Customer Service in the old days versus now.

[LizzieMaine]

I'm actually really proud of the kids who work for us -- there are good, hardworking, smart teenagers out there, they just need to be made to feel like they're doing something worthwhile and important instead of just shoving french fries into a bag or pushing groceries across a counter. When I get lousy service at a restaurant or a store I don't blame the kids -- they're just taking the path of least resistance. I blame the management, which clearly doesn't care enough to train its staff properly, or to pay managers enough to care about training staff properly. The rot in any company begins at the top, not the bottom.

 

[The Wolf]

There are a lot little places in my town that have good customer service. Most of the big places that people go to the cheap prices tend to poor customer service and staff that is unknowledgable.
That doesn't always hold true, though. The Borders store we had in town was staffed with very helpful friendly people. A local comic book store is the opposite.

I went into a Hot Topic shop in the mall. I had seen a Batman item there before and decided to buy it. They sold out and I wondered if they were going to get anymore. I was directed to the manager who said they sold out quickly. I asked if he was going to order more of them. He said "No". I told him it seemed like they would order more since it sold well. He looked at me like I was a fool and explained with a sigh that when something sells out you get something different and finished with "That's how retail works."

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Not sure about the rest of the world, but American youth does not belong in customer service. Every time I go into some sort of fast food or large corporate franchise, I feel as though I am bothering them by being there. I ordered a meal at a drive through the other day and sat at the order speaker for about five minutes before the person on the other side of the speaker told me the price of my meal and “asked” me to pull ahead to the window. All while sounding very perturbed at me for not pulling up once I had given them my order. Then they seemed upset that they had to take my money and give me my meal. This is not an isolated incident, it happens; I would say one out of every four times I go to these types of establishments.

No doubt because the spoiled little prima donnas are resentful of the fact that the powers that be hadn't properly recognised their scary talent and made them CEO right off the bat.

 

[bunnyb.gal]

My teeth are set on edge every time I have to send the other half with a list to the grocery store. There'll be at least 1 thing on that list that either he or the employees will be stumped by.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another of my staff rules: "I Don't Know" is never the right answer. You're *paid* to know the answers.

 

[Feraud]

Last Friday I did take-out at a local Indian restaurant. Their credit card machine went down and they processed multiple orders telling the customers, "pay us the next time you come." That is a rare and impressive example of customer service.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Another of my staff rules: "I Don't Know" is never the right answer. You're *paid* to know the answers.

[video=youtube;rLwADyVdVK8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLwADyVdVK8[/video]

 

[Shangas]

...why the hell's he got a bagel shoved halfway down his daks?

 

[Cricket]

We have a few stores in our small community that still offer wonderful customer service. There is an older department store in our downtown area that has been around for 80 years. I took our children in last Saturday for our seasonal shoe purchases. Our little girl who took her first steps last week got her first pair of shoes. The sales lady was so helpful, putting their shoes on, checking on their toes, having them walk around and test them out. She even played with our little girl and coached her to take her first steps in her new shoes.

At the cash register, I expressed interest in some black slacks with the owner. He said he would order them for me. I got them next week when he called me at work to tell me that my slacks arrived.

Great service, and I make it a point to do business there once a week.

Probably also explains why they have been around for eight decades.

 

[rene_writer]

I don't expect customer service in places like Walmart, but in smaller buisnesses I have almost never had a problem. I have worked in retail for years though, and I can honestly say that being on the opposite end is worse. You have strange men saying horribly nasty things to you, women putting you down just be catty, customers who are irate when they walk in the door, parent who refuse to supervise their children, and the list goes on and on. Because the customer is always right, you never say a word no matter who just asked you for sexual favors or what child stabbed you with an exacto knife from aisle five.

Actually, a woman once spent about ten minutes telling me how she got her daughter into an Ivy League school and ended it with, "But it was all worth it so that I never have to see her standing where you're standing... So that she won't be a nothing for the rest of her life." Yeah... ouch.

