Is Customer Service dead?

[Calax]

I felt a massive urge to see what people think, given my line of work it seems like customer service isn't dead, but customer courtesy certainly is. And in a day all it takes is one customer to blame you (the employee who happens to be either taking the money or enforcing the rules) and your entire day is shot and you become a fairly defeated person who really could care less about your customer's feelings as long as he doesn't come after you with a weapon or get you written up.

[Pop]

Depends, really. I've found that if a business stakes a lot of its success on local reputation, word of mouth or repeat individual customers, its service will be good. Working at Wal-Mart, the customer was definitely not on the top of our list of concerns. Of course, there are a lot of factors, and it's not a universal law, but that seems to sum it up nicely for me. So I'd say it isn't dead.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Pop

[alanschu]

And in a day all it takes is one customer to blame you (the employee who happens to be either taking the money or enforcing the rules) and your entire day is shot and you become a fairly defeated person who really could care less about your customer's feelings as long as he doesn't come after you with a weapon or get you written up.

 

That sounds more like a personal problem. If you let one person ruin your day, and your service, then you probably should explore an alternative line of work. Working with customers always presents an opportunity for a customer to give you a hard time. Yes, some people are just jerks, but at the same time, that guy snapping at you could just as easily be some other guy that had his day shot because some twit at HIS work put him in a sour mood for the rest of the day.

 

If someone is in a bad mood, little things will set them off, and you can't let this affect you.

 

I was a manager at a local restaurant, and I couldn't afford to let myself get down with one stupid customer. It was hard enough keeping the servers' minds in the game when they had a bitchy customer. The manager losing it just helps the wheels fall off that much faster.

[SteveThaiBinh]

There are organisations that take customer service seriously and holistically, and organisations that just pay lip service to the idea. I've seen a number of decisions and policies justified as 'meeting the needs of the customers', whereas they look more like 'suiting the convenience of management' to me. In the wrong hands, it's simply a way of ignoring employees' legitimate concerns.

[Cantousent]

I used to teach customer service seminars. I guess we called it facilitating or some such. At this time of night, I'm not even sure I'm spelling it correctly. I'll take my chances with Spellmar.

 

Anyhow, I remember one afternoon one of the customers was yelling at a sales girl. I went over to talk to him. He insisted I "tell the girl she was stupid." Why? He had told her he had exact change and she waited until he'd pulled it out of his pocket before she entered it into the register. I explained that I understood that he was upset but that she neither stupid nor mocking him in any way. She was accountable for the register, and so she could only enter the exact amount as she received it. I spent a good fifteen minutes on this, working with him as best as I could. At one point, I said, "I understand you are upset, but I will not now nor will I ever tell her she's stupid for following her instructions." The guy wasn't all that unhappy when he left, which was a total surpise. She was afraid that she'd be in trouble, but I assured her that she'd done nothing wrong.

 

However. she really was kind of slow. I wouldn't ever call an employee stupid. It's unprofessional. I sure thought it, and about this particular employee no less.

 

Some customers are crazy. That's all there is to it. You accomodate them as best as possible, but you have to understand that dealing with the public means encountering unreasonable people. ...But, hey, you post here. You should be used to unreasonable people. Not only that, but I've had great customers over the years. I'm a customer at one of my old stores and the customers still know my name. They come up to talk to me, chat about current event and what's happening in their lives. I've had bad customers. Hell, I've had days where one bad customer ruined my whole day. I've had great customers who made work a pleasure.

 

I don't know where you work. I don't know the conditions and circumstances, but I imagine that it's not always a complete loss.

[Sand]

What irks me is when a customer can't take no for an answer. I can't sell alcohol products after 2 AM. There is always at least one joker a night that asks if I can sell him beer. I tell him no. Then there are the real **** who keep asking, begging, bribing to sell him beer. I tell them no then I tell them to leave the store. If the person still persists I tell him to leave the store or I will call the police. If he still refuses to leave I call the police and let them handle him or her. Police response time is under 30 seconds due to the station is less than four blocks away and three patrol routes go by my store.

[Diamond]

There is a certain percentage of the population who are whiny jerks. The greater is the number of people your job requires you to interact with, the greater is the chance of you meeting them. With jobs like customer service, sales, and telemarketing the chance of meeting unpleasant people is the highest possible.

[Musopticon?]

^True that, it can get irksome in the long run.

 

Consequently, I don't envy the sale representatives of Games Workshop. Take for example Thomas Ohlsson of GW Finland, he has to offer an example game for anyone entering the store, give starting advice and take time to help any newcomers with their painting problems and the shop is open from 11 to 19.30 with over two hundred visitors every day. I'd imagine that this kind of density of customer service would burn anyone up. No wonder his eyes looked rather glazed. :D

 

Just an observation.

