By J. N. Halm
For many, the names Scott Munson Cutlip and Allen H. Center will not ring a bell—but not for many students, lecturers, and devotees of the field of Public Relations. These two gentlemen—one a professor at the University of Wisconsin and the other an astute Public Relations practitioner—wrote a book that has since been widely referred to as “The Bible of Public Relations”. The textbook, first released in 1952, was titled “Effective Public Relations”.
In that book, Prof. Cutlip and Mr. Center introduced the world to the “7 C’s of Communication”. The 7 Cs given then were Completeness, Conciseness, Consideration, Concreteness, Courtesy, Clearness and Correctness. Since then, there have been various editions of this list. Some new Cs have been added, while others have been taken away. But whatever lists you come across still come as close to the original as possible.
There is one C that is in all the lists I have come across and this speaks to the importance of that very C to effective communication. I am referring to Clearness. Other lists refer to this as Clarity. Clear communication is such an important component of effective communication. When people communicate, whether in writing or in speaking, the message must be clear enough to not confuse the reader or the listener.
Unfortunately, this is one of the maxims of effective communication that we flout regularly whenever we communicate with others. Among family members, friends, and casual acquaintances, a lack of clarity in communication can be excused and treated lightly. A communicator can get away with unclear communication among friends and loved ones.
However, when it comes to business-customer communication, unclear communication can have devastating effects on the relationship, as well as the eventual profitability of the business. Whether it is the employee telling the customer something to do or asking the customer for something, or it is the customer requesting the employee, clear communication is vital. The truth is that during interactions between frontline employees and customers, there is always the likelihood that communication from one party to the other will not always be clear.
In the heat of the moment, unclear requests are almost a given, especially when it is the employee requesting the customer for something. It comes with the territory. Interacting with one customer while there is another customer within eye view is enough to get the frontline employee in a state of mind where unclear or “fuzzy” communication is bound to happen.
Interestingly, there is another kind of communication that frontline employees make to customers. This kind, which is mainly requests, can also described by experts as “fuzzy”. However, these requests are not “fuzzy” because the requests are unclear but because these requests are mostly outside what would be deemed “acceptable” according to the organisation’s policies.
For instance, imagine a customer visiting a restaurant and ordering food. However, the place is full and there is just one available left but that table has one other customer on it. The waiter, in that situation, can ask the customer if he or she would not mind joining that single customer at the table.
Such a request can be deemed “fuzzy”—fuzzy because it is not right to get your customer to sit with a stranger but it is also not really wrong. It is important to note that these fuzzy requests are not necessarily wrong or even against the law. They are just not what is generally accepted. Straddling between what is acceptable and unacceptable is what makes them “fuzzy”.
When a customer-handling employee makes such a fuzzy request to a customer, there is one of two outcomes—either the customer would comply or the one would refuse to comply. A study carried out among ten express service companies in southeast China sought to understand the phenomenon. The title of the study was “Understanding Customers’ Compliance Behaviour to Frontline Employees’ Fuzzy Requests.” The study report was published in the October 2017 edition of the Journal of Services Marketing.
The researchers found some reasons why customers will comply with “fuzzy” requests. The first reason is the expected service outcome resulting from the interaction. When customers believe that compliance will lead to an accepted service outcome, they will disregard the seeming inappropriateness of the request and comply accordingly. In the restaurant scenario above, the customer, if very hungry, might just decide to have the meal by the stranger at the last table.
The second determinant of the response of customers to fuzzy requests is the perceived reasonableness of the request. When a customer-facing employee makes a request, the customer naturally passes the said through a funnel of reasoning. If the customer perceives the request as being reasonable, he or she will comply, even if the request is not the most appropriate.
There was a third factor that was found to determine whether customers would comply or refuse fuzzy requests from customer service employees. This is the perceived convenience associated with carrying out the request. If customers believe carrying out the requests would demand more than enough time and effort, they naturally would not be excited about complying with the requests.
It was however interesting to note that two more reasons were found to determine the compliance or refusal behaviour of customers to fuzzy requests. The first of these two factors was defined as “inertia” on the part of the customers. As known from its origin in physics, inertia refers to the continuation of an object in its existing state of rest or uniform motion, unless acted on by an external force.
When applied to customer service, and specifically customer behaviour, inertia refers to the tendency for customers to keep the same routine in service encounters without giving it much thought. When customer service employees make fuzzy requests, customers perceive it as an attempt to violate their set patterns and this forces the customer to refuse to comply with the request.
The second reason found to lead to customers’ refusal to comply with fuzzy requests was negative emotions. According to the study, when the customer feels bored, frustrated, and even irritated, the customer is less likely to comply with not-too-appropriate requests.
From the above study, it is clear that communication by front-line employees has a direct effect on the perceived quality of each customer’s experience. And if, for some reason, the customer service employee has to make a request of a customer with a message that is fuzzy, the customer must be told why the situation is so.
It is also important for customer service employees to be able to read the emotions of their customers before making these fuzzy requests. If it is determined that the customer is not in a good emotional state, it is better to find a better alternative—or even to postpone the interaction if possible. It would be better not to have requested at all than to make a request that a customer refuses to comply with.
It has been found that sometimes, these fuzzy requests come about as a result of frontline employees attempting to serve a lot more customers than is possible under the circumstances. If a frontline employee has targets to meet, the one would not mind bending a few rules, even if just slightly, to make that happen. Therefore, it would be helpful if the business could better manage targets that are set for customer-facing employees.
Very few people will argue against the importance of customer service employees to the profitability of an organisation. The actions and inactions of this “special” group of employees influence the perceptions customers have of the organisation.
As indicated previously, one area where the influence can be felt is in their communication with customers. Evidently, the power of communication cannot be downplayed. Sometimes, fuzzy requests are necessary to keep the customer. But even those requests must be communicated clearly.
