Customers, Patrons, and Guests

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

Hi.

Hey there, what’s up? Who is this?

This is Jerry Pars calling from Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.

Hell’s Kitchen in the 50s, Westside.

Hey, baby, how you doing?

I’m doing great.

It’s like old home week.

I’m at the real Hell’s Kitchen here.

Okay. What can we do for you?

Well, I, what was it? It was some shows ago. You had a librarian, and the librarian called in, and she was all going on about how she had patrons and didn’t have, I believe it was customers. And I found that was interesting, and I agreed with her. I thought that a person who patronized the library would be a patron.

And then I was standing in line at, well, our local, one of our local drugstores, Dwayne Reed, and the girl at the cash register said, next guest. And I went to myself, guest. I’m a customer. I’m not a guest.

And then I went to Starbucks. At Starbucks, the person said, next guest? They were just throwing me off because I don’t believe that I’m a guest. And it reminded me of that other show, the librarian.

Well, why aren’t you a guest?

Because to me, a guest is, there’s some amenities involved with a guest. If I’m paying for one particular product or something like, you know, I want to buy a box of Kleenex, I go in and I buy a box of Kleenex. And there’s nothing else attached to it. There’s no other, you know. To me, I think as a guest, somebody’s going to say to me, well, would you like another towel? Or I could say, hey, can I have another towel, please? You know, I’m a guest in a hotel.

So you’re expecting amenities and coddling.

It’s more of a service thing as opposed to a particular item. This is all corporate speak, though. This is one of the things that comes down from on high, to call your customers guests to make them feel a little more welcome and take the transaction out of the relationship.

Disney has been doing this since the 70s, calling the visitors guests.

Yeah, but I understand what Jerry is saying.

Since the 70s?

Since the 70s, yeah.

To me, it sounds sort of, I don’t know, overly familiar. You know, like a politician who says, my friends, blah, blah, blah. You know, it’s like a little bit contrived. At least that’s what I think I hear you saying, Jerry. Is that right?

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. It’s just, yeah, I guess a little too familiar, a little too, I expect them to offer me a little chocolate or something.

Yeah, a turndown service.

But for me, it’s not just familiar and contrived. It’s also that it’s transparent to me what they’re trying to do. I don’t like being manipulated by this obvious change of language where they want to make me feel more welcome by changing the word that they call me.

And there is a place for changing language in the workplace, but this one is one of those, again, obvious, contrived, ham-handed things.

Well, what should they say? I mean, I appreciate the effort on the one hand.

Well, in New York, they should say, next online.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. The summary here is I think that we agree with you that guest isn’t really very useful.

I don’t have a big problem with it. I just kind of an eye roll thing. I’ll still take my order and walk out. But, boy, I’d just really love to talk to these people.

Certainly, but it just seemed to link so closely to what your librarian is talking about.

Yeah, definitely.

It’s a perfect match.

Because, you know, she was a bit offended by having to call people customers. And here all of a sudden, you know, I’m wanting to be called the customer, please.

Jerry, we’re going to help who’s next, okay?

Okay.

Thank you for calling.

All right.

Thank you for having me on.

Thanks, buddy.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

If you’ve got a problem with the way that you’re talked to in a business transaction, I think there’s a lot more mileage left in this topic. So give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.