[Walsingham]

Firstly, people don't magically become non-jerks when they choose to shop with you. You're bound to run into some if you work in CS for long enough. Something else to bear in mind is that it is a firm and fast rule that the more trivial teh offence the greater the customer fury. A company I once worked for once put a man 3,000 pounds in the red and got his cards cancelled, he was very mildly put out and wouldn't hear of compensation. Whereas on both occasions where I was threatened with violence we had delivered goods within the stated delivery time in perfect condition.

 

I do think that if a customer is being bizarre it's probably because they're venting about something else that is going wrong in tehir life. That or (as I once discovered) they happen to get off on sadomasochism. no fooling. I knew in one case because the chap wa trying to bully me while ordering things about the Marquis de Sade. A fact which I managed to discretely slip into the conversation "I'm sorry, sir. I'm confused. Are we talking about 'Mastering whips and chains' or 'Abusiveness for beginners in leather'?"

 

Having said that the rise of question lists, and the demise of good people management makes dealing with most customer services like dealing with the living dead. Wherever I can I avoid such companies like the plague. The place I worked for had a very integrated customer service policy. We were allowed, at even the most junior levels, access to anyone up to and including the managing director at any time. Which wasn't perfect, but did get more done than most.

[Oerwinde]

I hate stupid customers. Like this one guy... I work at subway, we have 3 six inch subs for 2.99, the Cold Cut Trio, Meatball, and Veggie. Guy comes up and asks our specials. I tell him those three. He orders a turkey, but phrases it as "cold cut turkey" I tell him that the turkey isn't part of the 2.99 deal and he says ok. I make his sandwich, get to the till, it comes to 4.55 after tax and he freaks out because I said Cold Cut was 2.99.

 

I also hate people who can't take no for an answer. Mostly with our bathroom. We're located in a convenience store right on the skytrain. There are big signs on the door that say bathrooms are for customers only, so unless you buy something, we don't have to let you in. One time the skytrain broke down stranding a couple hundred people at the station, most of which decided to get a sandwich. So we had our 2 closing people trying to handle a lineup about as big as our lunch rush, which we usually have 6 people to handle. The bathrooms require a key, but the genius management put the keys for both mens and womens washrooms on the same keyring, and on just a little keyring so its easily lost. Therefore we can't just hand out the key. So we have all these people in line and we're working our asses off trying to get them through, and these moron people budge in line and ask us to open the washroom. I tell them we're busy and they'll have to find a public washroom and they get all pissed at me. After like the 5th time that happens I put up a big sign saying washrooms are closed until further notice. Which doesn't stop people from asking us to open the washroom.

 

Same thing happens at night. The signs saying washrooms are for customers only, also say they are only open during restaurant hours. So after we close, they're closed because we have to clean them and such. So we get people coming in and we say sorry bathrooms are closed for cleaning. And they're like "So I can't use the washroom?" and I'm like "No" and their response is "Why not?"

 

We have coupons right now, all of which require you to buy a medium drink. Yet I keep getting people who look at the price after I ring it in and are like "The coupon says 4.49, why is it over $6?" And I tell them that the price of the drink puts it up over $6. They tell me they don't want the drink, so I take off the drink and put it back to regular price, which is over $9. And they get even more pissed off. Its not my fault they can't read, don't get pissed at me.

 

Then I get the moron customers who insist on wearing their headphones while they order and have to keep getting me to repeat myself because they can't hear me.

 

I also don't understand how someone can watch you make an entire sandwich, then point out that you made a mistake back at the beginning, which was easily fixed then, but now that the whole thing is done requires me to throw the whole thing out and start over. And the mistake isn't normally my fault. Like they say they want turkey breast, then we get to the end and they wanted chicken breast, but they didn't think to inform me of their mistake until after its toasted and all the sauces and such are on the sandwich.

 

Had a guy come up to me and bitch at me for 10 minutes after we were closed, about how a subway an hour away from where we were didn't take american express.

 

I even had a guy accuse me of slacking because I was in the back doing the prep that the morning crew was sposed to do while working a 14 hour shift because one of the closers decided not to show up.

 

Customers are the reason that customer service is dead. Employees should be allowed to punch a customer in the face if they are being morons. Like this woman that comes in and orders 3 footlongs with all the veggies. On the side.

