Does anyone out there remember what customer service was? It was a circumstance where a consumer was given consideration from a business they were were buying something from. Can anyone remember the last time they had a positive customer service encounter? Let alone an actual encounter?
Of course the biggest problem in today’s world is that the majority of customer service personnel are actually automated systems. Systems that rely on the fact that you will become so frustrated going through the automated steps that you never actually reach a live person and just give up. Or that when you do reach someone they speak with an accent so thick it sounds like it must be covered in molasses. I give credit to my employers. They have live people answering the phones 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can’t imagine the number of compliments I hear about that.
The automated system people you eventually reach, these are the people who repeat,”I’m sorry” about a dozen times while often being unable to assist with your problem. Their chart doesn’t seem to have any answers but they are always courteous. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard, “I’m sorry” from them, well…I’d have many, many dimes.
Two weeks ago I called and made a reservation at an indoor virtual golf facility. This is a place I have gone to at least two dozen times in the past several years. When I arrived at my scheduled time I was told they had no reservation for me. And the clerk looked at me as if I just crawled off of the set of, “12 Monkeys”.
Rather than apologize, or try and make some sort of offer to make up for their mistake, I was made to feel as if I never made the reservation at all, that I had just dreamt it all. That if it wasn’t in their system, the fault had to be mine. No apology. No offer. Just a 90 minute round trip for nothing and the feeling that I actually was losing my mind.
Employees are obviously only as good as the people in companies that train them. What is being lost today is the human element. The person I dealt with did not look me in the eye and actually understand what it was I was saying to them. He was too concerned only about what he saw or did not see on a screen. A 4″ by 3″ screen, by the way.
Have you all had the experience with a business you have ventured into? Actually inside? And you’re treated like a second class citizen over people either on the phone or in a drive thru. It is like you are invisible. You have to convince them you are not a hologram. You are actually standing in front of them. Hello? Magoo? Anybody home?
How about the employees so busy chatting with each other, or checking their texts that you, a paying customer, have to wait until they are good and ready to take care of you. It all adds up to, “We are doing you a favor by servicing YOU”. So relax, and hold your horses. And you feel bad to complain, you don’t want to get anyone fired. Here’s some advice. Get them fired! Make them understand what they are doing wrong so at the next job they will know what NOT to do.
Ten years ago, my response to situations like these was to identify the manager and/or the owner, write a letter and push until I got satisfaction. Now I just leave and I don’t come back…ever. They just lose my business. And you know what, they really don’t care, do they?
These are businesses that are so concerned about cost and cost alone. Stores like Lowes, that on a Saturday in the Spring, have two lines with human cashiers and 6 open registers that are self-checkout. They have taken the human element out of business, and what they are doing is eliminating their own future.
The primary problem with customer service is twofold. You have ownership/management concerned only with the bottom line, and a staff of young workers who have grown up in the computer era and have little or no social skills. On how to deal with human beings. In understanding what they are experiencing and what they need.
They say retail is dying. Not on its own. It is being murdered, bit by bit, by faceless screens and automatic bank deductions. When I pay cash at the supermarket I’m looked at like I’m trying to trade corn back at the first Thanksgiving.
If you own a business, or run a business, or even work at a customer-service business, don’t just hear the problem. Listen to the people you are dealing with and even if you can’t succeed, make the customer understand that you hear them and do what you can to help them.
I have a friend who mentioned he recently went to a restaurant run by someone he knew. He said the service was bad and the food was not very good. And later, when the owner came over, he said nothing. That’s on us. It is our job, as consumers, to speak out when something is not to our liking. To give businesses the chance to make things right. To let them hear us. Don’t you want to be heard?
The world is going in a direction where people eventually will never have to leave their homes or interact with anyone for anything. I saw a car commercial the other day that boasted it had a feature that allowed the driver in the front to, “communicate with the passengers in the back”. In the back. Right behind them. We have that already, it’s called…talking.
I don’t think they are listening to what we really want. Or what we really need. So I think we need to speak a little louder. And a little longer. Until they understand. Or go out of business.
Trapped in a Happy Life 