Do we have a problem?

“No problem.” I hear it almost every day from a customer service rep on the other end of the phone and from store clerks and wait staff. What happened to “you’re welcome?”

I’m not sure when “no problem” crept into daily speech. I suspect it wasn’t too long after “you’re welcome” was replaced with “here you go” or, even worse, silence and a nod.

Do you have a problem with “no problem?” The reason it gets under my skin is that “no problem” infers that the exchange between you and the customer service rep was a problem in the first place. If I’m buying your goods or services, that’s not a problem in the least.

If you’re on the side that doesn’t like that saying, make sure your front-line employees know it. Don’t assume that your staff can ace the etiquette quiz. Take a stroll around the garden center and see how your employees are answering customers. It’s easy to take advantage (perhaps unconsciously) of a regular customer and forgo saying “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” But it could cost you sales. Call a meeting for some quick role play. Show your employees how you expect them to act and what you want them to say to customers. It may seem silly, but good customer service and good manners should be parallel.

To be fair, I’ll give some space to someone who says to lighten up when it comes to the saying. Anne Curzan, an English professor at the University of Michigan and blogger on The Chronicle of Higher Education, says it’s a “form of polite interchange.” Here’s Curzan’s take:

“When people say, ‘thank you,’ they shift some of the power to the person they’re thanking. They are acknowledging a debt of some kind, even if a small one. As the recipient, we may then feel the need to try to minimize the debt. While ‘you’re welcome’ can do some of that work, it can also suggest that there really was a debt to be acknowledged. ‘You’re welcome’ may seem to say: ‘I was happy to do it—but I do recognize, as do you, that I went out of my way.’ ‘No problem,’ however, can more successfully minimize the sense of debt.”

How do you feel about it? Are there certain phrases that you’ve asked staff to avoid? Let us hear about them.