Karen Isn't Always Right

Gretchen has been on KIAR before and wanted to come back on to further  discuss her experience as being a Karen and trying to get past what happened. We talk at length about why this behavior happens even well-tempered people and how there are different  "levels" of Karens. Always a   pleasure to talk to her!

Joshua  Fowler - Joshua works at an auto parts supply company out on the east coast. To my surprise, that industry gets a lot more Karens than one would think. We talk about one particularly methy one that ended in a bad Yelp review. Enjoy!

Aaron has been a truck driver for some time now and shares his unique perspective when it comes to Karen. We discuss the tendency for affluent areas to come with more attitude and how important it is to sometimes just swallow your pride in an effort to just   move on from a situation. I gotta tell ya, Aaron instantly became one of my favorite people to talk to and I really hope you enjoy this episode. 

Micajosiah has been a manager in the grocery business and shares the importance of finding your calm.  He also talks about how a consistent schedule in the service industry can be invaluable in mitigating anxiety when feeling overwhelmed.  Super nice guy and great to get to know him

Sara is a General Manager of a Gap just outside Chicago. Sara and I had a great conversation during this episode. We talk about the flight or fight response many folks have when a situation escalates, the importance of being empowered by a company to solve problems and one that really stood out to me: reducing the amount of friction points a customer encounters

Ryan has been a variety of customer facing jobs, is a former marine, and my oldest friend. We talk about the importance of developing a rapport and doing customer service face to face and why the fast pace of life may have led to an overall decline in customer service in a lot of companies. It was pretty great to do this show with him. 

My guest today is Jim Lenderts, Marijuana Enforcement Officer for the Ft. Collins, CO Police Department.  He gave us the police officer perspective of customer service and shared some fantastic insight into keeping cool under pressure, emotional intelligence, empathy, and some verbal Judo.  I have an immense amount of respect for Jim and I think he brought a ton of great stuff to the conversation today.

The great and powerful Jeff joins KIAR again 

Chris is the manager of a furniture store and he comes to us today to   talk about how to head things off at the pass with Karen, who Karen actually   is, and what it's like to be videotaped during a Karen altercation. Great guy and insightful conversation. 

Karen   Isn't Always Right is here to not only commiserate with anyone serving   customers and guests on a day to day basis, but to also provide sympathy,   empathy, and ultimately - guidance to those in need of a sounding board for   anyone experiencing challenging customers. While the "Karens" of   the world may cause stress and in some cases, even PTSD, our mission is to   provide relief by way of showing you that you're not alone, giving real world   advice, and helping you find a balance between doing the right thing for your   customers, your organization, and the right thing for YOU. Fyi, we're still fine tuning our   production skills, so please be patient. We promise we're going to keep   improving!!

Today's guest is Nicholas Hinrichsen, Stanford MBA and founder of an online used car sales company called Carlypso. Buying a used car is a very emotional decision and Nicholas is sharing his experience with escalated customers.

In 2017, Nicholas sold his business to Carvana. After three years with Carvana, the founder left to start WithClutch.com, a digital platform to refinance auto loans. There are 20M car owners who can save thousands of dollars in minutes and usually don't even know refinancing a car loan is even an option!