No Problem vs My Pleasure

This AM I was grab­bing some gro­ceries at our local Weg­mans when the cashier came over to help put the bags into my cart after the trans­ac­tion was fin­ished. I could have han­dled it myself, but I appre­ci­at­ed the ini­tia­tive. I thanked the lady who then replied, ​“no prob­lem!”

I do not know about you, but I would say we Amer­i­cans are all wired to respond to help­ing some­one with the same phrase, ​“no prob­lem.” I know I do or DID! Yes, I have been try­ing hard to break the habit of using the words, ​“no prob­lem” and replac­ing them with, ​“my pleasure.”

When you use the words ​“no prob­lem” you are, in a sense, telling the per­son you are serv­ing, ​“Your request could be a prob­lem, but it is not for me.” Oth­er ​“neg­a­tive” phras­es do the same thing:

“Hey. No sweat!” ​“Don’t wor­ry about it.” ​“Not a prob­lem!” ​“It’s no trou­ble at all.” ​“Don’t men­tion it.” ​“It was noth­ing.” ​“No worries.”

Who Real­ly Cares

So many of you might be think­ing, ​“Who real­ly cares! Every­body knows what you mean!” Hear me out.

I have noticed sev­er­al ser­vice com­pa­nies that have trained their employ­ees to always respond with the words, ​“my plea­sure.” The one that is at the top of my mind is the fast food restau­rant, Chick-fil‑A. I can tell Chick-fil‑A has trained their staff to nev­er use the phrase ​“No prob­lem” and always use ​“my plea­sure” instead. Put it this way, when­ev­er I’ve stepped foot into a Chick-fil‑A, I have always been respond­ed to with the pos­i­tive response of ​“my pleasure.”

Respond­ing with these words lets your cus­tomer know it was a plea­sure to do busi­ness with him (or her). It demon­strates that your staff is grate­ful to be work­ing and serv­ing customers.

How Can You Imple­ment This Into Your Business

I have been very impressed with my cus­tomers and how they train their painters and field employ­ees on many aspects of cus­tomer ser­vice. I pri­mar­i­ly help with their mar­ket­ing needs, but I felt this blog post would be help­ful because by imple­ment­ing this sim­ple phrase and change, I believe it is good mar­ket­ing. Maybe not every cus­tomer will notice the dif­fer­ence, but I do think many will be impressed with the pos­i­tive way your staff treats your customers.

Here is the take­away of this post: Train your staff to always be pos­i­tive and have a pos­i­tive response to your cus­tomers. Nev­er let your cus­tomer feel, in any­way, their request was a pain, a prob­lem or a hassle. 

Those of you who know me, if you catch me say­ing, ​“no prob­lem” instead of ​“my plea­sure”, let me know! I, too, am try­ing to make pos­i­tive changes to the way I com­mu­ni­cate with you all!