STUDENTS' CORNER - 191

Extend assistance with a willing hand

We have already explained ‘consideration’ and now we will spend some more time on it since it is one of the most desirable communication skills. In the ‘success-crazy’ world, consideration claims greatest attention.  Personally as well as professionally, consideration is a must –virtue one must cultivate consciously. If you go into the success stories of giant companies across sectors, you will find, in the final analysis, consideration for a customer is the crown of the commercial efforts and even insights. Man has insatiable hunger for recognition and consideration guarantees it.  Let us see some more illustrations.

‘We are happy to announce that we are working on Sundays also to cater to your urgent needs’

‘You can come to our office on Sundays also’.

In terms of content of the two sentences, there is no difference; they convey the same fact but in terms of implications, the second sentence has a greater warm appeal to the customer. There is a possibility that many employees of the office could have expressed rather negative response to work on Sunday; the management would have had to persuade them into positive response. But in the second sentence, there is a clear suggestion that the employees possibly were willing to come to work on Sundays because they know the significance of the customers. This is generally called ‘You-attitude’.

Let us see one more example before we close.

The car sent to us for service cannot be delivered in a week; it will be delivered in about 12 days.

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused for the delay in delivering the car to you because of shortage of workers and intervening holidays.

The first sentence is cold and just informing the customer about the delivery of the car. Please note that any passive voice sentence, --‘cannot be delivered’ --does not recognize the individuals, the actors in the sentence but only the action. Passive voice is legitimate in recording scientific observations where the observations are all important and not the observer. The customer is sent to the second place and the action of delivery dominates the sentence. Ok, This is correct but unfortunately discouragingly cold. A workshop with a warm announcement will easily wean away this customer.

The second sentence sounds rather pleasantly apologetic and seems to honor the feelings of the customer. Delay is explained though it need not be in such language of feeling. Here is what we find ‘you-attitude’ in operation. This is consideration. The customer will not move away from this company easily. This is business-winning and sustaining. Consideration renders domestic engagement pleasant and inviting and professional tasks effective and winning.

In our next session, we shall move on to another skill in communication.