Is it just me or has customer service gone the way of the dinosaurs?. Most days my interaction with businesses leaves me thinking that the service I got was mediocre, not good, not bad, just someone doing there job, not giving anything extra. Recently, however, my customer service experiences have been pretty bad. At first I thought it was just me as even Joe says I’m a little moody since I lost my job. But after so many incidents I have come to believe it’s them not, not me.
I googled Customer Service on the internet and found the top 10 customer service RULES.
1. The customer pays your salary and makes your job possible
2. Listen to what the customer is saying
3. Identify and anticipate needs
4. Make customers feel important and APPRECIATED
5. Help customers understand your systems
6. Appreciate the power of yes..as long as its reasonable, do it
7. Know how to apologize, value their complaints even if you don’t agree
8. Give more than expected
9. Get regular feedback
10. Appreciation stems from the top—if you are in management, treat your employees well. (This is on place where the trickle down theory works, lol)
Sadly, in all my interactions over the last couple of months only a handful have even hit one or 2 of these.
Take the day last week when I went into Walmart go get some deli meat for Joe’s sandwiches for work. I calmly waited my turn only to have the lady behind the counter hand the package to the lady in front of me and say to me “you’ll have to wait, I need to make a call.” She whipped out her cell phone from her deli apron and called her daughter to see if she had gotten up for her college class. After a short, well you better get up and get in the shower or you’ll be late and I gotta go cause I have a customer she hung up, turned to me and said not “how may I help you” but what do you want?” As if my very presence was an inconvenience to her “life”. I said, well I wanted some deli meat but if it’s too much trouble for you I can go elsewhere. Calling her on her rudeness must have brought her back to reality and the fact that she was at work and that she was being paid to be nice to customers because she immediately apologized and said she was having a bad day. I said, no problem and proceeded to tell her I wanted a pound of the ham that was on special and that I wanted it sliced sandwich thin. To which she replied, “well we have more than one on sale and I’m not a mind reader-which one specifically do you want.” At which point I said “neither and walked away” I didn’t need the ham that bad.
Joe and I took a road trip and part of that trip was to look at land around lakes where somewhere in the future we might develop an RV park. We had found after a lot of research a couple of acreages on Bull Shoals lake in Arkansas and so we decided to check them out. We drove to the real estate office that had the listing and went in to ask for direction to look at the property. I am not upset that we had to wait for almost 20 minutes for one of the 4 or 5 agents there to get to us. After all we didn’t have an appointment. What did upset was me that when we finally were escorted in and introduced to an agent, he took 4 phone calls in the span of 5 minutes. Our conversation went something like “we are the Swansons and......”excuse me I have to take this call”.....we are interested in finding out how to get to this property your agency...”hold on a second—gotta take this”.....where were we, oh yea we want to look at the land that you have listed—and handed him the internet print out. “I’m not really familiar with this property....hang on, gotta take this call.......ok, as I was saying I don’t really even know where this is. Gets up and starts out the door saying, let me get someone that might know. YEA, I think we are getting somewhere. WRONG! In comes another realtor who begins who asks what we are looking for. We explain that we are looking for 1-5 acres near a lake with no restrictions on RV’s to possibly put an RV park. He thought a minute and then said “ive got just the property for you. Its a restaurant and its $550,000 which is a good buy..You lease the land from the corp of engineers so you are really just buying the “business, the existing building and a few outbuildings. Joe patiently said “well we aren’t looking for a business. We want to start a business. To which the realtor launched into a lecture about how hard it was to start a business from scratch and how much better it was to buy an existing operation and then proceeded to draw on a map how to get to NOT the property we wanted to see, but the property HE wanted us to see. Best example of ignoring rule # 2 that I have ever seen.
Last month I had a run in with the Uhaul clerk over a $14 charge added to our bill. In the end, the clerk who had not fully told the truth about the insurance fees was in the wrong and the company refunded my $14. It was an example of # 5. Instead of explaining what their policy was re: extra days, thus extra insurance the clerk was unwilling to even acknowledge my statement that we were told something different. He just kept saying “I don’t care what you were told, you owe us the money.” A simple, I am sorry it was not explained correctly. Unfortunately, the charge is legitimate and we have to charge it but if you’d like to talk to our corporate office I can give you that number. Instead he got me so worked up the f word popped out of my mouth and Joe sent me to the car to calm down. Over $14. It wasn’t the money, it was the treatment. And the principle of the thing.
Monday we ate at a restaurant in Eureka Springs. The service was ok. The food was ok. The prices were “a little high for what you got”. The atmosphere, nothing special. While I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, I certainly wouldn’t have said anything bad about it. All that was blown for me when I asked for a tea to go. You would have thought I asked for the whole overpriced meal to be free. The waitress said, I can get you one, but I have to charge you. Really? Thats the first time I have ever had that happen. Had she refilled my tea during the meal and I was abusing the “how much tea a normal person can drink rule” I might have been ok with her response. As it was, I said never mind. The cost of a styrofoam cup and lid (cause I would’ve used the same straw) cost this restaurant a customer. Blatant violation of # 6! She did after some grumbling come up with a to go container for my sister in laws leftover gabanzo beans (YUK) but you would have thought asking for a to go container was a crime.
