Image & Professionalism

No matter the industry, customers, clients, and patients all expect a certain level of professional behavior from any business, its employees or representatives.

How does this relate to you? When a customer enters your business or partakes in your services they should feel as they’ve been treated with the utmost professional standards possible by each employee contact.  Therefore, your employees should be competent at their job, producing their products with skill and dexterity without consuming unnecessary time.

Let’s take a look at 2 definitions:

Professionalism –  The practices or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.

Professional – a. Extremely competent in a job, etc. – b. Produced with competence or skill. (As in a piece of work or anything performed.)

Here’s a scenario often seen in business:

A customer enters… The receptionist is making a triumphant effort to handle a phone call that’s not going so well, instructing a new customer on how to complete paperwork, working to send a fax that apparently didn’t go through, and handling an incoming shipment all at the same time. She’s dressed in faded and tattered jeans, a trendy torn T-shirt and displays an over-the-top wild hairdo. This is not quite the example of multi-tasking.

What’s the first impression?  It’s definitely not “Professional”… more toward disorganized, frazzled, and a juggling act.

Here’s the professional scenario:

The customer enters and is greeted immediately with a smile and “Hello, I’ll be right with you”. The receptionist is dressed in well pressed clothing and her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. She’s currently on a call using a friendly attitude and sounds knowledgeable; she asks the caller to “please hold for just a moment” in order to quickly assist the walk-in customer, then returns to the caller. She appears calm and…PROFESSIONAL!

EVERY employee is a representative of your business and each leaves the customer with an image of professionalism or not.  Therefore, each should be checked for “quality & professional assurance” – from hair, dress-code, finger nails, and breath; from cleanliness or orderliness, manners, and a friendly smile…  IT ALL COUNTS!

You’d be surprised at the effect this creates on customers. When they see and experience professional treatment and care your job has been well done.  You’ve created a lasting image of professionalism that helps retain their business.

Craig Ferreira, CEO                                                                                                                                  Survival Strategies, Inc