Yes Sir!: Prevent Defense

Have you ever been watching a football game and find your team with a lead going into the fourth and final quarter? As a Raider fan, I have seen my fair share of these situations. Unfortunately, I have seen far too many of these situations where we no longer had the lead at the end of the fourth quarter. The main reason- prevent defense.

Prevent Defense is the defense that is set up to allow the opposing team to gain a lot of yards, but not allow them to score. It's a nice theory and it is 50% effective. The opposing team usually does gain a lot of yards but in most cases than not, they also score in the process. Most people will agree, the only thing Prevent Defense prevents is the leading team from winning. The cause- situational attitude.

Normally, the defensive mind in football is appalled by first downs, big yardage or allowing the opposing offense to have any success whatsoever. There is pride in controlling the physical part of the game and denying the offense anything easy. If a team is in the lead, that usually means the defense has done their job.

Along comes "Prevent Defense". The whole attitude changes, the intensity declines, and the surrender begins. It's becomes a game of passive defense. The pride is not there. The feeling of being in control is not there. Confidense and motivation returns to the once submissive offensive unit.

One might say the offense is, at this point, poised to snatch victory form the jaws of defeat. I would argue it is the prevent defense that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. In a game where the number of "W's" is what matters. A loss is a loss no matter what the situation was during the game. It is the point total at the end that counts. 58 minutes of brilliance is evaporated by two minutes of situational attitude.

Situational attitude is not just contained on the football field of play. Situational attitude plays itself out everywhere. Your attitude is the overwhelming drive in any endeavor. Especially in customer service.

If you pick and choose the times you will be a good customer service agent and the times you will not, you will choose wrong at a wrong time. It will be you that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. It will be you that was in position to help someone, to win them over, to be the person who could make a difference, but you had decided that this customer wasn't important enough, wasn't a threat to your well being, or was not worth your best. You will have lost the chance to win them over and want to do continued business with you. You see, like football, all the good you have done can be for naught, if the final score is tallied when you decided to just not to let them score, and they did.

Treat every customer, every personal encounter with the same attitude of helpfulness, kindness, and understanding. Smile. If not, that customer might just be your last.