Finding good customer service today is next to impossible. There are too many consumers, to begin with. Everyone makes demands and demands to have their demands met when they demand them. We want our service quick, efficient and inexpensive. We want first class service, but we want someone else to pay for it. In other words, we’ve screwed ourselves.
We shouldn’t be surprised, really. No one likes working in customer service. That poor sap that has to sit there and take all our verbal abuse when we ream them out for bad service, or downright thoughtlessness. Who the hell wants that?
Not me, and most likely, not you.
In fact, most of us would demand a small fortune to take on a job like that; we just know how badly we might be affected by everyone’s bad attitude and vile disgust—that breaking point when we’ve exhausted all human intelligence and found nothing but appalling stupidity and ‘They-don’t-pay-me-enough-for-this-shit!
No wonder Internet Holiday sales had a record season.
Why deal with some underpaid, under-appreciated-in-their-own-mind clerk with their finger up their nose when all you need to do is point and click?
I know, some things require personal touch, you can’t try on clothes on line and all that…
For my grand example, I’ll use the experience of my wife: The Fabulous Feathermaye. She wanted a new lap top and I said sure. We usually buy them from our local rent-to-own joint, since they warranty the device and simply replace it if yours takes a dive. We’ve done business with them several times at several locations around the greater Houston area.
This time, she ordered just in time—she was told—for Christmas and was eagerly anticipating last Thursday, the appointed day for it to be delivered by the local store here in Pearland.
Early in the day she called them and asked if she should just swing by and pick it up. She was told: No, ma’am, we deliver everything; no one picks up anything at our store.
Well, that was new information, but we nodded and said ‘okay…’ and went on about our business. Six o’clock came and I asked: “Ah, should we give them another call?”
“No,” Feathermaye says. “They often have to deliver late. Besides, it’s just that it’s Christmas and everyone’s scrambling.”
I nod. “Right, but that also means things get overlooked.”
“I’m waiting until ten minutes to eight before I call,” she said. And, that’s just what she did.
At the appointed time, she was told that the driver was in route with her computer. And, “oh yeah, we didn’t get the one you ordered, so we’re giving you this one for the time being…”
Feathermaye went back and forth with the woman about why, exactly, she wasn’t getting the product she ordered days before and was assured she’d have in hand this very day.
No one at the store had a good answer for that; a few different excuses were lamely given. I went to bed at 10:30. Feathermaye was still fuming at the time.
At eleven something the driver finally showed up and dumped a laptop, (No box, no anything that comes with it) just the laptop with some wires dangling from his dirty hands. He had her sign and before she could even look at the damn thing, he took off, claiming (not that I don’t believe him) that he still have other deliveries to make. Feathermaye thanked the guy for coming so late and showed him out.
When she went to get on her new computer, it was password protected. On the screen, it tells one just what password to put in and just how to do so, but when she did it, nothing happened. So, Feathermaye calls the store and gets the frayed clerk still there when it’s going on midnight. However, the company she works for had decided they would be closed for the entire holiday weekend, Fri.-Sun. so there would be no one left to talk to after she left the store. She tells Feathermaye that the driver has the password, if it’s not the one on the screen. Feathermaye calls the driver and he has no idea what she’s talking about. Therefore, Feathermaye’s anger and annoyance builds exponentially over the holiday. At times, I’m so very glad that it was not me that screwed all this up.
Of course, as soon as she speaks to a young woman at the store this (Monday after) morning the girl tells my wife that she has no right to yell at her, then cuts her off and passes the phone to someone else. I’m sitting right beside her, mind you, I’d know at once if she had yelled, hollered or anything else to anybody. I got news for the kid that was on that phone; you ain’t ever heard anybody yell…yet.
Crying, so frustrated she was ready to start pulling out her hair, I made Feathermaye calm down and leave while I called the idiots and told them to just come get their crap and take it someplace else. Then, we called the original store we worked with six years ago. As I type this, Feathermaye is on her way back with her new laptop. She made two calls there, and they had all waiting when she showed. In and out in minutes! To say it was perfect customer service would be putting it mildly. Why one ‘can’ when another ‘can’t’ is just crazy as hell.
Like anything else, when you get right down to it, this all could have been worse. But, Feathermaye’s now happy, even if she had to get her blood pressure jacked up by all the unnecessary miss-management of the morning. The sound of her little fingers tapping on those little keys are like heaven for yours truly.
Happy New Year, everyone!
0 comments:
Post a Comment