I've always been friendly and helpful and in one job sales went up 26% in the three months that I worked there, but for minimum wage and no hope of more than a 25 cent raise in six months, I can't say it's very inspiring. So, I always give retail clerks the benefit of the doubt. Who knows what has just been said or done to them two minutes before I walked into the store.

 

[Feraud]

I'm actually really proud of the kids who work for us -- there are good, hardworking, smart teenagers out there, they just need to be made to feel like they're doing something worthwhile and important instead of just shoving french fries into a bag or pushing groceries across a counter. When I get lousy service at a restaurant or a store I don't blame the kids -- they're just taking the path of least resistance. I blame the management, which clearly doesn't care enough to train its staff properly, or to pay managers enough to care about training staff properly. The rot in any company begins at the top, not the bottom.

I absolutely agree on where the rot starts and on teenagers.
My son and a few other teens work at our local parish. When working weekends they start at 7 a.m. and work 12 hour days opening and closing the church and rectory and handling miscellaneous duties involved with the smooth running of daily mass.
These young adults work mostly unsupervised all day long and do a great job.

 

[Tango Yankee]

Another of my staff rules: "I Don't Know" is never the right answer. You're *paid* to know the answers.

Way back in my AF days I was told that "I don't know" was perfectly acceptable as an honest answer, as long as it was followed by "but I will find out" with immediate action to do so.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Actually, a woman once spent about ten minutes telling me how she got her daughter into an Ivy League school and ended it with, "But it was all worth it so that I never have to see her standing where you're standing... So that she won't be a nothing for the rest of her life." Yeah... ouch.

You can take some measure of comfort that in this economy Miss Ivy League with her useless degree is probably standing behind a counter somewhere -- and most likely even had to move back in with Mom. Revenge can be sweet.

 

[John in Covina]

I always give retail clerks the benefit of the doubt. Who knows what has just been said or done to them two minutes before I walked into the store.

Very true but hard to remember when you're in a hurry.

Out this way one of the announces speaking about a Contractor on their radio ad says "They treat your home as your home not their work place." I have seen contractors make a mess for weeks, trash and food wrappers all over the place. When finished they did not clean up much. Nothing like running over wood scraps on your lawn with the rotary mower.

 

[rocketeer]

A couple of years ago I went into a small independent store and picked out a shirt. It ad no price so I asked how much the shirt was. £60 came the answer. As I placed the shirt back on the rack I said "Oh ok thats a bit too much for me"
The assistant the came back with "how much would you pay for it", "£30" I replied, "Ill ring my boss said the lady" "You can have it for £35" she came back with. "Thank you very much" I replied and bought the shirt.
One year later I went into the same shop to look for another shirt, I ambled about looking around for a couple of minutes, "Can I help please" came the voice of the assistant, then followed up with "Oh! you bought a nice shirt here didnt you"
It was the assistant who had served me nearly 12 months earlier, I had not been back to the shop and she remembered I had called in and bought something.
Now I think that is really great that she could remember I had been in before, it showed she took mental notes and maybe could help with further purchases. I always went back to that shop on a more regular basis after that.

Then I bought my motorcycle from a main dealer. One year later I took the bike back to the dealer for a service and MOT test(Thats a yearly safety check we have to have here in the UK). After a quick chat about how I was getting on with the bike etc I left it for service.
Again, but before I left my details the guy who originally sold me the bike remembered me by name, very unusual these days. And on to this year he now remembers me though I only visit this garage for the test etc.
A little later I read that this dealer came highly recommended in a national motorcycle magazine for excellent customer service.

These days unless you know assistants on a personal basis how many would remember you after all that time.
JTeee

 

[Shangas]

The guy who I have service my pocketwatches remembers me by name and by sight, as do I. But I think that's very rare these days for such things to happen.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

These days unless you know assistants on a personal basis how many would remember you after all that time.

I think nowadays it would be rare to find somebody who's still there after twelve months, much less remembers you. Retail tends to have fairly high turnover, it's the kind of job somebody takes in the meantime until something better comes along, though it didn't used to be that way. As I kid I remember accompanying my Mom on her shopping trips and I seem to recall, for example, that many of the shoe salesmen were often men in their 40s and 50s who had done that job for years. Whereas today the person who sells you shoes is likely to be some college kid who will have moved on to bigger and better things after 12-18 months.

