Unfortunately, some of it is, and it be even more insidious to get rid of when people aren't aware of what they are doing. One study of both male and female sales clerks, for example, found that male customers receive more positive expressions (smiling, eye contact, thanks, greetings) than do female customers. 

   Men tend to get waited on before women, not only in men's departments, but also in women's and "neutral" departments, such as luggage sections of stores. I personally note this difference in levels of treatment when I travel. When flying business class, I frequently wait for my coat to be put away, and many times I am not asked if I want a refill on my beverage. Once I was completely skipped over for meal service—and I was fully awake!

   I don't believe these service providers are doing this intentionally, but they certainly aren't operating with a great deal of self-awareness either! And it is particularly difficult to complain about such treatment, because it tends to make everyone uncomfortable. Nobody likes to be accused of biased treatment. And women who complain about these issues run the risk of coming off looking like bra burners, or hysterical, or something equally unflattering.

   Just recently I experienced a problem with United Airlines. The UA personnel I talked with suggested I write Customer Service in Chicago and explain that I thought women didn't receive the same treatment as men passengers. I like that. She said, if we hear enough from our female passengers, we'll do something about it.

   TWA has already recognized the importance of treating their female travelers better. They are sending 10,000 frontline employees to a two-day training program that emphasizes service to female travelers. They will also talk about how to deal with the perception that females believe that men get preferential treatment while flying.

   We applaud TWA for taking this step. It represents proactive complaint handling to a very high degree. I would suspect if TWA can bring the light of awareness to this problem, it will have impact on all sorts of other unconscious behaviors that TWA personnel use.

©Janelle M. Barlow, , 1999
Coauthor, A Complaint Is a Gift
 
 
 
 
 
 

Previous "Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages: 
 

#1	Overselling Service
#2	Not Listening to Complaints
#3	Plastic Chicken
#4	Complaints You Can Do Nothing About
#5	A+ Complaint Handling
#6	Beware! Others are Watching You
#7	At Least Keep Talking!
#8	Let Customers Know You'll Tell Someone
#9	If You're Going to Apologize, Then Mean It
#10	Keep Front-life Staff Well Informed
#11	Don't Set Goals to Reduce Complaints
#12	Products Used During Special Events
#13	Best Practices of Complaint-friendly Organizations
#14	Complaints About Mother Nature!
#15	Socially Offensive Situations
#16	A Complaint Is a Gift in Action
#17	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, I
#18	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, II
#19	Creating an Internal Service Culture
#20	When Your Customers are Industrial Buyers
#21	Customers Who are Poor Complainers

We invite you to submit your "best" examples by fax or e-mail. We won't print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do.

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Training Program 

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Book

Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow

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