What happened to the concept of service and making the customer feel special? Or is this just not cool anymore? Am I joining the class of middle aged grumpy groupies who revel in the “way things used to be in the good old days”? I shudder at the thought.
No – I won’t accept that notion. Let me explain.
For the past few months (maybe years) I have been noticing a steady decline in service excellence to the customer. Sales people seem to be in a rush; slightly annoyed that a customer actually is asking a question or god forbid even paying for their goods. They don’t even read my name on the credit card, they don’t care since they are not going to call me by my name anyway; they say “thanks” but don’t even bother to look me in the eyes and I guess I must not have paid for a smile. I know this sounds rather melodramatic and no I am not menopausal! My first job during high school many years ago was in sales and the first few weeks were spent training on customer service and service excellence. Making the customer feel so special that they would come back to your store and not venture to the competitors. That was the differentiator between customer retention and customer loss. What happened to change that……….or is this how life will be now? Maybe, shopping online is the way to go….at least I can put a picture of a person smiling in the corner of my computer screen and I can pretend that I am getting excellent customer service. There I feel better.
No – I won’t accept that notion. Let me explain.
For the past few months (maybe years) I have been noticing a steady decline in service excellence to the customer. Sales people seem to be in a rush; slightly annoyed that a customer actually is asking a question or god forbid even paying for their goods. They don’t even read my name on the credit card, they don’t care since they are not going to call me by my name anyway; they say “thanks” but don’t even bother to look me in the eyes and I guess I must not have paid for a smile. I know this sounds rather melodramatic and no I am not menopausal! My first job during high school many years ago was in sales and the first few weeks were spent training on customer service and service excellence. Making the customer feel so special that they would come back to your store and not venture to the competitors. That was the differentiator between customer retention and customer loss. What happened to change that……….or is this how life will be now? Maybe, shopping online is the way to go….at least I can put a picture of a person smiling in the corner of my computer screen and I can pretend that I am getting excellent customer service. There I feel better.
i hear that sista.
ReplyDeletei almost get in scraps each morning at the local tim hortons as the customer service is so bad.
call me old school - but i come from a world where you take pride in whatever job it is you do.
GRRRR