A hacksaw at home

Several years ago, I wrote a column for Microsoft Small Business that featured a number of things that clients and customers should never hear coming from your mouth (the title derives from an experience of mine when a hardware store matron exclaimed "Doesn't he have a hacksaw at home?" when an employee was decent enough to cut a piece of pipe down to size for me.

If you want to see the entire story, it's at http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/management/customer_relations/7_things_never_to_tell_your_customers.mspx.

That begs the question--how do you head off these verbal landmines before they explode right in your face? A couple of ideas come to mind:

* If you have any doubts whether something may be apropos or not, take the better part of valor route and keep your yap shut. The fact that you even raise the question in your own mind suggests it's best left unsaid.

* Keep it positive and constructive. If you look over the list in my column, asking out loud whether a customer can afford something isn't exactly Dale Carnegie material.

* If you have something negative, don't broadcast it--share it on the sly, out of a client's earshot.

* Emphasize proactivity. Recently, I experienced a variation on the "we don't have it theme" when I asked a grocery store employee for directions to an item. Reply: "I'm on my lunch break now." Well, bon appetit! Eating your own words hits the spot. No matter how inconvenient, at least make an effort to help someone. "No can do" pushes people out the door.

* Share your guidelines with those with whom you work. You may be all peaches and cream with everyone, but all it takes is a word out of place by someone else to blow that all to H-E double hockey sticks.

Any suggestions? Stories of your own to share? Let me know. I'd like to write more on this topic, but I only work here....

Jeff