If you’re “busy,” you’re losing sales!
In February, I attended a conference at the Palms casino in Las Vegas. I love Las Vegas. I’ve been going there for years, and normally when I do, I stay at a Harrah’s property on the Strip. The Palms is owned by a different group, and it’s off-Strip. Still, first impressions were good. I arrived, checked in, and attended the first afternoon of the conference. That evening, I needed to get my car out of valet, so I could go out. I called the valet, and then came the first sign of trouble.
The phone rang several times, and the bell desk answered. I explained that I needed to get my car, and gave her the ticket number. She said, “I’ll try to get this to them – but they’re awfully busy.” So, I walked downstairs and nobody had taken the number to them. I gave my ticket to the valet, and he said, “I’ll do my best, sir, but we’re pretty busy.” Then it occurred to me – in a decade of staying at Harrah’s properties all over the country, an employee had never told me they were “busy.” It had already happened twice in five hours at this property. Further, it started me thinking about what “busy” really means in the sales and service world.
When you tell someone you’re “busy,” you are sending them a subliminal message that says, “I’m doing things…and every one of those things is more important than you!” In some cases, that could be true; in the case of sales and service, I’m not sure how it could be. For instance, the valet’s job is to park cars and retrieve them for the customers. Being a customer, I’d say that I was at least as important as anything else that he could have been doing.
Another example of this phenomenon came when I attempted to eat lunch at a local restaurant last week. All was fine as I ordered my lunch – a salad and a half of a club sandwich. The waiter brought me my salad, which I ate. And then waited. And waited. And waited. Suddenly I looked at my watch and I realized that a half-hour had passed since my order, and my waiter hadn’t even checked on me. I flagged him down and asked about my sandwich, and he said, “Well, the kitchen is awfully busy right now.” I looked at my watch; it was Noon. I said, “Does it happen about this time every day, by any chance?” I have to be honest – I don’t suffer this kind of thing well. He said, “Well, your food is in line, sir.”
I told him not to worry about it. I dropped six dollars on the table – enough to cover the salad and drink – and said that if the kitchen was too busy to prepare a club sandwich in a half-hour, they were too busy for me to spend my money. Again, that word – “busy.” Again, I wasn’t asking anyone to fulfill an unreasonable function. It was a restaurant, and I wanted to eat. But what he said conveyed to me that I was an imposition, and I really hate to impose on people.
I don’t think salespeople or service people recognize what an off-putting word that is. Speaking as a manager, I always hated it when my employees were “busy.” I liked it when they were engaged in conversations, tasks, meetings, etc. But usually when they were “busy,” I found that they were engaged in less-than-productive behavior – picking up dry cleaning, knocking off early, etc.
Sometimes, words are just “extra.” They are words that convey nothing but negative meanings, and are unnecessary. Here’s the kicker – the valet service at the Palms wasn’t even slow. The valet didn’t really need to say anything. It took a few more minutes than what I was used to at the other casinos, but not enough to be a problem. His “busy” declaration said nothing about the service I was about to receive – but everything about the attitude of the employees.
It was the same at the restaurant. I knew that the restaurant was “busy,” i.e. that they had a lot of customers. I could look around and see that for myself. What I really wanted to know was, how much longer was I expected to cool my heels before having my sandwich? And was there someone (i.e. my waiter) that was looking at the situation? In this case, the answers were that he didn’t care enough to find out.
What’s the advice here? Don’t be “busy.” Be engaged. Be helpful. Care about your customers enough to learn the answers to their issues. If you never say “busy” to a customer again, it will be a positive.
Troy’s Truth of Selling: “Busy” is a word that only conveys negativity to the receipient.
