What is customer service to you? Is it just a voice on the other end of a phone just saying yes and no or how about “sorry but there is nothing I can do” without exhausting all avenues first? Or maybe it’s the sales person that just makes eye contact when you enter a store, no smile, no hello…nothing!?
Well, I’ll tell you one thing, none of comes close to what I would consider customer service.
Where has true “Customer Service” gone these days? What happened to the greeter at my local Wal-Mart asking me if I would like a buggy? Now they just stand there and glare at me when I walk in the store, sometimes I’ll get a smile or even a hello. But it has been a while since I heard “Welcome to Wal-Mart” with a smile. I’m not picking on Wal-Mart…I love wali-world, it’s like that everywhere. When I walk into my local video store I do get a hello or a good afternoon but it is so sarcastic that it almost sounds like “great another freaking customer just walked in”.
I was on the phone the other day with a customer service representative from one of the nations largest overnight parcel services trying to explain to them that I needed to get my hands on a package. All I got from calling the 1-800 # was “sorry, there’s nothing I can do”. I knew that the package was going to be delivered to the local hub so I called late in the day to see if I could get them to hold the package instead of loading it on the truck and that I would just pick it up. Well, the woman kept interrupting me and wouldn’t let me explain the situation and told me to call up there at 5:00 am to see what could be done. I was so frustrated by her continued interruptions that I finally gave up and just said OK thanks and hug up.
OK…first of all, I know I called late in the day and that she was probably ready to go home, but come on…isn’t her job to listen and to at least try to help instead of telling me that I have to all at 5:00 am. The perception she gave was that she didn’t have time to help so I had to call early in the morning to make it someone else’s problem. I don’t get paid to be inconvenienced but she get’s paid to blow me off and that’s not right.
What I don’t want is a sales person following me around the store asking me if they can help me every two seconds or a waitress or waiter asking me if they can take my order before I have even had a chance to look at a menu or before they take my drink order. I just want a little common courtesy and common since.
In my business I try my absolute best to ensure that my customers/clients are satisfied with every aspect of doing business with me. I make sure they get what they what when they want it and if for some reason I am not able to accommodate them then I explain the situation and voice that I did everything humanly possible to try to make it happen.
If it matters to them then it should matter to you! Give them the same time and respect that you would expect if the shoe were on the other foot.
