Customer service?

Service please??

What is it with poor customer service? Do I need attitude whilst parting with my hard earned pennies? Is it a prerequisite to be rude to every person you meet? Whatever happened to good manners?

I could cite many examples where shop assistants, call centre staff and waiting staff have been unduly and undeservedly impolite. I won’t because it will enrage me. Besides it appears to be endemic and getting worse.

I think that fundamentally the problem is that many of those in the customer service industry think that they are simply too good for the job that they are doing. This may be the case. You may aspire to a different vocation. The thing is that you should aim to do everything you do well. If you can’t do jobs that you deem to be ‘below you’ well then you’re not setting a very good precedent for your future ventures. Its also not a good advert to anyone you may meet again in the future. And you really never know when that may be or in what circumstances.

I state at this point that I am never rude to people serving me or dealing with my issue on the telephone. Ever. I think manners go a long LONG way and they truely something we should take pride in. After all a please and thank you really doesn’t cost anything.  But it earns you a lot of respect. Certainly from me.  

I’ve done all manner of jobs. I’ve cleaned hospitals, cooked in old peoples homes, cold called people about glazing they dont want, worked in a call centre both inbound and outbound, served in shops, stacked shelves and waited in restaurants. I'm not unaware of how gruelling it can be to serve the public. Believe me i currently deal with some of the most unpleasant people you could ever dream of meeting. My job is to smile. To make it seem better. Less painful. They deserve that. So do customers. So why is it so intrinsically difficult?

Lets be honest, we know that there are those customers who like to be rude. Who like to make people feel subservient to them. Who want to exert 5 seconds of power over another human being.  I get that from clients too. I wholeheartedly agree that this is behaviour which must be stamped out. I will join in with the stamping.

What I'm talking about is rudeness from those providing a service. Unprovoked rudeness stemming from what appears to be a hangover of  teenage attitude problems. And they have got it big style. No smile. No please or thank you. No words at all. Just grunting. Holding out their hand for you to deposit your money in.  I object to this kind of “service”. After all if people didn’t shop in the store they work in, surely they wouldn’t be needed to work there?

That said I'm often bowled over by the helpfulness of other people. The kind smile. The time they devote to each customer to ensure that they are happy with their purchases/service. I enjoy basking in the pride they take in their jobs. Its infectious and inspires me to go that extra mile for others as well.

I think that people over the phone can be just as bad as those serving you face to face, if not worse. They of course have the benefit of a certain level of anonymity. They are removed from the situation.

 I recently received a letter which I objected to, from a well known supermarket chain. The letter was quite threatening in nature and was about being in their car park over a certain time limit. I should point out that at the time I was spending money in their store and coffee shop. As was a friend of mine who also received a letter.

I contacted their customer ‘helpline’ whereby  I was told by Sam, that although they valued my custom, if I didn’t like it then I could always shop elsewhere. I confirmed that I would do so without further ado.  I'm pretty sure that this approach wasn’t taught during telephone training sessions. At no point was I rude to her. I just indicated that I wasn’t happy with the content of the letter.

I wrote to the store about this issue. I mentioned that maybe their staff hadn’t adopted the most customer orientated attitude.  No response was ever received. 

I no longer shop with them and as every little helps, I'm hoping that eventually they will feel a change in tide of people willing to part with their money when such poor service is offered. They will never get a penny more of mine.

I firmly believe that the only way to tackle the issue of poor customer relations is to boycott the product/service/store concerned. Yes you are a little fish in a big sea. Yes they think that they have enough customers so as not to notice the loss of one or two....

The thing is that it will make you feel better.

Shops underestimate consumer power. They forget the old adage that an unhappy customer will tell at least 5 other people. I know that on the basis of my experience, none of my family now shop in the store above. If that ripple effect were to continue then it could easily decimate a company’s customer base....

What I'm saying is that if you’re not happy with a product or service then stop using it. That's the only way to really make a stand against corporate giants peddling below standard customer services.  In today’s financial climate it could make a really big difference.

Rudeness gets you nowhere....

Ru-ud-de!

That's an elongated way of saying rude! People are so rude! Especially people in cars. This does nothing to help with the control of the rage.

