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How To Avoid Creating The Impression That You And Your Radio Team Are A Bunch of Callous, Egomaniacal, Insensitive Idiots!

How do you and other members of your station team interact with listeners?  Throughout the course of my career I have often experienced or witnessed interactions with listeners. Some of these interactions were truly uplifting and rewarding. Others, sad to say, were disastrous!

Radio people often take listeners for granted as if we are doing them a favour by allowing them to listen to our station.  This attitude carries over to in-person contact between radio people and their listeners. I remember the first time that I met a real “disc jockey.” I was in awe. After all he was on the radio and I was just a kid. He was kind and friendly and that made a huge impression on me. In fact in later years we actually became friends.

Fred Jacobs of Jacobs Media offered the following tips that should be part of every radio station’s employee handbook. They may sound completely obvious however we all know of instances in which listener interactions have failed to heed these simple rules.

1. No matter what your job may be, there is somebody out there who thinks it’s really cool.

2. Don’t take your work for granted.

3. Be gracious to others, especially when you can detect that they’re nervous.

4. Even a momentary encounter can change somebody’s life – for better or worse.

5. Strangers may only meet you once in life. Strive to leave a great first impression.

If a listener is impressed and gratified in an encounter with one of your staff, they will tell other people about it. The word will spread that you and your radio station are really cool people. If the encounter is less than positive, the listener will also tell other people about it and your station’s reputation will suffer accordingly.

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