As salespeople we work incredibly hard to create a positive impression with our prospective clients and our existing base. We listen to people’s stories, learn about their organizations, ask about their families, and remember their birthdays. We are working hard to create a good impression, and a strong personal bond, and we often ruin all of this hard work with the failure to say two words- “you’re welcome”.
Consider how often you go to a restaurant, a retail store, a party, you hold a door open for somebody, you give your child a few dollars…How often do you say “thank you” to somebody and they either don’t respond, or they offer you a cursory “yup”, or some version thereof. How often does somebody thank you, and you fail to say “you’re welcome”?
I asked my 18 year old daughter’s boyfriend to help me move some furniture around the living room the other day-a room that he spends plenty of time eating my food and watching my television in. Not much work was involved, but it took time away from this teenager’s pressing television viewing time, so I thanked him once the job was done. This young man, whom I happen to think highly of, responded with “yup” to my “thank you”.
This response dissapointed me. It gave me the impression that the only effort he wanted to put forth was in the actual moving of furniture, that in his eyes doing the job was enough, he did not understand that this situation provided him the possibility of building a tighter bond with me. It appeared that he felt that the act of fulfilling my request to move the furniture eliminated the need for him to acknowledge my appreciation. He failed to see that if he responded by saying “you’re welcome”, that by making the effort to say these two words, my respect for him would have been raised an extra notch. Instead, he chose to respond, “yup”, which reduced my respect for him.
As you spend your day interacting in the world, keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to how often you hold the door for somebody, or someone does the same for you. Did either of you say “thank you”, or “you’re welcome”? If so, how did it make you feel-if not, did that dissapoint you. When you paid your bill at lunch and left a tip for the waitstaff, did he/she say “thank you”? did you say “you’re welcome”? Or, did one of you say “thank you” and the other say “yup” in return? How did you feel in each instance-what was your internal conversation after each verbal exchange?
Believe me, I understand that in the overall scheme of things, the need to hear or say the words “you’re welcome” uttered in response to the phrase “thank you” is miniscule in its importance compared to the other manners in which our appreciation for something can be conveyed. Yet, they are the most important words you may ever say.