COMMUNICATING CLEARLY

There is a story of a New York plumber who wrote the Bureau of Standards at Washington that he had found hydrochloric acid fine for cleaning drains. He then asked if it was harmless. Washington replied, "The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the chlorine residue is incompatible with metallic permanence."

The plumber wrote back that he was glad the Bureau agreed with him. The Bureau replied with a note of alarm, "We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residues with hydrochloric acid, and suggest that you use an alternate procedure."

The plumber was happy to learn that the Bureau still agreed with him.

Whereupon Washington exploded, "Don't use hydrochloric acid; it will definitely eat the pipes!"

A federal law or a Navy policy about a specific subject is issued in the form of an official publication.

The publication uses specific language to show exactly what the law or Navy policy is intended to permit or prevent. It addresses the reader who is familiar with that subject, so a person having a limited knowledge or experience in that subject may misunderstand the information given. Your job as a contact representative may require that you explain information contained in these publications. Your explanations should leave no doubt in the customer's mind about the intent of the information.

The advantage you will have over the Bureau of Standards, as described in the above story, is face-to-face communications. You can watch for gestures and facial expressions that tell you if the customer understands your explanation. If needed, you can then rephrase your explanation.

FILLING OUT FORMS

Sometimes the supply of forms a Navy member must fill out seems endless. You are familiar with the forms used at your contact point as well as their purpose and how to prepare them. Therefore, you may easily forget how frustrating they can be to the customer.

The Navy has forms for every purpose-and good reasons for them. A form provides information required for certain actions. You may view the forms used at your contact point as self-explanatory, but the customer may view them as perplexing. That is particularly true for a person who has been in the Navy only a relatively short time.

Filling out a form can be doubly frustrating if after completing it, the customer receives it back with the words, "Do it over. You filled it out wrong." To avoid having to ask someone to fill out a form a second time, take a little extra time with that customer. Before the customer ever begins to fill out the form, explain any items that might be misunderstood. The extra effort will save you time because the customer is more likely to complete the form correctly.

EXPLAINING FUTURE STEPS

Quite often when the customer comes to you for help or advice, you will only be able to provide partial assistance at that time; you will have to take additional action later. You need to explain to the customer what that action will be. Be sure that both you and the customer agree on and understand who will initiate the future action. The customer should have no doubts about WHAT must be done, WHEN it should be done, and WHO is to get it started. You should have no doubts

about the customer's understanding of the actions to be taken. If several actions are involved or if these actions cover an extended period, you might want to repeat the basic actions to be taken just before the customer leaves.

GIVING FURTHER ASSISTANCE

Frequently you can help customers get additional help by referring them to another source of information at another contact point. When your refer a customer to another contact point, make sure the customer knows where to go and what to ask for. Be sure to make the referral in such a way that you do not appear to be giving the customer the runaround.

EXPLAINING RESULTS OF ACTIONS

PO Frost purchases a home and is told that he might be allowed to make the mortgage payments through an allotment. After checking with a DK in the disbursing office, the PO decides that the allotment is the best way to make the payments. Since he has already made the August mortgage payment, PO Frost starts the allotment effective in September. He expects the allotment to cover the rest of the mortgage payments beginning with the September payment. What PO FROST doesn't understand is that he will have to make another payment before the allotment begins to be applied to the payments. The DK in the disbursing office could have prevented this misunderstanding. The DK needed only to state, "The amount of the payment will be deducted from your pay in September, but the first check will not be mailed until 1 October." That is just one example of the need to explain fully the results of action being taken.

MAKING PROMISES

Earlier we spoke about the practice of promising action simply to pacify and get rid of the customer. "That is not the only type of promise that leads to ill feelings. Some contact representatives actually promise service or action over which they have no control. In Case Number 5, the disbursing officer might have promised PO Seaman that his pay would be straightened out by a certain date. However, since the disbursing officer had no control over when the pay order would be received from the previous command, he made no promise.

As a contact representative, you might have a customer who is filling out the duty preference card for future assignments. That member might want your assurance that the next transfer will be to a duty of choice. However, you can't legitimately make that promise because the future assignment is out of your control.

Don't promise performance that is above your capacity to deliver; and don't be too optimistic about your capacity to deliver-unforeseen events may interfere. If you have any doubt that you might be unable to keep a promise, explain that possibility to the customer. Then assure the customer that you will do your best, but don't promise to deliver.