Great Customer Service Starts With Making People Feel Seen

I’m days away from a hysterectomy, and the only way I know to walk into a big moment like that is with equal parts honesty and humor. So we start there, with nerves, support, and the weird little jokes that make hard things feel lighter. Then we pivot into something that shows up everywhere, from marriage to entrepreneurship to the service industry: the art of connecting with strangers.

A 16 or 17-year-old dishwasher gave us the best customer service lesson we’ve heard in a long time. He walked up while we were out playing for the Pink Heels Mother’s Day walk and invited us into his restaurant like it was his own. His secret was not a sales pitch, it was attitude and warmth: “I get to wash dishes today.” That single line sparked a bigger conversation about hospitality, relationship building, and why people come back when you make them feel seen.

We also share a dinner that went sideways fast, complete with an unexpected commercial shoot at the table behind us and a bite of food that was literally frozen. From there, we get practical: eye contact, a real smile, tone, remembering names, and using your expertise to upgrade someone’s experience. We even touch on what to do with difficult customers, including the “gray rock” idea of staying calm and refusing to take the bait.

If you care about customer service, small business growth, or simply being better with people, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What’s the best or worst customer service moment you’ve had lately?

Transcript

Welcome And Surgery Nerves

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome to No Stage Lights, a podcast where we go behind the smoke and mirrors of everything from marriage to entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Janelle Carter.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

And I'm Terry Carter. Hey guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Hello, I feel like I'm losing my microphone.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

But you gotta tighten it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

There's so many knobs. How are you today? Better than we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Where's our tech?

SPEAKER_02 0:37

We are or the tech.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

We're the tech, yeah. We're the engineers, everything. Producers.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Okay. So by the time you're listening to this, I'm gonna be rolling into a sleep, a sweet. Let me try that again. I'm gonna be rolling into a sweet slumber.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Say that fast ten times.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Because what am I doing on Tuesday?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

You're gonna have surgery.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I am having surgery. I've had so many surgeries in my life, but this is a biggie.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

It's gonna be good though.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

It is okay. Men who don't want to talk about women's health. This is your cue to go get yourself a sandwich or a cup of coffee, but I'm having a hysterectomy, and it is I can't imagine going through it with anybody but you.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Well, you're a great support, and you're so understanding. And you have you're like the calm in the storm.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So you don't see me behind the Oh great, thanks. No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

No, you're very calm.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I'm trying to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Um obviously I wish I could do it for you, but that would the surgery or the pa be the patient.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Be the patient. You don't want me doing the surgery.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Oh my gosh. There's so many jokes.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

I need a bigger saw.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

No, I appreciate that. You are so kind and loving, and that's really cool. You you've had your share of surgeries as well. Everybody, we all have our I think I feel like there's people who've had medical stuff and been to the ER a million times and have had surgeries, and then there's people who just so fortunate they don't have to go to a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Like like our one buddy is like he's 73, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

And this is not who I was talking about, but oh, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

He's just now doing his first visits to the doctor. And I think that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

That might not be the best advice. Like you want to go to the doctor. But our one buddy, yeah, I think the only time he'd ever been in the hospital was after a serious car crash.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

That'll do it every time.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Yep.

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Every time.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Car crash guaranteed a hospital bed.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

If you are listening right now and it's release day for this, I we're yeah, we're rolling on into surgery. Send me your best jokes. I think.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Like Yeah, humor's always good for healing.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Humor is good for healing. We didn't have a very funny last couple of experiences when we've been out for dinner, though, have we?

