“That wasn’t me. It was my colleague”: A Lesson in “Customer Focus”

Muawiyah loves these Blueberry Buns. But in one recent purchase, to his disappointment, we found out that there was no Blueberry filling inside. Blueberry bun without blueberry 😅.

So, the next time I went back to the Bakery for my next Blueberry Bun purchase, in the spirit of continuous improvement, I provided my feedback. 

“Ini blueberry bun kan?”

“Ya”

“Oh okay. Dulu saya beli blueberry bun, takde blueberry kat dalam”

She replied, “oh, itu Bukan saya yang buat” (I didn’t make it)

Surprised by her unnecessarily defensive response, I replied, “Takpe lah, tak kisah lah siapa yang buat. Saya nak bagi customer feedback saja, nanti you boleh lah bagitau yang lain” 

I don’t care who did it - I’m just providing my feedback, you can relay to the team. 

Her response?

“Itu kawan saya, Cina tu. Nama dia (insert name here). Dia yang buat” 

Now even more shocked, I emphasized once again: “Oh saya tak kisah pun siapa yang buat. Nanti you bagitau lah you punya manager, lain kali boleh improve customer service bah”

“Tapi bukan saya buat itu”

😂🤔🤯

Oh, boy. Not only did she display total lack of ownership or responsibility, or refuse to acknowledge the feedback in anyway - or even given a “husnu dzon” response (“oh our baker must have forgot, sorry ya”). Even after I described my earnest efforts to help the business, she doubled down on her lack of ownership and threw her colleague under the bus - even going the extra mile mentioning the unnecessary detail of her race. 

And yet there I was, secretly expecting her to go give me a replacement Blueberry Bun. Fat chance 😂. 

But at least we would expect some degree of acceptance like "oh really? Sorry about that" or “thanks for the feedback, “we’ll look into it”. 

Now, we can go on ranting about this particular bakery’s poor customer service, until I came to the brutal realization: Haven’t we witnessed this before (or, perhaps, guilty of doing it ourselves) at the workplace?

Whenever a stakeholder shares their dissatisfaction or constructive feedback about our team deliverables, people are immediately quick to discredit their team or organization. Whether it’s incompetent colleague, ignorant boss, lousy predecessors, crappy procedures, bad handover, or the classic hero/victim story of "diorg sapu taik diorg untuk kitorg cuci", etc. etc. - 1,001 different bullets to incite the “sins of our fathers” or blame other factors to avoid accountability.

At the end of the day, no one takes any responsibility to acknowledge the gaps or take practical measures to improve. Just blaming, finger pointing, verbal backstabbing. Problem amplified. 

This is all-too-familiar workplace culture that we ourselves experience very often. 

This is one important component of professionalism: If we want to see genuine change, we have to take the ownership as a team, to break the cycle. Yes, our predecessors make mistakes. Yes, our procedures and colleagues aren’t perfect. But to the customer, we represent our team. Our organization. It doesn't matter "who" in particular. 

We don’t need to throw anyone under the bus. Just patiently take in the input, acknowledge the shortcomings, and move forward. If we are able to, produce solutions. 

One day, we, too, will be predecessors, and perhaps we, too, will be discredited for our failings. 

What sort of attitude do we expect our successors to have? 

If we aspire for organizations like this bakery to improve professionalism, then we have to play our part first.

Be the change that we want to see.