Tips for getting treated well and keeping your e-mail from being hacked.
wire services | Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 pm
How to: Get good customer service
Everyone likes to receive good customer service. Here are some tips on how to get it.
You set the tone. When you are greeted with a grunt (or worse) from a surly person manning the counter, how do you respond? Always treat others as you would like to be treated, and especially when you are not being treated well.
Be clear about your expectations. Communicate them in a clear, concise manner from the start. This way, the person providing the service knows exactly what you want.
Don’t take mistakes personally. Mistakes happen. You’ll order your fried rice without tomatoes or your pizza crust extra crispy, and the server will mess up your order. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Speak up if something goes wrong. If things are not going as you expected, let the appropriate person know. Sometimes people wait too long to address a problem so that by the time they finally do, they have built up anger that is out of kilter with the offense. That’s when you’ll end up seeming like a jerk for a complaint that (at one point in time, anyway) was legitimate.
Never lose your temper or your patience. No one likes to give good service to someone who is condescending, rude, impatient or downright mean. And even if a server attempts to push your buttons, don’t let him.
Treat your server as an equal. Look him in the eye. Speak to him, not at him. If you are on a cell phone call, finish the call before expecting to receive help. Hand your money to the server instead of placing it on the counter. Say “please” and “thank you.” Be genuine, personable and polite. Treat your server as you would like to be treated if you held his position, and you will be amazed at the kind of service you receive.
Treat other customers as equals. Annoyed customers become the server’s problem, too, so do your best to maintain friendly relations with everyone in the immediate vicinity.
Tip well and tip often. If you’ve ever worked in a service job, you know just how much it matters. Customer service jobs are not easy, nor lucrative. Treat people with respect and dignity and you’re a step ahead. If on top of your good manners, you’ve been tipping well, too, then the table by the window is yours!
How to: Keep your passwords safePassword theft has been in the news lately, when somebody logged into vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account and browsed through her mail. This person apparently pulled this off by guessing the answer to the security question on Yahoo’s password-reset page: “Where did you meet your spouse?”
If somebody else can answer your security question — a common back door offered for users who forget their login and can’t get it e-mailed to a secondary e-mail address — he doesn’t need to guess your password or steal it with a phishing scam or a keystroke-logging virus.
Minimize that risk by choosing a question with an answer that’s only in your head, not on the Web. (Remember, “the Web” includes whatever’s on your profile at Facebook, MySpace or another social-networking site, even if that information isn’t shown to strangers.)
Here’s how to change an existing security question to something less guessable at the three major Web mail services:
- At Yahoo, log in and click the “My Account” link above your inbox. Then click the “Help” link. The Help page’s “Secret Question” link leads to instructions on how to change this.
- In Google’s Gmail, log in and click the “Settings” link. On that page, click the Accounts tab, then the “Google Account settings” link.
- In Microsoft’s Hotmail, log in, click your e-mail address at the top right of the screen, and select “View your account” from its drop-down menu.