Though incredibly, there's a CVS near my old high school and junior high school and the manager has been there some 35-40 years in a variety of capacities because I remember him working there in the mid '70s stocking shelves and sweeping the aisles when I used to stop there for ice cream after school. Though back then it was Clark Drug Store which later became Thrifty's and then eventually CVS.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I make a specific effort to have a very low turnover at the theatre, because of just such reasons -- regular patrons have their own little quirks and it pays to have a staff that's familiar with them. I've had kids who started with us at 16 who've stayed all the way thru college -- and when they finally move on, their younger sisters, who've been hanging around the place since junior high, step in to take their place. I treat them like family, and they enjoy doing their jobs -- you won't find that kind of atmosphere or loyalty at a place where employees are treated like faceless cogs in the machine.

Do shoe salesmen even exist anymore? All the shoe stores around here, you rummage thru boxes or around on a rack and hope you can find your size, and that the correct shoes are actually in the correct box, and if you're not sure about your size, there's the Brannock thingie on the floor, knock yourself out. You then shuffle over to a counter, stand in a long line, and some sullen kid rings you up. It's one step up from buying shoes from a vending machine, and if they can build one big enough, that kid is out of a job.

 

[Undertow]

There are a number of issues that have rendered customer service into an entirely new beast.

1. (I hate to bring this from another thread) Consumerism vs. Capitalism - when ACME knows you're going to buy their product one way or the other, or when their products have little difference in value from ZENITH's products, there's no need to hire a salesman.

2. Salesman, as a career, is taking its last gasps of air; and that applies to all age groups of sales people. People simply don't know, and can't be bothered to know, the difference between blended fabrics, or shoe construction, or appliance construction, etc. When you approach a wandering clerk and ask them about shoes, they can tell you where the shoes are located, but they won't be able to help you figure out which shoes are good quality, or even what a good quality shoe might be.

3. Smirking patrons bent on exploiting a compay's trust. The people who put shards of glass on their last slice of pizza and refuse to pay. People who place insane demands on their waiter hoping to get a discount on their bill. People who make a mistake in ordering and then berate everyone up the chain of command until they get "results", never once admitting their own failure. I realize these bad apples shouldn't ruin the lot, but I think a certain level of exhaustion, mixed with the two above points, has caused young adults to become callused in the way they deal with future customers.

4. Corporate efficiency sometimes = utter blindness. When ACME tells its clerks that Store A should be run using the corporate list of rules, and that under no circumstances should one deviate from those rules, big problems often slip through the gaps. Managers get sacked for letting a non-patron use the restrooms, employees are canned for discounting broken merchandise, clerks are cut because they offer a sale one day early.

5. Very much money is spent on improving a company's image, advertising a cheap product, company training videos that use buzz words, constant memos pushing sales of crap products, etc. when more money should be pumped into hiring really good employees selling high-value products.

6. A few words: College-degree-wth-no-actual-experience.

You might even say these things all have a potent "synergy"...:eusa_doh:

 

[1961MJS]

You can take some measure of comfort that in this economy Miss Ivy League with her useless degree is probably standing behind a counter somewhere -- and most likely even had to move back in with Mom. Revenge can be sweet.

Hi V. C. It's also likely that she has a huge Ivy League school loan. My son (a seventh year Junior, but working full time) said that Wichita State University had a 7% graduate hiring rate in 2009. I haven't bothered to look online, but that's the rate of kids graduating and getting a job within their major. I know of two boys who graduated from ABET accredited Engineering schools in 2009 and 2010, the 2010 grad was finally employed in late 2011, the 2009 grad is going back to school to become a pastor. A BSEE or BSME and a pulse used to be you at least 5-6 job offers, not anymore though.

I like the whole idea of a low turnover rate at a store. My parents bought shoes from the same guy in the same store for 40 years. Can't do THAT anymore, at least not in Wichita. I made an attempt to buy clothes from the same guy in Dillard's, but they lay everyone off after about 18 months. Gotta love that idea.

Later