I’m not disputing that some of you genuinely don’t like being called by your name in some settings. But a mass merchant or chain restaurant can’t realistically say to its minimum wage employees, “Address customers by name if they want you to, and don’t if they don’t want you to. Use your excellent judgment.” Because they are dealing with many very inexperienced and/or unmotivated workers. The chain is going to pick the most profitable default, which apparently is to use the customer’s name.
Now, I’m sure they would love to get more specialized if technology makes it possible and economical to do so. I get periodic online customer service surveys from my grocery store. I can totally see them sticking a question on there: How do you like to be greeted - Harriet, Mrs. Spry, or other. And from then on the requested greeting would pop up on the cash register screen when they scanned my loyalty card. Places that sell higher end items than groceries already do stuff like that. Honestly, though, from my time in sales, I would not be surprised at all if people spend more if you say their name, whether they like being called by name or not.
Tangent - I was looking for a published study on this. I didn’t find one that was spot on, but did find something in Journal of Applied Social Psych where they demonstrated that servers got higher tips if they squatted down to greet diners at eye level. That’s definitely something I’d never say I liked, but apparently it affects people’s tipping behavior.
For the most part I don’t really care if an employee somewhere uses my name. The only time it ever bothers me is at Safeway. My boyfriend and I do most of our grocery shopping together, and I’m the one with the Safeway card. If he pays for the groceries, the cashier will look at the receipt and say “Thank you, Mr. Mylastname.” We’re not married and that is not his name. If you know my name and want to use it, I don’t care, but policies at some places make it so a worker has to guess or assume what someone’s name is, and I’m not happy with that.
This is one reason why, when I shop at Safeway, I choose whenever possible to go through the checkstand manned by the one checker who actually knows me personally. She says “Hi Rik” and I say “Hi Connie”. I don’t have to look at her nametag and she doesn’t have to read my name off the receipt.
I called 1-800-Safeway to get them to flip a switch somewhere that stops my name from being printed on the receipt. I did this while living and shopping in a low SES neighbourhood-because while I was only lightly annoyed by the corporate faux-friendliness, I was really pissed when the binners cashing in their bottles would overhear my name and then address me personally when they asked for my spare change. I mean no ill will to Mr Panhandler, but he does not need to know my name to ply his trade.
Wachovia tellers have to use the person’s name three times during their transaction. Drive through transactions are especially fun. “Mr Kirk, would you like a balance with that? Okay Mr. Kirk. Have a nice Day Mr. Kirk…Mr. Kirk.”
In my industry, there is a fairly close network of vendors, consulting firms, and representatives from corporations who all know each other. We constantly do business with each other and run into the same people over and over again at trade shows and conferences. In that sort of setting I don’t mind someone who has worked with me and who I know professionally calling me by my name. Because…well…what else would you call me by?
Here is what I don’t like.
[Scene: Typical trade show or conference]
Vendor: [comes up to me] What’s going on msmith537! Are you enjoying the event? You work with Jim and Stacy, right?
Me: Sure…I’m sorry, have we met before?
Vendor: No.
Me: Oh, I’m sorry, the way you sounded I thought we might have met before and I felt embarassed that I didn’t recognize you.
Vendor: Oh, that’s ok…
Me: Because you are actually speaking a bit informally to me for someone I’ve never met. Is that some sort of sales technique or something? Maybe I’ll feel uncomfortible and just pretend like we know each other so you can pitch me on your product? And maybe because you name drop some of my coworkers, I’m supposed to feel like you have a connection with my company? You know, because I was just wandering around this conference because I am SOO important that I can just decide right here on the spot that my company will partner with yours. Now how about instead of acting like a reject from Boiler Room or Glenngary Glenn Ross and just reading my name off my badge, you introduce yourself like a normal human being and explain to me what your product does?
I hate it. I go to trade shows, and take care to move my badge to my belt, on the side after entering the exhibition hall specifically to avoid being called by my first name by random people who don’t know me. If I want them to address me by name, I’ll introduce myself. And I’ve found that they’re rarely actually use my name once we’re talking about something important.
This is an example of “The First Guy to Think of X was a Genius” syndrome. You know how it works. The first guy to say “Have a nice day!” sounded charming. The second guy sounded like a dick. The first guy to set up a microphone and mini-speaker at a shop in a mall to entice the passers-by was a genius. Everyone thereafter who copied it was an annoying embuggerance. The first shop assistant to up-sell with “Would you like fries with that?” was clever. Corporatizing that line is the work of the devil. The first shop assistant to call me by name was charming because it was such a surprise. Everyone thereafter looked contrived and utterly insincere.
I LOATHE that whatever crappy research has been done about customer responses to this sort of thing has been done in America, and some corporatoid has just assumed that it will translate to every English speaking culture there is. (This is not to diss Americans. You lot obviously grit your teeth at it too. What I am bitching about here is the importation of an already bad idea without any thought.)
I RESENT the assumption of faux familiarity that comes with it, especially when they make socially inept mistakes about whether to call me Noel, or Mr Prosequi. These things are nuanced, people. They depend on relative age, the social dynamics of the type of transaction being undertaken and a whole raft of things that do not squeeze well into one-size-fits-all false bonhomie.
I FUME at the extension of the technique that asks me “friendly” questions. To ask a question (“So, what are your plans for the weekend?”) is entirely appropriate if you are my friend. If you are not, it is utterly presumptuous - it arrogates to the questioner the right to expect an answer. “Mind your own business” as a response is beyond what is called for in the circumstances, but I hate that you put me in the position of prevaricating. And I hate that I can’t take it out on you - it’s not your fault that your boss is a doofus.