A Dishwasher Who Nails Connection

SPEAKER_01 3:20

No, that's a good segue.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Like, how am I getting there? So today's episode is about making connections with uh strangers, customer service, which is ultimately connecting with strangers. And where is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Well, I think it's kind of always been this way. Really? Well, because we experienced incredible customer service from that young gentleman. We were literally standing on the side of a road singing. And that gentleman came up to us, invited us, yes, invited us to his restaurant, and he's the dishwasher.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

He could have You would have thought it was his restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah. And his kid's probably what, 16, 17 years old.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

I'm on my way to work. Okay, first of all, we're let's talk about why we were singing on a sidewalk. We weren't busking, which is cool. But we were playing a Mother's Day show for our very dear friends at Pink Heels, and we'll link that right here because Pink Heels is an incredible organization. Yes. And we'll let you read all about them and find out all about them. But every Mother's Day, they do a Mother's Day walk. And we are so blessed that we get to attend and play music for the 20,800 walkers.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And I gotta admit, you don't think about at least I don't going into it, but it's so hard not to get emotional when you see all these people, just this mass of pink walking. And how about that little girl at the very end? What was she too?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

She was so precious. Her mom said she wants to walk the whole thing, and she was like a snail's base. But so we're getting ready for this Mother's Day walk, and this kid, 16-year-old, 17-year-old, maybe, maybe he participated in the walk, but had to go to work. He did. And so he walked before the actual walk started.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

And he was he had a like a piece of fruit and a bottle of water in his hand, and he's hey.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And a big smile.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

I'm on my way to work. Have you been to this cafe? You should come. And we're like, oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

He literally said, I get to wash dishes today.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

You get to wash dishes today.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I remember I had a dishwashing. That was my first job. And it was at a truck stop, and I gotta tell you, oh man. It was it's wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

But I get my hats off to the I know, and but his attitude of I get to, not oh, I have to do this, or he was like, I get to do this today. So cool. And we did go visit him and have a delicious breakfast. And if he could train everybody on how to connect with strangers and how to just conduct customer service in general, we would be in good shape.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah. And again, I think it's you gotta mix, you got your good and your bad. And I think it's always been that way. They really do. And for every two good experiences, you know, there's four bad ones. Why I picked those numbers, I don't know. But that's that's just how it went.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Are we exciting or I just know you're right, it does seem like that. And listen, we don't ever want to come off like we expect to be treated any way other than kind, just kind. Yeah. And I get it. Stress is a big deal. Everybody is so stressed right now, and there's so much, and there's shorthanded, people are short staffed.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

That's a big part of it.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

And that is a problem. And so taking that into consideration, but

When Service Goes Sideways

SPEAKER_02 7:10

uh, so we had a funny experience. We played a show, so we played in the morning that we like we told you about, then we played later that day, and my my son came out, our son came out to celebrate Mother's Day, but I work, we worked, and so he's you want to grab food, and we hadn't eaten really all day because let's it's Mother's Day, let's grab some food. So we went to a little place, we sat outside. That wasn't nobody's fault but our own. Like the sun, as soon as the sun disappeared on the side of the building, it was freezing.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, it was cold.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

And and they were already way behind, they were already understaffed, already way behind, and we kind of have that red flag. Maybe we should go. The server, the first thing out of her mouth was, I'm so stressed.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I'm so stressed. Check, please.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

And well, and I always am happy to be the person that someone can like exhale with and they don't have to be on, but it wasn't like that. It was I'm so stressed, you're gonna have to the next sentence was your food's gonna take at least 45 minutes. We're like, okay, totally fine. Like cool. We were done working, so it was nice to just kind of hang out. Yeah, and all this commotion is going on behind us, and we're not we're kind of paying attention, we're not, and we're obviously used to like big production stuff. Like we've if we see somebody rolling in with a camera and a microphone, we're not like, oh my gosh, what's going on? But then we were kind of like, wait a minute, what's going on? What's going on? So it turns out the table, like I'm not kidding, from like me to you. The table behind us is being featured in a commercial, and they're filming it. And the film crew, who we ended up knowing one of the one of the crew, he they were super sweet, and they're like, Hey, you might be like extras in this commercial. We're like, Okay, cool. Yeah, cool until an hour later, our food still hadn't come out, and we're like, do we we can't really complain?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Now we're gonna leave, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Can't leave.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Because that won't look good for the commercial, because doing it for the restaurant is always okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well, it's terrible. Yeah, we're out of here. No, and we would never do that. But so yeah, and so whatever. Anyway, it was just really funny. But and then the rest, unfortunately, if you start out on the bad, like on a bad foot, usually it just tumbles down and it really did.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