 

EDIT: I apologize for that huge rant. I hate my job and seriously need to quit.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Oerwinde

[Volourn]

Oerwinde wins. I hate customers. Even as a cutoimer, I see other customers acting like scumbags. Me? I know for a fact that most stores/customer service people who recognize me would say I'm probably one of the easiest custoomers to serve.

 

Customers are evil. Customers are more selfish than any child. Customers are scumbags.

 

 

"I make his sandwich, get to the till, it comes to 4.55 after tax"

 

Holy frig! I don't blame him for compalining though the complaint should be towards the government. That kind of tax on something that's 3$ is completely and utterly outrageous.

 

 

"Employees should be allowed to punch a customer in the face if they are being morons. "

 

No. Unless they attack you first. Violence should only be use dins elf defense; not out of frustration.

Edited February 24, 2007 by Volourn

[metadigital]

Depends, really. I've found that if a business stakes a lot of its success on local reputation, word of mouth or repeat individual customers, its service will be good.

In industries where margins are tight and customer loyalty can be a deciding factor, then service will be important.

And in a day all it takes is one customer to blame you (the employee who happens to be either taking the money or enforcing the rules) and your entire day is shot and you become a fairly defeated person who really could care less about your customer's feelings as long as he doesn't come after you with a weapon or get you written up.

That sounds more like a personal problem. If you let one person ruin your day, and your service, then you probably should explore an alternative line of work. Working with customers always presents an opportunity for a customer to give you a hard time. Yes, some people are just jerks, but at the same time, that guy snapping at you could just as easily be some other guy that had his day shot because some twit at HIS work put him in a sour mood for the rest of the day.

Also sounds like a stress management issue: if one has a residual amount of stress, then it takes less stress in a situation to push one over the threshold into anger.

She was accountable for the register, and so she could only enter the exact amount as she received it. I spent a good fifteen minutes on this, working with him as best as I could. At one point, I said, "I understand you are upset, but I will not now nor will I ever tell her she's stupid for following her instructions." The guy wasn't all that unhappy when he left, which was a total surprise. She was afraid that she'd be in trouble, but I assured her that she'd done nothing wrong.

 

However. she really was kind of slow.

Doesn't matter how slow she was/is, that is the perfect manner to handle the register. One can be over-qualified for a job ...

Firstly, people don't magically become non-jerks when they choose to shop with you. You're bound to run into some if you work in CS for long enough. Something else to bear in mind is that it is a firm and fast rule that the more trivial teh offence the greater the customer fury. ...

Having said that the rise of question lists, and the demise of good people management makes dealing with most customer services like dealing with the living dead.

People are people. You can't change other people, so just be the person you want to be (hopefully that is the best person you can be). If someone is a jerk, then that is their problem. Really. If you are a good server, then you will give opportunities for your customers to interact in an efficient and mutually beneficial manner. Some people are looking for something else besides a simple transaction, though; more an excuse to vent some other frustration in their life.

 

I spent some time as a croupier ... you meet all sorts of people on both sides of a gaming table, so I have a broad sample of personality types that I have seen; invariably the more troublesome people are bringing baggage into the transaction. Just like an oncology doctor not going to the funerals of their patients, you have to remain at arm's length from the public and do your job. Who knows, you might inspire someone (even if it's not the current person at the head of the line).

[Cantousent]

Oh, she was kind of slow of mind type of deal. In that example she did exactly the right thing. However, she was slow. ...And frustrating.

[Calax]

note: I work McDonalds drive through four days of the week and usually have one or two days at gamestop.

 

Recently at mcdonalds I had a guy start yelling because he INSISTED I'd shorted him ten dollers, so I check and find nothing, my manager counts out my drawer and finds nothing, he orders us to give him our store managers number so that he can get a look at the security video. Finially about 10 minutes later he says "I might have given him a ten instead of a twenty".

 

Gamestop has it's own problems. Generally you get a parent hunting for somthing for their kid and when you ask if the need help the parent just says "I'm looking for a game for my kid"... and look at you like your supposed to pull the perfect game from your hat like that.

[Cantousent]

Well, customers can be jerks, but so can the people behind the counter. Amazing, the customers, employees, and (except for the evil robotic overlords in some industries) the employers are all humans. There are bad folks in every one of those groups.

[LadyCrimson]

Seems to me like it's often perspective. When I'm the employee, I hate the customers. When I'm the customer, I hate the employees. :D

 

I think sometimes it's less that customer service is dead, but that much of the time, employees just don't have/aren't trained w/the information I want, beyond "TV's are on aisle 7."

 

The days of the corner Hardware being filled with 30 year employees who spend their spare time building castles and catapults in their backyard and can give you all kinds of helpful advice are generally gone. The service or willingness is there - the knowledge often isn't, if that makes sense.