And then there was cowie...my beloved metal cow. For which I got a notice from RV park management with the contract we signed highlighted and underlined on the part about what you could have outside your RV. Patio furniture and grills. Trolling the neighborhood there were pink flamingos, a hideous gargoyle statue, among other Yard ornaments. The cow in my opinion was no more offensive than these other, a point I made to management. No argument. Either the cow stayed or they had to make a lot of other people mad. Now when I put the halloween pumpkin lights, the turkey lights, the Christmas lights around her neck they may re-think that. And if she should become an issue again, I think I can with a little ingenuity turn her into a grill. LOL
With apologies to any honest car salesmen out there, my next crappy customer service award goes to the Chevy dealer I took my car to. I have no problem with the work. We took in the car because the little engine light was on. The O’Reily guys ran their diagnostic and said they didn’t think it was anything big. The dealership told Joe that they could run the diagnostic and it would cost $140 to do so. If they found something and we decided to fix what they found the $140 would go toward the work, thus the diagnosing would be free. If we didn’t fix, we paid the $140 and go our merry way. I went to pick up the car. The $140 diagnostic fee was the first thing on the printout of the $1100 worth of work we had done. I told the clerk that it was an error and what Joe was told. She said, well thats just if you decided not to do the work and then changed your mind. But you had the work done. No, I said, and repeated calmly what we were told. She said, no, you had the work done so you have to pay the fee. No, no, NO I said. The fee was only if we didn’t have the work done. At which point she told me I was not making any sense. So I said, so you are saying if we had brought it in, had it diagnosed, decided not to do the work, paid the $140 and the next day changed our mind and brought it in we would be credited the $140 toward the work? Yes, thats right she said. So your “refund” only counts if you leave the premises and then bring the car back at a different time? Yes that’s right she said. So in other words had we said, no we don’t want to do the work, drove home, talked it over, brought the car back an hour later and said do the work we would have the $140 waived? At this point a customer who came in at the same time I did burst out laughing and said “she’s got you there” to the clerk. You are the one that isn’t making sense. She is absolutely right. I know I shouldn’t get involved but you owe her $140. AT that point the clerk got on the intercom and called up the service manager. He listened to each of our “points”, agreed that I was right but said that the $140 I was paying was a lot less than what they normally charge for diagnostics and that I should be happy I wasn’t paying their regular fee of $250. What a freaking joke! So I said, fine charge me the $250, discount me the $140 you promised to take off the bill if we did the work and I’ll pay you $90 for the diagnostics. He grabs the bill and says “fine, have it your way. In fact, I’ll do the same for you mister so and so and grabbed the bill for the other man who had had the same diagnostic fee/promise made to him. And just to make sure you are happy I will throw in a free car wash and vacumn. Whoopee! You mister have just lost a customer by trying to confuse the buyer into thinking they got a deal. The other guy turned to me and said
“you just saved me $50....I’m taking my wife to dinner.
“you just saved me $50....I’m taking my wife to dinner.
And then there was the credit card company. I paid them off in August. At the time I asked them the balance and told them I would like to pay it off and that I would be cutting up the card. I paid them off the “4000” or thereabouts I owed them. I gave them a change of address for their records and told them I would be sending a written letter to close the account as required. Fast forward to last week when I get a bill for $35.22 Apparently, there was a .22 balance because they had miscalculated the amount I owed. The bill they sent me for .22 had not reached me because even though I gave them the change of address they had sent it to my Muskogee address and so far it hasn’t come to me. So the bill for .22 was due on Sept. 5 and I got the new statement on September 14. I called. The $35.00 was a late fee because I hadn’t paid the .22 by September 5th. Somewhere there is a recording (because this call may be monitored for training purposes) with me on it calmly explaining to them that I wouldn’t be paying the late fee and that the .22 was their fault for not calculating the payoff correctly. When they said “we understand your frustration but unfortunately you owe us $35.22 which if not paid will be turned over to collections. REALLY!!!! So I suggested that since they monitor their calls and since the “payoff call” was recorded that they go back to their recording library, pull the call on August 10 with Mindy, look up transaction # 123lklk and have her pay the .22 cents since I “authorized them to debit my checking account the entire balance due.” When that fell on deaf ears I asked for a supervisor, waited on hold for approximately 20 minutes, had the $35.22 credited, closed the account over the phone. Their sign off “statement” cracked me up. Thank you for calling ___ Visa where we value our customers and aren’t happy until we know we have given the best service possible. WHATEVER!!!!!
And finally, Doctors office I visited today. Even if your policy is to treat the private and regular insurance patients and work in the “government funded patients” be smart enough to educate your receptionist to lie about that policy when asked why its taking so long! As an Oklahoma resident that worked for 38 years and had to take advantage of a program offered to help me until I find a job and have “private” insurance again, I was super offended by your attitude. If you don’t want to treat insure OK patients the same as other patients, then take your name off their list of providers. Enough said.
I am trying to think of the last time I had good customer service. Not mediocre customer service. No, the kind of service you get from someone that understands that you are the reason they have a job and that likes their job and people and belongs in a customer service industry and not hidden behind a desk in a windowless office. Hmmmmmm...not coming up with anything. Oh wait, my son Andy gave me exceptional customer service last time I went to Panera Bread. Way to go Andy!! You make a mama proud!
So here’s my advise to Walmart Deli lady, Uhaul deskclerk, Indian restaurant Waitress, Car dealership people and big corporate credit card company, and realtors in Harrison Arkansas and medical clinic receptionist...the reason you have your job is because people like me spend money at your establishments. I may not always be right, but I deserve to be heard and respected. If that’s not possible for you because you hate your life, your wife, your boss, your job, the world or whatever then step aside and let one of the 3.5 million unemployed workers who would be grateful to have a job give it a shot.
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