And I literally bit into a frozen, I'm not saying it was cold, it was frozen. Like mushroom. I put it in my mouth and I was like, huh. And I bit and nothing happened. It was like a biting into a marble, and then I bit again. I'm like deep fried marbles. Now I get it, it's still frozen.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So yeah, so we just didn't have a great experience. And but we were like, what do we do? Because now we're like trying to be on our pay no attention. Yeah, yeah. Here you can see what's going on. I'll link a picture here if you're watching YouTube. So, hey, by the way, if you're listening, like you've always listened to no stage lights, we are filming now, and so you can see these two crazy kids.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Just how beautiful we are.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Don't we look odd? You like my hat?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Oh, wait, oh my god. I had to get one of those in there. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

It's yours.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

It is my hat.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Yeah, your wardrobe is the best. I love shopping your wardrobe, really. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

So we I don't know if that's a good thing. Does it mean my clothes are one way or another, or both ways, or what?

SPEAKER_02 10:51

No, they're just they're like brow.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

No, I like moving along.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

I like cheers.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, Terry's having a glass of Chardonnay and I'm behaving myself so that I can really professional.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

That was smooth, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

So as we said,

Relationship Building Is The Work

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Terry and I have both been on many sides of customer service. We've been in a service industry pretty much our whole lives. And even as musicians, we're really it's not just about playing music, it's about creating relationships and connecting really quickly with strangers, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

So And you do that very well, much better than Kyle and I. And that's my fear right now, because when we do these next few shows without you, it's gonna be like there's gonna be crickets like I hope not.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

I've well you guys break the rest up. For those of you who don't know, is our the third member of our trio, River Road Trio, and we've been playing music together for 18 years, so you'll be all right. But when I'm so I love talking about relationship building and connection because if you are in a customer service position or you're in any service position, you can man, it the relationship building part is all about the sale, it's all about a happy customer, it's all about connecting. And I don't know if to me it just comes easily because I love it and I really enjoy connecting with people, but I wish one thing that I wish people understood. And maybe if you are in the industry and you're trying to figure out how to work with people better or get that sale or whatever it is, relationship and connecting. You find the one thing that makes that person feel seen.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

You gotta act interested. You gotta you gotta act like what they're doing or what they're saying matters.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

And yeah, and I'm gonna challenge you, even going beyond acting, you need to truly find that connection, that there's something somewhere, right? Whether it's golf or I just pulled that out of the air because I know nothing about golf. But golf seems to be like a thing that a lot of people do. I don't know. But when you are connecting, and I am by no means like a sales marketing relationship expert, but I do know that is the key for longevity with a committed customer or client.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

You you build a relationship, when you build the relationship, you build trust.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah. They're gonna And that it it probably seems so duh, like of course, to people who know how to do this. But if you're just starting out or you're not good at there, there's a lot of people who are a little bit awkward, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Like even us, especially if you're doing the waiting tables or doing whatever, you've got a short window. Because it's not like you're gonna go home with these people and hang out with them for the weekend or invite them to Thanksgiving like you do. So you've got a short window and you want to engage with them. Yeah. It's gonna it's everybody's gonna have a better experience when you do that.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

And for us, because especially like we're on a stage, we don't have the opportunity to always shake a hand and get to know somebody right away. Maybe it's a fresh new face that's walking in. I always try to make sure that person like is seen, whether it's like eye contact or sometimes I'll be like, Hey, you knew all the words you were singing along. I loved that. Hey, what do you want to hear? Or whatever. But I think the most important thing is you're there to create the vibe. You, your energy is going to be what creates the entire rest of that transaction, that experience.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

You're steering the ship.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

You are steering the ship. And something that I had to really learn is that it doesn't matter what kind of day I'm having, it doesn't matter what mood I'm in, that person is so excited to maybe be going out for dinner or out for breakfast or to see a show or maybe it's their anniversary and this is so special. And if they get there and you're having a bad day and you're like, you just tank it so quickly for somebody else, and then the rest of that just tumbles down. How many times did I say this was a mistake? We shouldn't have done this. Now I knew we should have gone home and had something to eat instead. Here I was tumbling, making I felt like I made a bad decision. You want people to walk away going, Wow, that was