 

Edit: I do think patience on both sides is less than it was 20 years ago, on average.

Edited February 24, 2007 by LadyCrimson

[kirottu]

I work as worker in service of import sports goods company and I have no complaints, if someone has some special request I just make him wait longer.

[alanschu]

note: I work McDonalds drive through four days of the week and usually have one or two days at gamestop.

 

Recently at mcdonalds I had a guy start yelling because he INSISTED I'd shorted him ten dollers, so I check and find nothing, my manager counts out my drawer and finds nothing, he orders us to give him our store managers number so that he can get a look at the security video. Finially about 10 minutes later he says "I might have given him a ten instead of a twenty".

 

Welcome to customer service. You'll always get people trying to get stuff for free.

 

Gamestop has it's own problems. Generally you get a parent hunting for somthing for their kid and when you ask if the need help the parent just says "I'm looking for a game for my kid"... and look at you like your supposed to pull the perfect game from your hat like that.

 

 

Seems like the next follow up question would be "Is there a particular game you are looking for?" followed perhaps by "What other games does your kid have?"

 

If they are looking at you like you're supposed to pull the perfect game from your hat, then that means they're probably hoping you spend some time helping them some more. People often don't like asking for help directly.

[metadigital]

You can't avoid people, even if you don't work in customer service directly. After all, doctors have to deal with patients, bosses have to deal with employees, travellers have to deal with customs officers and etcetera and vice versa.

 

I tend to be (when I work in a service capacity ) EVEN MORE polite when someone isn't.

[Calax]

note: I work McDonalds drive through four days of the week and usually have one or two days at gamestop.

 

Recently at mcdonalds I had a guy start yelling because he INSISTED I'd shorted him ten dollers, so I check and find nothing, my manager counts out my drawer and finds nothing, he orders us to give him our store managers number so that he can get a look at the security video. Finially about 10 minutes later he says "I might have given him a ten instead of a twenty".

 

Welcome to customer service. You'll always get people trying to get stuff for free.

gee thanks... I never knew that :rollseyes:

 

he's just the tip of the iceberg.

Gamestop has it's own problems. Generally you get a parent hunting for somthing for their kid and when you ask if the need help the parent just says "I'm looking for a game for my kid"... and look at you like your supposed to pull the perfect game from your hat like that.

 

 

Seems like the next follow up question would be "Is there a particular game you are looking for?" followed perhaps by "What other games does your kid have?"

 

If they are looking at you like you're supposed to pull the perfect game from your hat, then that means they're probably hoping you spend some time helping them some more. People often don't like asking for help directly.

Well generally the question we ask if they just stare is "what system?' to which responces range from a proper system to "WHA!? what's a system" If the latter happens it's "Ps2, Xbox..." parent repsonds then we ask an age range and interest group and try to find somthing that most people like.

[theslug]

Gotta agree with LadyCrimson, when I used to work people would come in and they were so far beyond moronic it was ridiculous. There was this one time, it was raining like crazy outside and all these people came in. And this bill nye the science guy looking dude comes in soaking wet and is like "ITS FREAKIN COLD IN HERE!! You guys must have the air conditioner on." And i was like "No sir I think it's because your wet." And then he had the audacity to tell I was wrong. But on the other hand I hate when calling like customer support for like an internet issue or something and the protocol they have to go through. Like im getting low internet pings and hes asking me if everything is plugged in. Give me a break. Not to mention half the time it's some crazy mid eastern person who is unrealistically well versed in English.

[alanschu]

gee thanks... I never knew that :rollseyes:

 

You're the one that apparently lets someone like this ruin your entire day. Understanding that it's not isolated, and therefore not personal is an important aspect of not letting it affect you.

 

 

Well generally the question we ask if they just stare is "what system?' to which responces range from a proper system to "WHA!? what's a system" If the latter happens it's "Ps2, Xbox..." parent repsonds then we ask an age range and interest group and try to find somthing that most people like.

 

I'm not quite sure what to think of your comments about this. I was under the impression you were complaining about them. I have little issue with people that aren't necessarily informed when trying purchase something for a different person (or even for themselves).

 

For someone to do well in a customer service job, patience is paramount. Is it possible for you to find employment that does not require interacting with people? Perhaps as a short-order cook at a restaurant?

