollar. I stared at my manager, dumbfounded. About a week later, she was back to buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of clothes. The manager looked at me and said, “this is why we let her do what she wants. Whenever she comes in we make our daily sales goal.”
I quit not too long after that.
The next store I worked at was Godiva. My waistline hated me for it, but my stomach loved every minute of working in a chocolate store. Godiva had one mission: up-selling. If someone came in for one chocolate, encourage two. If they were buying a gift, ask them if they wanted a ribbon. Always push the customer to add onto their purchase. Holidays were the easiest to add to orders. Showing how cute a small box looked with a bigger one. Asking the customer if they wanted a chocolate drink to give them energy to last the rest of the day shopping. Sell, sell, sell. Don’t care who they are as long as they buy chocolate.
The last store I worked in was Hollister. I loved it. I worked in stock. I had one job: to keep the tables stocked and clean. I didn’t have to talk to anyone. That was left up to the “models who serve.” The title model allows Hollisters and other stores and restaurants to hire those who fit their company “look”. But I wasn’t considered customer service. I was supposed to be invisible. So if a customer stopped me, I was supposed to ignore them or direct them to a model. It didn’t matter if I had the answer or not. It wasn’t my job.
I stayed at this job for a while longer before landing one at a private airport.
Working at Avitat Boca Raton was a whole other level of customer service. Here I was no longer selling things to our customers. The customers had already purchased hanger or ramp space for their private jets. My job was to take care of these people in the best way possible, and if I did my job right I would walk away with cash money. Tips to be shared with whoever else was on shift that day.
When planes were being pulled out of the hangar I was checking the list the crew had left. Catering, ice, newspapers, and fresh coffee all needed to be in the plane before their passengers arrived. Sometimes I was delivering fresh linens to the flight attendants and they would hand me a box of dirty dishes. If there was time, I would run them through the industrial dishwasher. If there wasn’t enough time, I had to scrub and return the sparkling dishware.
When planes arrived, I had to literally lay out the carpet so they wouldn’t walk on the ground tracking dirt into their planes or cars. If it was raining, I was the one holding their umbrella escorting them to their plane, hopefully helping them stay dry.
The absolute best part was driving the cars. The clients would drive right up to their plane and I would get the chance to park Aston Martins, Bentleys, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis. Being behind the wheel of those vehicles was amazing. But I was also responsible for bringing them up to the planes, making sure they were clean and ready to go.
At the airport, it was important to learn who each customer was. We needed to know their likes and dislikes. Would the food ordered have things on the tray to upset them? Did they like the New York Times over the Post? All of this mattered because if we upset them, at best we wouldn’t get a tip, at worst they would leave and head to a different airport.
Now, even though each one of these customer service jobs dealt with different economic classes, they all had one thing in common. If you treated a customer service representative, aka the employee, like garbage, you were removed. I have seen millionaires losing their damn mind about something that happened and the managers had them removed from the lobby and handled elsewhere. Some lost their ability to park their jet on the ramp because they were so disrespectful. I lost count at how many times working in retail that security removed customers who were screaming about something we had no control over. In customer service jobs, the employee is protected one way or the other.
In teaching, we are not, and that is not the only thing that differs between teaching and customer service.
Most importantly, I am not selling anything. The kids are there to learn. I am not worried about whether or not they buy a shirt. I am there to present a lesson and everyone, no matter what skill level is expected to learn it. That means if they don’t like it, oh well, that is the task of the day. If my students have a 504 or IEP, yes, I will take that into consideration and alter their assignment, but they will still learn what everyone else is learning.
I don’t know why or how, but in some strange multi-universe that is now ours, I am expected to entertain the idea of students just not doing their work. I have given them chance after chance to turn in late assignments. And when I do this, these kids are up my butt demanding that I update their grade that they turned in weeks late. There is no respect for my time, it’s only me-me-me from the students.
A bored student may be the most terrifying kind of student. They become rude and disruptive. If customers acted like some of my students, they’d be removed from the store/airport by the police for disturbing the peace. The disrespect that teachers put up with is unnerving. In a store, I can just walk away from someone being rude to me. In a classroom, I have to figure out how to defuse a situation. Or worse, I have to entertain their behavior problems until someone comes and removes the student. But I have lost count of how many times admin doesn’t come.
Students go to school to absorb what is being taught to them. That is why they pick their classes. It’s not like the mall where they just wander about looking at what they like or dislike. I am not there to show off flashy new things to encourage them to spend more money. And I am most certainly not there to answer to their every whim and request.
So Palm Beach County School board. I hope you understand the difference between a teacher and a CSR. Because if you actually did, you all would be supporting us in ways that might blow your mind. Because right now, you don’t do shit in ways of supporting your teachers from the “customers.”
P.S. I just touched on retail…. don’t even get my started on other types of customer service.
