Unless Your Customer Writes Your Prescriptions, Keep Your Ailments to Yourself

I work out several days a week and conveniently drop off my two tots, Josephine and Lela, at the gym’s onsite daycare facility. They love all the women who share the daycare duties throughout the week and it makes me happy to know they won’t scream their heads off when I leave them. Recently, when checking in at the front desk of the gym, my girls’ favorite daycare person was scanning club cards instead of manning the daycare. When I asked her why she wasn’t in the daycare, she said, “I’m really, really sick today.”

Okay, so I understand why you wouldn’t want to be sick around children, but should you be face to face with gym customers upon entrance while touching their club cards? And should you tell customers that you are sick? “No” is, and should always be, the only answer to these questions. 

We’ve all been there at one point or another…you don’t have a fever, but you’re still sick and feel like crap, and your job requires someone to replace you if you can’t be present but you have no one to cover you. In an ideal world, when you’re sick, you should stay home. Doing so will expedite your recovery and limit the likelihood of making someone else sick. However, you can’t always do this. In these cases, it’s vital to wing it so that your customers will still receive the great customer service they deserve. After all, it’s not their problem that you are sick. You need to perform your best even when you’re feeling like crap.

Perform in the “Top 10” even when you’re feeling low

22-year-old Megan Joy from Sandy, UT, on the Season 8 American Idol show sang her heart out two weeks ago and made it to the top 10–a pivotal moment in the American Idol journey. Judge Paula Abdul’s critique surprised me. Abdul complimented Megan for being a true professional and trooper for giving her all despite the fact that she had been in the hospital with a severe cold the week preceding the show. If Abdul had not brought it up, I would have never known.   

It’s this professionalism that you need to bring to the table when you are stuck at work and feeling sick. Customers come to you because they need something. They don’t know you on a personal level and shouldn’t be bothered with your ailments, tiredness, runny nose or sore throat. Even more importantly, you need to hide your ailments because of the brand you represent. Many times, a customer’s only impression or experience of a specific brand or store is solely based on the encounter she had with the sales person, clerk or representative. This experience should NOT be about “me the clerk and how bad I feel,” but about “you the customer and what I can do for you.”

When you’re not feeling well, you have to make a conscious effort to not show it. I’m not suggesting that you go overboard on pretending you are well. I’m only suggesting that you hide your symptoms as best as you can.

Here are some simple tips for the sick service provider:

• Keep plenty of water on hand to drink at every appropriate moment. Most cold symptoms relieve somewhat if your body has plenty of non-dehydrating fluids in it.
• Limit your consumption of caffeinated beverages; although you may feel you need them to keep you “alive”, they only dehydrate your system and prolong the flushing of any toxins that need to leave your body.
• Take more short breaks instead of one long one. Most employers hate to rely on you when you’re are sick and are willing to compensate your requests to help you get through the day. Shorter breaks will give you more opportunities to rest yourself and give your “act” a much needed intermission.
• When possible, pass difficult customers or customers with lengthy needs off to your manager or other coworkers. Be sure to communicate the “pass off” or transition effectively to your customer.
• Try to blow your nose, hack your cough and moan your aches in private whenever you can. If an explanation is necessary because you couldn’t get away in time, let the customer think your condition is allergy related.
• Keep some antibacterial hand gel available at all times. Use it throughout your shift to keep your hands fresh, especially if you have to blow your nose or cough a lot.
• Consume cough drops just before you start your shift, on breaks or when you have “non customer interface” time. Just as gum chewing is tacky, so is a customer service rep sucking on a cough drop, and sometimes the medicinal or herbal smell can be annoying.

If you can make it through a customer service encounter when you aren’t feeling so hot without turning your customer cold, then put a notch in your belt. This is far more impressive and “brand supportive” than communicating your sickness casually to your customers. Covering your sickness in a professional setting when the “stay home” option isn’t an option requires character and discipline–two traits your customers will respect you for.

Please send me a customer service story you would like to share [link]. If I use it for this column, we will send you a free copy of Fire Them Up [link], Carmine Gallo’s latest book featuring several inspiring executives, professionals and other leaders who speak the language of motivation.