The Death of Customer Service

Whatever happened to the days when businesses were concerned about their customers? Remember when they used to say "The customer is always right?" When they promised "service with a smile?" Those days are long gone now, my friend. I imagine the new motto is "The stupid customer sucks and once I get his money, who cares?"

What has happened? Why is conducting business such an ordeal now? I don't understand. In this economy, where each business is competing for every dime they get, why don't they care anymore? Why the snarky indifference? Why do they lie to you? It doesn't make sense.

One reason is the loss of politeness. I suppose that people who never learned to be polite could not teach their children to be polite and so we have a world teeming with indifferent, rude and selfish people who truly believe that the world owes them something just because they are here.

My mother and father taught us not to touch anything that didn't belong to us. When we were children, if we entered our parents' bedroom, we did not touch anything unless we asked first. Oh yeah, we were intrigued with the perfumes and powders and little jars and keys and jewelry but we knew if we got caught touching it, we'd get in trouble. Mama had a glass jar with a top that had sunflowers on it and I loved it when she would tell me to go look in that jar and bring her a hair pin or a bobby pin or a safety pin. That way I could see what was in that jar without getting in trouble! Wow! Daddy had a leather valet case on his dresser where he kept his cuff links and rings and watches. I loved looking in the mirror in their room and looking at what was on their dresser. But I didn't touch it!

My parents kept the house stocked with food. We never ran out of anything. My Mom always had at least 10 cans of sliced peaches on the shelf and I don't even know how much toilet paper and paper towels. We knew if we used it to let her know so she could buy more. If we wanted those peaches, we asked.

When I was grown and used to come home to visit, Mom would buy things she knew I liked - Pepsi,   butter pecan ice cream, apples and popcorn. I would open the fridge and ask, "Mom, can I have a Pepsi?" and she'd say, "Brenda, I bought those for you; of course you can have one," but she was pleased that I still asked.

People don't do that anymore. They walk right into your room, sit on your bed and reach over and pick up something of yours without asking. I am always aghast. I would never do that. I am appalled with the person who opens the refrigerator and sees the food or drink that I bought and decides it's all right if they drink or eat it. Again, I would never do that. What nerve! And what must they be thinking? "Damn them, I'm hungry so I'm just going to drink it and I don't care."

And so those same people are working in the public now.

Every once in a while, I go to McDonald's. For years, I ordered pretty much the same thing - two regular hamburgers, medium fries and a Coke. But lately, a McDouble costs less, and it's basically the same thing, just with one bun, so I order that. And I always order it WITHOUT cheese. I'm lactose intolerant and I save my cheese consumption for the really good stuff like lasagna and spaghetti and my brother's fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches. When I eat that, I take my pills to help me digest it. But I don't always have my pills when I'm at McDonald's and truthfully, I don't really like cheeseburgers that much.

But almost every time I order one, when I get ready to eat it, lo and behold, it's a cheeseburger. It's gotten to the place that I won't leave now unless I check it first. They almost always get it wrong.

And when I go to the grocery store.....I take my own cart. I usually buy more than I can carry so I bought a cart because the walk to the store is my daily exercise. When I check out, I take everything out of the cart so it can be priced and then bagged and put back in my cart. In the past couple of months, I've had to go back to the store three times because the baggers forgot to put one of my bags in my cart. How hard is it to do that? I guess it's hard if they are talking to each other and not paying attention to what they are doing.

It used to be that stores didn't stock the shelves until the evenings or over night when there were no customers to be in the way. Now, they have the huge cart in the middle of the aisle and they give me, the customer, the dirty look if I want to go down that aisle. I remember when they used to say, "Oh, excuse me, mam, let me move this over so you can get through. Can you reach that? Can I get that for you?" Once when I was at the store, the girl stocking the frozen section put her cart right in front of the door of the section I needed. She parked it, gave me a surly look and walked away.

What is wrong with people???

When I upgraded my cell phone, I usually went online, picked my new phone, spoke to a representative to get the information right and my phone would arrive in a day or two. Earlier this year, I went to do that and found that the procedure online had changed. I went through a few extra steps but finally got it and thought my phone would arrive overnight. It didn't. Five days later I called them. Now my ex and I live in two different states, but this is on our account. It's been this way for 3 years. They sent my phone to him.

When I called, they said for him to bring to the phone to the nearest FedEx office. That just happens to be 40 miles away from him and not convenient. So they sent someone to pick it up. I went through the entire order with another representative who realized at the last minute that she too had put things in motion to send the phone to the wrong address. She said she corrected it but a week later, still no phone. Finally, I spoke to someone who said he would send the phone to me and did. But then there was that box at my ex's door....

