That’s not a sports metaphor. WIN is an acronym for “what’s important now.” And what’s important now is what you have to focus on if you want your customers to feel well served. Their needs, their desires, their concerns—that’s what’s important now. Not cleaning up the vacated table, or folding the shirts that were left in the dressing room, or finishing up that phone call while the client or customer is waiting. Not gossiping with co-workers. Not watching the talking baby or the dancing panda on YouTube. I’ve seen employees do all of the above and more. They’re all signs of a business that lacks a customer service ethic or that talks the talk but does not walk it.
I can tell you from long personal experience as both a manager and a consumer, there’s no bigger turnoff to a customer than being ignored, even for a few seconds, especially for a non-work-related reason. That’s why you should be paying attention to your customers at all times. Obviously, if you work in a retail store, a restaurant, a bank, or any business with direct contact with customers or clients, there are times when you’re very busy and people have to wait to get your complete attention. Customers will inevitably enter while you’re serving someone else. WIN still applies. What’s important now? Obviously, the customer you’re currently serving is your highest priority. But you can also let the new customers know they’ve been seen. A nod, a gesture, some brief eye contact, a pleasant “I’ll be right with you. Please make yourself comfortable”—that’s all it takes. People want to be acknowledged. Ignore them and they’ll either leave or get so annoyed and sullen that they’ll be impossible to please when you finally pay attention to them.
You may think you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing by cleaning up that vacated table or folding those shirts in the dressing room. You may even be following procedure. But there is more to what’s important now than completing a task that has to be done or executing the transaction your job description calls for. There’s also a vital emotional aspect to service. As business consultant and author Stephen Denning put it, “It’s not about a transaction; it’s about forging a relationship.” At an airport recently, I was one of about 150 passengers waiting at the gate as takeoff time approached, wondering why we hadn’t started boarding yet. As we milled about, anxiously imagining what might be going on and hoping to get an explanation, the attendant behind the desk kept talking on the phone, doing her best to look away from us. She was obviously doing her job by speaking on the phone, but she wasn’t doing a good one in terms of WIN. That phone call was important. But so were the nervous passengers. If she’d simply paused and made a brief announcement, or even just held up her hand and looked a few of us in the eye, things would have calmed down. Instead, the minute she hung up, she was besieged by angry passengers, some of whom will never fly that airline again if they can help it.
What’s important now is not always immediately obvious. It requires judgment and sensitivity, and some people are born with those qualities. If you’re a manager, these are the people you want to hire. But even if not everyone on your team was born with a WIN intuition, you can still make sure everyone knows that what’s most important in every now is satisfying the customers’ emotional needs. Everything else can wait.