I am convinced that the sole reason for all of this is that the pool of employees at supermarkets, etc, might not have the social skills or the energy to continually display friendliness and so defaults to surly resentment. The bosses figure that contrived false hail-fellow-well-met enthusiasm, no matter how obviously insincere, is a lesser evil than surly resentment.
Maybe they’re right. I dunno. But I still seethe at it with all the impotent, futile rage I can muster.
Wanders off with sotto voce Fred Flinstone-style swearing…Fraggle nazzle diggle shibble…
I work at a video store, and I occasionally call regular customers by their name. I rarely use “sir” or “ma’am”; in fact, when I have to refer to people at all, I tend to use sentences such as “I’ll get our next guest right here.” And I’m casual with my customers, overall.
In my judgment, a woman is always a “Ms.” until she specifies otherwise.
I think there is a big, huge, whopping difference between remembering a customers name and using it versus reading it off the screen/sheet/whatever.
I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m certain you could have taken a poll before they started all this fake familiarity and it would have overwhelmingly stated people liked being called by their name, however, the end of the sentence was probably “it was a pleasant surprise realizing they had taken the effort to not just remember me, but remember my name.”
I had a job where I wore a name tag, and none of my customers did. I knew many, many of their names, especially compared to other dealers. It was often commented on how amazing it was that I remembered their name. (Sorry, Steve-James, I still don’t know which name is yours, but I know who Steve-James is!)
I never refer to customers by name (well, over the phone anyway) and people do this to me. They even have to work for it, because I work for a small and informal company and don’t answer the phone with my name. Some people take it to the extreme of using your name at least once in every sentence. I hate it. I find it’s used by really controlling douchebags who want to treat you like dirt.
I don’t see why people do it right from the start. I talk to 95% of our incoming callers from pre-sales through high level technical support and so I know people aren’t calling back eight times for an answer. I find that if someone uses this tactic, it’s a good indicator that they are an asshole. This means that they can be trying to take advantage of us, a salesman trying to covertly find out more about our staff, or just a general jackass who wants to be pushy. This means no benefit of the doubt and I certainly verify everything that they say.
To clarify, I don’t mind if someone asks my name – people do it a lot because they assume we work in some big call center. It’s the people (okay, men – I’ve yet to encounter a woman who does this, though granted we talk to far fewer women) who say, What’s your name? in a demanding tone and then say, *Well, fluiddruid, I really hope you can help me. fluiddruid, my problem is X. Why do you think I am having this problem, fluiddruid?" * 90% of the time it’s a customer who hasn’t given me their name or anything, either. Maybe I should start asking for their name and using it myself.
I only use a customer’s name via email and it’s when they’re being a real idiot who won’t listen to reason. When I send a detailed tech support response about how to fix their problem, and they respond “This won’t fix it, I’m an expert in everything computer-related because I have a BS in Computer Science, so I reinstalled the software and it didn’t work. Why?” … these people get a “Mr. <So and so>” at the beginning of the email. I don’t know why, but for me it’s code for “Dear stupid asshole, pay attention to what I am about to say” It is usually followed by a respectful but firm explanation that if you want to be a contrarian dick, you can do elsewhere, but if you want the problem fixed, you will need to follow the steps we sent the first time. For whatever reason, I’ve found that this strategy helps snap people back into reality. Usually we get no response, but once in awhile we get someone humble enough to say “Oh, it worked. Sorry.”
I’d like to add on to this by saying the thing that drives me insane is when people say something like “and how are WE today.” Ugh! We?!?!?! I don’t know, how are WE? I imagine a nice reply like “I don’t know. I think we’re an idiot” would generate a few surprised looks.
It doesn’t bother me, I just think it’s unnecessary. It’s just allowing the server to speak to you at eye level. Why would that bother anybody? The one that gets me is when a server sits at the table with you to take your order! I haven’t seen that in a couple of years. I used to see it at Flingers types of restaurants.
Speaking of which, there could probably be a stand alone thread about the forced behavior of servers in those types of restaurants.
Sometimes I get asked for my last name. I refuse to give that out to random callers at work for some strange reason. Fortunately, there are no duplicate first names in my office so I tell them I’m the only whiterabbit here and that usually satisfies them.
Enright3, I am very very short to begin with. So on the rare occasions servers have knelt to talk to me I feel like they’re interacting with me as if I were a small child. It just grates on me badly. This is not a good way to get a nice tip, and I tend to tip high to begin with.
I do not want to be addressed by my first name by anyone who is [ul][li]trying to sell me somethingor thirty years younger than I am.[/ul]I also detest having the waiter say “How are you guys doing?” All these are overly familiar. [/li]
I have been known to do the 'I’m afraid you have misheard me - that is my first name. My last name is Lastname - Mr. Lastname."
I don’t live in the South and I wasn’t raised there, but I was still taught to use sir/ma’am and I do, not just for people who are older than me but for people who are of a ‘higher level’ to me (I can’t think of a better word right now). My boss is younger than me, but still gets ma’am’ed. Customers (if I worked with them) would get sir or ma’am. It just means that they’re the more important person in the transaction. I don’t get the hate for it.
As far as people using my first name - I hate it. People can’t pronounce it right, even before I changed it (I prefer the new mispronunciation though; at least all the letters they say are there in the correct order). I’m not fond of my last name, but being called Ms. Tyger is better than being called Shivery or SilVare.
Of course, back when I was living on my own apparently my phone number was already in the grocery store system so most of the time I got called Ms. Brown. shrug
For whatever reason, I’ve found that this strategy helps snap people back into reality. Usually we get no response, but once in awhile we get someone humble enough to say “Oh, it worked. Sorry.”