In fact it aggravates it greatly. To the extent where if I actually had the balls (which I ashamedly don’t) then I would swing my car rally style into a position blocking the entire road and thus creating a situation where the other driver has to stop their car. I would then get out of my car. This would be a cool stylish manouver. I would be wearing shades. I would then give the fellow driver an appropriate and well thought out dressing down and they would apologise. I would be cheered by other drivers who would have stopped to watch the scene unfold with increasing admiration. Mainly because they too knew how annoying bad drivers can be. We would all go on our way and all would be well.

As Ive said this is a fantasy. A wierd one I know. In reality the following happens;

Case 1 - im travelling in our local town in my fiesta. Its a 30mph road with a speed camera (albeit on the opposite side of the road) im travelling between an island and a set of traffic lights. Ive reached about 32mph (I accept this is speeding slightly...hmmmm) when a souped up white corsa (probably a 1.1) with blacked out windows and a spoiler passes me at about 45mph. This pisses me off for various reasons;

1.       If you are trying to impersonate a pimp, don’t drive a corsa...they are not a pimp style vehicle. It does not matter how big a spoiler you put on it or how much you black out the windows, its still just a 1.1. no pimp I know (I was going to say professionally, but that sounds worse, so well just leave it hanging) has ever driven a corsa. Its just not pimp daddy cool. Its not anything cool. Its a corsa. Teddy bears advertise the car for gods sake. Whatever speed you travel at, no one will think that you are some big gangster type. You are not. I saw you as we got to the traffic lights. You are a pimply 17 year old.

2.       There was no point in such a dangerous overtake. You almost immedicately had to slam on your brakes as the traffic lights were on red. I sat behind you. Right up close. Bumper to bumper. I hoped that you could clearly see me and my middle finger in your rear view mirror.

3.       You seriously do not need to speed in this town. You can get anywhere in the town within 5 mins. That is an absolute maximum. You don’t need to go so fast.

Case 2:  - Further up the same road at another set of traffic lights. (see why there is no advantage to razzing it??!). there is an entrance to a vets here. I left a gap so that this drive could still be accessed. A woman in a 4x4 wanted to go into the drive. She herself could not drive. Even with power assisted steering she couldn’t make the turn. There was a lot of room. I was annoyed. I reversed as did the car behind me. She made the turn.

Did she thank me? Did she heck! In fact her passenger looked down her crooked spoiled nose at me and shook her head.

It took every ounce of self restraint I had not to turn in after them and give them a good dressing down. In fact had my passenger not been my 11 week old baby then I would have done just that. Honest.

Im still seething about the latter of these incidents and its been about a week. Unnecessarily rude. Oh well im sure karma is just around the corner waiting to bite her arse. Shame her own head is so clearly lodged right up there as well....

Just why????

Why oh why

Why do some things have to happen. Not generally. Not in life. Just really annoying things. Things that are really sent to test your patience to the limit. Normally this comes from the actions of a fellow member of the human race. It appears that some people have been sent with the sole role of annoying the hell out of other people.

I accept that some of my lack of patience may be down to hormones. Some, not all. Some is down to the idiots who appear to languidly roam around (usually at a very slow pace in front of me) ruining my day.

A case in point is a man I encountered at the supermarket. You know how it is when you just want to breeze in, grab what you want supermarket sweep style and then pay and leave. No complications. No delays. No people aimlessly milling about in front of the items you wish to purchase...

On this occasion the worst of these such incidents occurred in the wine aisle (don’t judge me I was just looking...honest)...at least I was trying to look. I was stood, mid way between the two sets of shelves facing the white wine selection. I like to do this so that I can look at a large amount of the wine at once thus making an informed choice of how to spend my £3.99.

I may have been taking my time but that did not excuse the mans behaviour. It just wasn’t in line with supermarket etiquette.

In short, he stood smack bang in front of me. Between me and the wine. He blocked out the whole viewing zone. Prick. I tutted. Loudly. He didn’t move.

Feeling I had no option, I moved along to my right two side steps. He did the same. I moved again. He did too.

By this point I was seriously in the “move away or strike out in anger” phase of impatience/uncontrollable rage.

In order to avoid a later arrest for assault, I moved to the other end of the aisle and observed the “gent “ in action. Guess what he did? He left the wine aisle. Without any wine. Prick.

What in earth was he doing? Why stand and block my view of the vino if you don’t even intend to buy any.

I quickly selected two bottles of “nice dry French wine” (that's the name of the wine not a description...what can you expect for £3.29??) and left.

After id paid at the till, I passed the man a another checkout. He actually tried to smile at me. I narrowed my eyes. Prick.