[Cantousent]

alan's right. Your job at Gamestop is to help customers with the product. Part of that is asking open ended, leading questions to help the customer make a good choice. I know we've got a big anti-customer rally going on in this thread, but the customer is the reason you have a job. Some of them are bad? Guess what, some of them will always be bad. Sometimes, they're not bad. Sometimes, you're a bad customer service representative. I'm not saying that to be meanspirited, Calax, but your attitude just sounds horrible. If you look at customers, as a group, as a bunch of ill-informed people who waste your time, then you will be doomed to have bad experiences with them. I've been dealing with customers pretty much my entire adult life. Sure, my customers, particularly over the past few years, aren't exactly in the same frame of mind when they see me as when they go to a fast food joint. ...But they're customers nonetheless.

 

So, go ahead and complain. Vent. You have the right. At the end of the day, however, you have to be willing to look at yourself as and employee and be honest. If you were a customer, would you like the service you provide?

[Tigranes]

I think in many ways customers can sometimes be surprisingly angry because the person at the counter, the person at the other end of the C.Serv. phone line, is often the *only* representative of that company or franchise at which they can vent their frustrations. If you buy a product and it is faulty, but that store has a silly policy loophole that excludes you from a refund, in your brain you *know* the guy in front of you apologising is not at fault - he would be in trouble if he didn't follow the policy. But you can't talk to the makers of the policy. The customer often does not have any right or method to speak with anybody else, unless they wanted to ring up and invest a huge amount of their time listening to stupid beeps on the phone, unresponsive representatives then complain to someone. (Often even store managers nowadays do not have the right to do anything about your problem.) So what do you do? You know it's wrong, but you have nowhere to vent your completely righteous anger, and so you do it on the closest representative of their people.

 

That's not as specific a situation as I make it sound. Sometimes it's not even a case of arrogant people expecting everything to be peach perfect when they are being served; espeically in today's society, many people cease to think of a shop and all its workers as human beings, and I know I'm often guilty of that. I tend to live very much 'in my own bubble' and switch between Interaction Mode, and Privacy Mode - the latter takes over when I'm with strangers, walking down a street, window shopping, in fact doing anything in a shop. The fear with which many of us now approach strangers or a public domain, encouraged by the professionalist mask, means many people will not even stop to think about a shop worker as a person - especially if they are in a hurry, tired, agitated, whatever. It is of course not a valid excuse; but it is a reason. What am I getting at, then? If you do not think of them as people, then you tend to have less patience for it. You don't try to understand the other side or give them leeway - do you do that to a coffee machine? The 'service', the product, the people, the managers, all merge into a single 'process' and if there is any mishaps there, then you are irritated because not seeing them really as people at that time, you are not expecting it.

 

Of course there are exceptions to this. Notably people who have worked extensively as servicemen themselves, and know the pains, so to speak; I have worked in brief occasions in such a capacity, but then I am the sort who sits there thinking about my own things all day. THat doesn't mean I will not do my job - I will, but it also means I wouldn't go out of my way to chit chat or be exceptionally pleasant, just professional. Ironically that encourages the atmosphere I talked about above, but in a combination probably of my own personality and the society we live in, I couldn't handle 'strangers' any other way. Some people have this capacity to be actually pleasant to customers; people like me find that uncomfortable and awkward, but then I at least know that's just me, not them, and try not to mind. Others don't have this talent, and thus the best they can do is professionalism.

 

Whether it be Calax or somebody else, I think in the end if you have been in service jobs for a few months, and you find yourself neither liking your own level of service you dish out or the abuse you get in return, it's time to look somewhere else for a job. That's not always possible, of course, but some people just aren't cut out for it, for various reasons. Me? I know I'm much too private, so rather than be angered by customers I would often be made uncomfortable by even the politest of them. That's my problem, so I deal with it myself. You can't tackle head on every problem or every incompatibility, sometimes.

 

I do see a disturbing similiarity in nearly every argument I or anyone else get into in customer service, though. Many times it is a cluster of small misunderstandings or different perceptions that build up a snowball. It can be something as simple as "I didn't know this was $2.99, I thought it was $1.99"; sometimes its a lot more messy. In customer service these days the natural reaction is to re-state the company policy or explain what they know already; which is fair enough, since you can't play considerate consultatnt to every irate customer. But often the same vocabulary gets tossed out again and again, people rpeeat themselves again and again, and misunderstandings are never identified, and both sides just get louder and more angry beating themsleves at a brick wall. Or, sometimes, it's only one side that's doing that, and the other side's patient attempts to rectify the situations falling on deaf ears. But then, what are you going to do about that? Who amongst us has eradicated that kind of regrettable altercations from their lives in so complete a manner?

 

Hey, at least you're not a bus driver.

[Sand]

I try to avoid people as much as possible. Only time I deal with people is at the job, at my gaming group, dealing with my roommate and here.