Eye Contact Smile Tone Names

SPEAKER_02 15:50

an awesome experience. I don't know what it was. So, what are some ways that you can connect with people? Let's give our listeners a takeaway.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Eye contact is eye contact, a smile. A smile is everything. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Even if you have three teeth, a smile is everything.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

It made me it was there. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Tone.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Tone is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

There is such a big difference between hey, how you guys doing hey, how are you? What can I get ya? Or whatever your role is, versus hey, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And and you don't gotta be all over the top and was that over the top? No. Okay. But you don't have to be. You just genuine. Yeah, genuine authentic. Eye contact, smile.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

And tone.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

And tone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah. Those are three great takeaways. And you're in charge of if you're if we're all actors in a play, and that's your stage for the night, whatever setting you're in, you are in charge of what's happening in that play. Right? You're the director, kind of like us. You're the director, the engineer, you're the sound person, you're all the things. And ultimately, if you gain a customer, a client, a fan, or whatever industry it is, and they continue to come back and they want you, you are going to do well. And it's not all about that end game with money, but you're gonna do well.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

They're gonna seek you out too. Yeah. Certain people. Again, depending on whatever field it is you're doing this in, you build that word's gonna travel. Yeah. And they're gonna, hey, I gotta go here. They say this is a really cool place to go, or I gotta I gotta go see this for myself.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Something that works with me every single time is if somebody makes me feel special. And I don't mean like print this in the same. I mean if somebody remembers my drink order, or they're like, oh my gosh, if you love this, hang on. I you gotta try this. If you love this, you're gonna really love this. Hang on, let me get you. Our chef makes this great thing. He doesn't put it on the menu. Let me get you a little taste of that. Or whatever. Using your expertise and your knowledge to shit shift the experience for people.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

A big one is, and I struggle with this, Kyle and I both do. I'm sorry, Kyle, I'm throwing you under the bus continually, but remembering somebody's name. Yeah. That's that's a gift if you can do that, because not everybody can do that. But boy, that that sure makes a difference. I I wish I could do it better.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Um, I think you can. I think you just have to stop telling yourself you're bad at it. And there are techniques and tricks that work. You know, there's some old-fashioned ones like say that person's name three times in a sentence or whatever. Or I forget about this. I always try to remember, okay, like Sally is wearing a silk shirt. Silk shirt Sally.

Handling Difficult People And Closing

SPEAKER_02 18:55

And then I remember. No, I know. But now let's really quick talk about when you have a not so friendly customer client. Maybe you've got somebody that's difficult.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah, it's not we've kind of focused this whole thing on the person that's yeah, the customer service piece.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

But but and inevitably you're gonna get crappy people. Yeah. My favorite thing to do, and Terry and I disagree on this, and that's fine because it this is might have to be next episode. My favorite thing to do when somebody is being like that is to just gray rock them. Have you ever heard of gray rocking? Gray rocking is like a term that's often used when you're talking about narcissism. It is just not reacting and staying your happy self. And continu you do not let them get the power. And that is another episode. But inevitably you're gonna get people who maybe make it difficult for you to be kind. Eye contact, kindness, smiling, tone. But if you can maintain those traits and those tricks, even with somebody who's being extra thumbs down, uh it's just gonna make you stronger. It's a fun game to play too. We wanna know how are you feeling about connecting and make building relationships in your world right now, in your business, in your workspace, with your clients, your customers, your fans, whatever it is you're doing. Maybe even just with the new moms or the new dads in a school setting. Like how are you building relationships? Are you comfortable? Are you letting your outward emotions show?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Stepping out of your comfort zone type maybe especially when something's new, it's difficult.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

It is difficult. It is difficult. We want to know all the things, and I hope that Mr. Carter here will keep you up to date on maybe he'll let me post post anesthesia and we'll have lots of fun content after that. But send me all your jokes. I'm gonna need them to heal up. And yeah, we'll talk to you very soon. So signing on out. I'm Janelle Carter.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

I'm Terry Carter.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Thanks for listening to No Stage Lights. We'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Take care.