Our world has become one allegedly filled with quick gratification. Everyone is boasting “new and more efficient” everything. I don’t know about you but I rarely find these claims to be true. In fact, I usually find these processes to be more cumbersome than not.
For the longest time now, I’ve tried to ignore the blatant lack of customer service in all categories of our society. But, today was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” I’ve tried to ignore this because I don’t have any high blood pressure problems and don’t want to develop such problems in the future. The bottom line is lack of good customer service makes me very ANGRY!
I admit that one’s aura can attract certain types of mishaps and openly state that I very rarely have an easy time at fast food drive- thru(s). Over the years, I’ve “overlooked” issues with the following vendors (please note the list isn’t in order of importance or a complete list):
No longer do business with
· Hardees on Topeka Blvd. (out of business)
· Burger King on 10th St.
· Burlington Coat Factory
· McDonald’s on California
· Walmart auto services
· Express Tire
I have ongoing issues with the following vendors
· Vontage
· Verizon
· Chevy dealerships in Topeka and Junction City
· Best Buy
My experiences have been so frustrating! In fact, I’ve developed a list of frequent questions to ask when earnestly trying to ascertain “what the heck is really going on” when I get poor or bad service.
Frequent questions
· Do I work for you?
· If I don’t work for you, why would I be aware of your company policies?
· Did I try to get this service for free?
· Was there a problem with my payment?
· So, we agree, the service I got from you and your establishment was poor – right?
At this point, I’m reminded of one of my most favorite movies of all times; The Out-of- Towners with Jack Lemmon. The thing I like best about that movie is when Jack’s character takes out his pencil and licks the end and adds offenders to his list of folks he intends to report at a later date.
I’m also reminded of my dear brother Phillip (we sure do miss you brother) who had an active list of establishments he just didn’t use anymore due to their lack of good customer service. What self respecting chicken place doesn’t have chicken? What self respecting Italian place doesn’t have olive oil. What self respecting fast food Mexican place doesn’t have ground beef?
I’m sure you understand Philip’s position and I’ve digressed. It was my latest encounter with Best Buy that instigated my move to this blog (thanks cousin Lisa for the invite to your blog and this site so I could start my own).
The Issue
I wanted to make a few purchases for the upcoming holiday. The hook being a list of things I’ve wanted to gift to some for a time – on sale and no interest rate for 18 months. For days (you know me), I looked and re-looked at things until I fooled around and the highest price item went off sale and up $30. Ah but, lo and behold, two other things were on sale and I ended up with a $9 savings overall (smile).
I filled the basket and moved to check out and the screen stopped progressing forward. I felt a little pressure to complete my transaction, so I called the 1-800 # with high hopes of things going smoothly (come on - I had the numbers for all of the items I wished to purchase – what could go wrong). I pressed #1 for English (let’s not even go there) and then #4 to get to a human to assist me. The human was very friendly and appeared to know what she was doing when she asked me to hold while she connected me to sales.
On the first attempt (you heard me right), I was promptly lost in the dark ibis of “you’re not really connected to anything – remain on hold please,” from which it took me 6 minutes and 31 seconds to figure out I’d been hung up on. On my second attempt, I made it plain to the friendly human that I needed some assistance and didn’t want to be disconnected or dropped in a go nowhere queue.
I was quickly connected to a human that indicated she could help me. I explained my problem and thus began the dance of Toi trying to get good customer service (maybe that was the problem – I should have just tried for service vs. good service).
After repeating the product items numbers 3 times, repeating the names of all the items in my cart 3 times, fussing over the price of one item, spelling my name 6 times, verifying my email address 4 times, repeating my zip code 7 times, spelling my city out, actually giving her the address of the in-town store & 45 minutes later – I completed my order. And guess what? I didn’t blow my stack until the 35 minute mark!
Some years ago, I heard some advice a lady had gotten from her husband. It was, “these people are only making $5 an hour so don’t expect but $5 worth of information” (paraphrased). I try with all my might to keep this in mind.
I do understand that sometimes the quality of service you get depends on who you get and the type of day they’re having - as I too am in the customer service business. However, I can’t absorb the lack of pride in doing a job well and the resulting crappy service delivered to ME; especially when I’m paying for the service!
WHAT THE HECK IS REALLY GOING ON?
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