So as some you may know I have some pet peeves ok a lot probably more then most healthy people should have. I work as an outside sales man for an large auto parts company and our main goal in the business world is gain business from our competition by giving better customer service. I myself will pay more for better customer service because it is a part of my everyday life. I probably obsess about it don't ask Mallory because she will tell you I am insane and that I always obsess about it.
By now you are wondering where is this crazy man going with his insane ramblings. I want to know when it became the standard to duck and hide from people when you work in any industry where you are supposed to give customer service. I had a recent encounter with a person in a hardware store that made we want to pull my hair out. I found what i needed and went up front to pay and this person running the register was working overly hard to clean the kernels out of the free popcorn machine instead of taking my money and selling things. Man I really have this whole commerce thing all messed up if that is how it is done. She noticed me after about 4-5 Min's of me standing there and rambled over to the register and grabbed my item and asked if that was all I needed like I might just ask for help getting everything I needed to build a house or something. The item rang up over twice what it was marked on the shelf so I told her about the price issue and then asked where I found it. I took her to the spot where many more of the same item were stocked and showed her.
"Which at this point if I was in my store I ran i would take the other items out of the spot till I figured out the problem, go back to the register and fix the price to take care of the customer and fix the issue once they had gone." But no no she looked at it for a couple minutes and informed me they were in the wrong spot. Holy crap wished I could have came to that on my own when they rang up wrong. She proceeded to tell me it was a mistake and that I was going to have to pay the price that came up at the register. I looked at her and said no thank you I am going to go to a different store and she looked at me and I kid you not said "OK have a nice day".
Needless to say my brain hurt after that encounter. You might be thinking that this was a young high school kid with a summer job who didn't care about anything other then going out and spending their paycheck, which I was there once with that kinda attitude but no it was a women in her late 40's-early 50's. This blew my mind because a lot of the time you hear people complaining it is people in this age group about how the young work force is so lazy and didn't care about their jobs and not taking pride in their work and now the shoe was on the other foot.
I didn't see an obituary for customer service anywhere. How hard is it to ask May I Help You? and actually do it. I could go on for days but you are probably looking for the number to the guys with the white jackets for me. So I ask of you when you get someone that gives you good customer service think about thanking them because it is not a given anymore and believe it or not it means a lot to the employee when it does happen because it is taken for granted too much.
Feel Free to share any of your experiences you have had. I challenge you to try and remember more good ones then bad. I bet you have a hard time with it.
Thanks, looking forward to your comments and Thanks for reading our Blog!
Could she see you from the popcorn machine? Or were you just standing there quietly getting angrier and angrier when she didn't even know you were there?
ReplyDeleteSomeone who spends $100 bucks a trip in my store has a blank check to complain or ask for any price changes or whatever. A one timer or $6 person; you better be nice or I don't do squat for you. I used to get cowed by the customers but they will waste the fuck out of your time. I imagine any small store is pressed to get the most out of their labor hours. I change price on left up sales flyers and mis-stocked based on spot call.
But I totally agree with you. Good customer service is a rare and wonderful thing. It is hard enough to get someone who actually knows what they are doing. Seriously.
she was about 5 feet from the register and i was actually waiting very patiently. I was polite with her. I know exactly what you are talking about being a 18 year retail veteran about how the customers attitude can and will effect the way you handle the situation. When it comes to the pricing issue there was atleast 12 items stocked in the wrong spot in a four foot section which is more then enough to fail a weights and measure audit. The item was a package of 3m velcro strips and they were marked 2.99 and they other 3m strips in the area were any where from 2.99 to 3.99 but they rang up at almost 7 dollars and there was nothing in the whole four foot section in that price range.
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