Usually when a prescription expires, the pharmacy can call my doctor and get it for me. I called in a prescription and when I went to get it, it wasn't ready. I waited a few more days and it still wasn't ready. "We faxed it in," they said. Faxed? Why not a call? When I went home, I noticed that all my prescriptions had expired at the same time, so I called my doctor's office to get them renewed. Usually, I get a nurse who looks it up and calls them in for me. I left three messages, only to find that no one had done a thing. I finally went to her office and after sitting in the lobby for over an hour, someone finally spoke to me and that night, after a 3 week wait, called my prescriptions in.

When I lost my job, I was glad to be able to get the COBRA assistance to keep up my health insurance. My ex and I both have pre-existing conditions and we need regular doctor visits and prescriptions. At first, the payments were manageable, but after a few months, the price went up and then as things got more difficult for me, it was harder to keep up the payments so I was forced to drop the coverage. I went to the Internet and checked for another insurance company that would take us both and not bankrupt me. He pays our cell phone bills so I handled the insurance for us both. I spoke to a few but settled on one that seemed like they would be fair. After talking to a few representatives, I signed up and paid the premium. It was only later when I was going to make a doctor's appointment that I saw I had been misled.

With the insurance I had had in the past, I paid $30 to see my doctor and $50 to see a specialist. With this insurance, they only paid $50 so the rest of the bill was on me. So if I went to see my doctor, I had to pay $200 on the spot and wait for the insurance company to pay me $50. The price of my prescriptions only changed by a dollar or two. My ex was paying even more. We talked about it and realized that we'd been had, and agreed that I needed to call and cancel the policy which I did. And then they promptly withdrew the monthly premium AFTER I cancelled the policy. It's been a week, and I still haven't gotten my refund - despite their promises to "expedite the refund as soon as humanly possible."

I can't believe it takes someone 7 to 10 days to push a series of buttons on a computer to assist a person who has already expressed their dismay and how much this erroneous action has hurt. A person who cares about people and about how their company is viewed would have made that happen immediately.

I don't get it. When you work for a company, you become "we," don't you? You speak of them in ownership terms as if they belong to you or you belong to them. You're proud to be a part of that company, aren't you? So don't you want them to be viewed in the best light? And don't you want to look good? Don't you want to be seen as the person giving the best customer service? Doesn't it matter anymore?

I remember when you called a company and you got a person on the phone. Now you get lost in a never-ending loop of mechanical voices, reminding you that you are late with your payment when you are calling because something doesn't work and you can't get through to tell them.

My roommate got fed up with the slow Internet service we had. The company provided cheaper service but you got what you paid for. You couldn't even play a song all the way through without it stopping to buffer at least 3 times. At least!! She is a graphic designer and builds websites and needs things to work rather quickly, so she decided to change service. Oh, there was also the matter of when the bill was due. If you missed the due date by one day, the next day, the service would be slow coming up and you would be directed to a site reminding you to pay. And each day you were late, the delay was longer and longer till you finally coughed up the dough.

She got a good deal when she got the service so she decided to change from satellite TV to cable. That meant that I no longer needed the dual DVR box that was in my room that had handled both our TVs. So I called our provider and told them what I wanted. I wanted a single DVR box in my room because it would lower my bill. They said they would mail the box to me and that I could return the old one by mail as well. A week later, I opened the box I received and what do you think I got? A dual box with no DVR. I spoke to a technician for 10 minutes before he got that they had sent me the wrong box.

Again, I just don't understand why all this is so hard. Don't they make notes? Don't they listen? Or do they just not give a damn?

Why can't we go back to people listening to the customer? What about checking to make sure you got it right?? Why not do things to make the customer happy? After all, won't that make them want to do business with you? And maybe they will refer their friends to you as well? Doesn't that make sense?

When I was teaching, I was alarmed at the number of messy, untidy and completely wrong assignments my students turned it to me. They always had an excuse for it, or didn't get why I was "so picky about it." I would never have turned in a paper with a lot of work crossed out or with spots all over it where they erased mistakes or attempted to or had crumpled it up and then straightened it out. I would have thrown that away and worked on it again to make it look as good as I could so that I could get a good grade. Some of them got angry because I asked for neat looking work. "It don't make no difference," they grumbled. And further, they would cheat and did not see where that was a problem. That told me something right there. They didn't care.

So now those same lazy, inept people are working in our businesses, messing up your orders and botching your phone calls on a daily basis. And what if that person is working in a nursing home, or a hospital, giving your loved one the wrong medicines or treatment. Or perhaps giving it to YOU.

Scared now? I am.