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Moving On, after a fashion
With the last print issue of Pulpit Helps out the door, I’ve spent all of this week answering the phone and collecting e-mail addresses, hearing from subscribers who for whatever reason had not heard that we were moving online-only until our “last call” mailout.
The vast majority have been completely understanding, and a few have even been enthusiastically endorsing of our decision. Even some who aren’t able to stay with us (owing to not having a computer) have been more than gracious. Those calls have been a pleasure, and have often included heartfelt thanks for the ways our work has impacted their ministry through the years.
A few callers have been genuinely confused about the situation and rather distraught, leaving me to wonder how, if they read the magazine as zealously as they affirm, they missed repeated notices in the magazine of the coming changes (the most important of which was tagged with a banner on the front cover reading “SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, page 4″). Still, I have sympathy for these folks–we all miss things sometimes that seem, in retrospect, as plain as the noses on our faces. They too, have without fail been gracious and understanding once the situation was fully explained.
A third category, thankfully the smallest group with only a few isolated individuals, has been completely and openly hostile about the situation suggesting several things about themselves: 1) they do not pay attention to details, 2) they refuse to accept any responsibility for overlooking something important, 3) they approach misunderstandings by demanding “rights” rather than listening, learning, and pursuing a mutually beneficial solution, and 4) they haven’t learned anything from reading our magazine.
All this leads me to the broadly applicable question, how do I handle misunderstanding or conflict, especially over ultimately trivial matters like magazine subscriptions, and missed deadlines? The folks I castigated in the last paragraph probably aren’t generally “bad” or “disagreeable”, but because of the one interaction I had with them over this one issue, their witness with me is tarnished, and it would take a lot of positive interaction to rebuild trust. All of us, from time to time, get upset over things, and there’s something about human nature that makes us suceptible to “blow our top” to well-meaning strangers trying to help us navigate a decision over the phone–from the outside it’s a source of intense frustration as they try to figure out who we are and what we want; on the inside, they call it “customer service”.
For me, this experience has reminded me that I am carrying Christ in every situation in which I find myself, and even the smallest of customer service interactions is an opportunity to positively or negatively reinforce someone’s view of the Lord. If we take our calling seriously, even the “faceless phone people” deserve the utmost respect and patience befitting our fellow man, whatever our grievance. We talk often of how we “may be the only Jesus someone will ever meet”, but if we only apply that toward people we like or do not currently have any issues with, I think we’ve missed the point.
Also, speaking as one who has done customer service in many formats over the years, being Christlike motivates people to help you find the best solution to your problem–patience and grace beget patience and grace–being angry and offended will get you whatever poor solution results in the service person having to deal with you for the least amount of time possible.
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