Customer Service Gone Bad
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By Cassie
Is the answer to my question that minimum wage is too low to actually employ people with brains or manners, or are we (as parents) breeding children like this?? The question is what happened to good customer service? Why do I encounter sales associates, whether on the phone or in person, that lack social skills, manners, and brains? I know I am not alone when I talk about how frustrating this is to consumers or patrons. I often do not have patience to deal with such individuals. I tend to get snappy, or often just hang up on them. I have even been known to raise my voice. Do they know they are being rude or stupid, or are they too stupid to know this? I remember vividly working at Strouds and Gemco when I was a teenager, and taking pride in helping customers find items or in returning items. Actually making them smile and say thank you, going that extra mile for them because it felt good to be helpful or to achieve a goal. I often had customers tell my manager or assistant manager about how nice I was or helpful I was, and I would come home proud and tell my parents about the customer I helped and how I assisted them in redecorating their bathroom or son’s bedroom.
I actually called a bakery yesterday to order a cake and told the lady on the phone what I wanted, which was a cake. I explained that I wanted a three layer round cake. She contemplated this for a minute and then said “You want them stacked on top of each other?”, “yes” I replied, thinking that is what a layered cake is, then she said “I don’t know how that will look, it might come out crooked and not look right”, I impatient and just plain shocked at what she just said, hung up the phone on her. I had nothing to say to this woman on the phone who worked at a bakery, not a bakery department in a grocery store, but an actual bakery, where they bake. Then again today calling around for quotes on a particular service and just encountering people that just shouldn’t be dealing with the public or answering phones for that matter. What does this mean for us, a world based on customer service? What does this mean for our children? Will there be classes taught in high school or college in “Customer Service”? All of us start out at our first jobs, most of them customer service oriented, and this is where our children will start, but will they behave as badly as the current employees we all encounter? I am teaching my children about saying please and thank you, about taking pride in a project or game well played, and about how to succeed in life. Is this not being taught anymore? Are the parents to blame, or are the companies that hire these employees to blame?? Someone answer my question.
